With a hot and humid night making perfect conditions for the long ball, Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh won the 2025 T-Mobile Home Run Derby, defeating Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Junior Caminero in the finals.
It’s the year of The Big Dumper.
With a hot and humid night making perfect conditions for the long ball, Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh won the 2025 T-Mobile Home Run Derby, defeating Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Junior Caminero in the finals.
His prize? In addition to the classic trophy featuring two criss-crossed silver baseball bats, Raleigh received a gaudy bejeweled championship chain emblazoned with the words “Derby Champ.”
Affectionately nicknamed for his prodigious posterior, Raleigh is living the dream. He is already close to record pace for home runs in a season, had his father on the mound as his pitcher for the derby and his 15-year-old brother was behind him as one of the event’s catchers. Much as he has looked all year, Raleigh just seemed absolutely unstoppable.
“It just means the world,” Raleigh said after the contest. “… I just can’t believe I won.”
“It’s just a great accomplishment, I think that everybody, every dad who has a kid, this is what they dream about,” Todd Raleigh said about his son’s victory after the event.
Raleigh went up first in the final, starting from the left side of the plate and quickly getting into a rhythm as ball after ball went soaring through the sky. The league leader in home runs – he has 38 at the All-Star break – jacked seven before taking a timeout halfway through his final round. He hit eight more in the final minute, including one that snuck over the fence as the buzzer sounded. In the bonus round that followed, he hit three more and Caminero needed 19 home runs in the final round in order to win the contest.
Caminero started off sending balls into the left field grandstands, peppering the crowd with laser home runs. He even got robbed of one by one of the children on the field who shag the balls that don’t leave the yard – the kid jumped and grabbed the ball just before it cleared the fence. Caminero was still awarded the homer, and he ended the timed portion of the round with 14 home runs and needing five to win in the bonus round.
He wasn’t able to do it, falling short and finishing with 15 home runs in the final.
It’s the kind of moment that nearly every baseball-obsessed family dreams about, but never comes close to accomplishing: Father and sons, sharing a dream-come-true moment on one of the sport’s biggest stages. Following his news conference after the derby, the Raleighs all signed a baseball for the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
As his dad signed the ball, Raleigh tapped his leg and said “Cooperstown!” with a hint of awe in his voice.
“Kind of surreal,” he told reporters. “You don’t think you’re gonna win it. You don’t think you’re going to get invited, and when you get invited, you don’t think you’re going to win it. The fact that you win it with your family – super special. What a night.”
With his win, Raleigh became the first catcher and the first switch hitter to ever win the home run derby.
Baseball’s power on display
It was a perfect night for baseball’s premier display of power when some of the game’s biggest stars took their shots at putting dents in Truist Park’s outfield grandstands.
Easily the crowd’s favorite moment of schadenfreude was Jazz Chisholm Jr’s disappointing first round. A former division rival when he played with the Miami Marlins, Chisholm only hit three home runs in the opening round – easily the lowest total of the first round. The current Yankee was booed during introductions and again when he finished his round.
The loudest the crowd got in the opening stages was for hometown hero Atlanta Braves first baseman Matt Olson, who finally got hot late in the first round to bring the faithful to their feet. But his 15 home runs weren’t enough to see him through to the semifinal round. James Wood, the young Washington Nationals star, went first and was eliminated from the semifinals as well after hitting 16 homers in his round. Wood’s 486-foot shot in the opening round was the first of many balls to leave Truist Park over the right field wall, flying above the Chop House restaurant that looms hundreds of feet from home plate.
The biggest drama in the opening round came when Raleigh and Athletics’ star Brent Rooker had to go to a tiebreaker to determine who would move onto the next round. Raleigh got the nod by less than an inch on his longest homer, as measured by Statcast. They had both finished tied with 17 home runs in the opening round.
As the semifinals got going, Byron Buxton couldn’t recreate the magic he found in the second half of the opening round, only hitting seven home runs in the semifinals. The Minnesota Twins outfielder had started slow but ended up slugging 20 homers in the first round. Caminero advanced to the finals after his eighth home run as his sweet, easy swing sent balls deep into the steamy Georgia night. He hit 21 homers in the first round.
Raleigh put on a show in the next semifinal, simply mashing balls into – and over – the right field grandstand. He ended up with 19 homers, setting the bar extraordinarily high for O’Neil Cruz. The Pittsburgh Pirates standout put a baseball into orbit in the opening round, hitting the day’s longest shot at 513 feet.
Cruz once again dialed up the power, hitting multiple balls over 495 feet as he tried to chase down Raleigh’s total. Unfortunately for him, the bar had been set just a bit too high by baseball’s home run leader who is on a torrid pace in his breakout season. Cruz ended up with 13 long balls, setting up a final between Caminero and Raleigh.
Raleigh will take the $1 million dollar winner’s purse and bragging rights into Tuesday’s All-Star Game, where he will bat fourth for the American League squad.
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Category: General Sports
