The Curse of the Home Run Derby
These fans know how scary the Home Run Derby Curse is.
Several players have seen their performances dip dramatically after putting on a spectacular display at Major League Baseball’s Home Run Derby. Recently, Lance Berkman (2008), Alex Rios (2007, David Wright (2006) and Bobby Abreu (2005) all saw their home run rates plummet after hitting ten or more home runs in the Derby.
But does this handful of data points suggest that there might actually be a curse that affects these players after the All-Star Break?
To investigate I decided to analyze all Home Run Derby participants since they changed to the current format in 1996. I looked at how players performed before and after the Home Run Derby in terms of home run rate and OPS+. By analyzing more than just how often someone hit a home run we are better able to know if a player actually tailed off offensively post-Derby, or if they were still productive despite hitting homers less frequently. I didn’t stop at simply finding the difference between the two halves of the season I also looked at the historical track record of all the players who have participated in the Derby. Once we understand how these players commonly perform before and after the All-Star Break, as well as what their career home run rates are, the significance, or lack thereof, of the curse will become more evident.
This first chart shows that across the board there is a decrease in home run rates after players participate in the Derby, which could lend credence to the idea of a curse. Before the Break, on average, players hit home runs in 6.23% of their plate appearances, while afterwards they hit home runs in only 5.45% of their plate appearances. This .78% difference is not particularly significant as it would only account for about a 2-3 home run decrease after the break.
However, we aren’t particularly concerned with all hitters. Most talks of the “curse” involve those that make it to the later rounds and hit the most home runs.
When we break the numbers down by when players are eliminated, something curious happens. The players who saw their home run rates dip the most were not those that made it to the Finals but the hitters that were eliminated after one round. Those that made it to the Finals did see their rates decrease, by .54%, but those that only were able to hit a couple home runs, or someone like Bret Boone who failed to homer at all in 2003, saw their rates drop by over one percent. In fact, when you take into account career home run rates, those players that made it to the finals actually see the least relative drop in home run rate compared to all other Derby participants.
Prince Fielder is thrilled he doesn't have to sacrifice a stalk of celery to the Baseball Gods to rid him of this curse.
This decrease doesn’t just occur for home run rates either, as those players that last only one round see the biggest drop in OPS+ from pre-Derby to post-Derby (13 point difference). Although it may be a different curse than people have espoused, it would seem that there is quite the effect on players that bomb out of the Derby early.
Poor guy, he doesn't even know how screwed he is.
This is, of course, until you realize that even though the home run rates of Derby participants drop by an average of .78%, those home run rates are still .53% higher than their career averages. In fact, the only reason they have such a decrease is that their pre-Derby home run rates are, as a whole, 1.33% higher than what they have done in the rest of their career.
People that think a “curse” exists seem to fail to realize that the reason these players were selected to play in the Home Run Derby is because they have had extraordinary seasons up until that point. Oftentimes these half-seasons far surpassed anything that player had ever done before and thus these corresponding home run rates were unsustainable. Even then when they do come back down to earth they are frequently still playing at a level higher than their personal norm but, in comparison to the first half of the season, they appear to be struggling.
To paraphrase Snidely Whiplash: Curses, foiled again.
