These 4 have won multiple HR Derbies
Andrew Simon
@AndrewSimonMLBThe 2023 T-Mobile Home Run Derby at Seattle's T-Mobile Park was the 37th Derby since the event debuted in 1985. Thirty-four different players have won -- including four who shared their title -- but only four have won more than once.
It’s an exclusive club of multi-time champions, one that includes some of the most prolific mashers the sport has ever seen.
Mets slugger Pete Alonso is the only active player to have won multiple Derbies, coming out on top in 2019 and again in 2021. But Alonso will have to wait another year to attempt to tie Ken Griffey Jr.'s record of three Home Run Derby titles, as the Blue Jays' Vladimir Guerrero Jr. claimed his first crown in Seattle.
Here is a closer look at the list of multi-time champions.
1) Ken Griffey Jr., 3 titles (1994, ‘98, ‘99)
Nobody has appeared in the Derby more times than Griffey (eight), and nobody has won more times. That seems fitting for The Kid, who also finished as the runner-up on three other occasions (1992, ‘93, 2000).
Griffey became a Derby icon in that 1993 event at Camden Yards. It was the first to be televised, and Junior was the pinnacle of baseball cool as he rocked his backward cap and rocketed a homer off the B&O Warehouse building across Eutaw Street. While he lost a swing-off to Juan Gonzalez that year, Griffey would go on to claim three of the next six Derbies, each as a member of the Mariners. He won in 1994 in Pittsburgh, ‘98 in Colorado (after nearly not participating) and ‘99 in Boston.
His final appearance came in 2000, his first year with the Reds. Griffey finished as the runner-up to Sammy Sosa in Atlanta, but his Derby legacy was rock solid by that point.
2-T) Pete Alonso, 2 titles (2019, ‘21)
The Derby certainly seems to be the Polar Bear’s natural habitat. In 2019, amidst a record-setting rookie season (53 homers), he outlasted Guerrero at Cleveland’s Progressive Field. After COVID-19 canceled All-Star festivities in 2020, Alonso was back at it in ‘21, bashing his way to a second straight title, which included a final-round triumph over Baltimore’s Trey Mancini.
Perhaps the most amazing part about Alonso’s victories was the ease with which he managed them, seeming to barely break a sweat while calmly launching a combined 131 pitches into the seats. And confidence level? Not a problem, either.
“I feel like my Home Run Derby legacy, I’m one of the best people to do it,” Alonso said after his second win. “To be able to do it back-to-back, this is really special for me. Really, really cool.”
2-T) Yoenis Céspedes, 2 titles (2013-14)
Do you need to be an All-Star to win a Derby? Céspedes showed that the answer was no when he became the first non-All-Star to accomplish that feat, at New York’s Citi Field in 2013. Céspedes, then in his second MLB season after defecting from Cuba, beat out Bryce Harper in the final round after being selected by AL captain Robinson Canó.
The Oakland slugger defended that title the next year -- this time as an actual All-Star. The event came just a couple of weeks before the A’s traded Céspedes to the Red Sox, but he created another lasting memory first, crushing 28 big flies into the night sky at Minnesota’s Target Field. Céspedes blew out Todd Frazier in the final round to seal another victory.
2-T) Prince Fielder, 2 titles (2009, ‘12)
Prince was a second-generation Derby slugger, and he outshined his dad, Cecil, who never took home a title in three attempts in the early 1990s. The younger Fielder became a fixture in the event, participating six times between 2007-15 before a neck injury cut short his career.
While Fielder’s Derby performance was a bit uneven -- he fell in the first round three times -- he also authored some superb power displays. After coming out on top in St. Louis in 2009 but not making the finals in his next attempt (‘11), Fielder got the job done in Kansas City in ‘12, in his first season after leaving the Brewers for the Tigers. He still stands as the only player to win Derbies while representing multiple teams.