Trevor (@ffculater) hands out some high upside best bets for today’s MLB action. Subscribe or upgrade today to get loads of DFS and betting content and tools!
The Derby has always been the best dumb fun on the baseball calendar, and this year MLB actually made it better. No more watching a gassed slugger flail at 40 pitches while a countdown clock does all the work. The 2026 Derby runs on swings, not seconds, and that one change shakes up how you should bet the thing. So let’s break down the new rules, meet all eight hitters, and then get to the good stuff: the longshots and props that make Derby night worth sweating.
The new format, in plain English
Here’s how tonight works. All eight hitters take Round 1 with no bracket and no clock. Each guy gets 20 swings, and every swing counts, whether it leaves the yard or dribbles to the mound. The four highest home run totals move on, seeded one through four by their Round 1 score. From there it’s head-to-head: semifinals at 15 swings each, then a final at 15 swings to crown the champ.
There’s one great wrinkle. If a hitter homers on his final swing of a round, he keeps swinging until he misses. So a guy sitting on 12 with one swing left can, in theory, rattle off five straight bombs and steal a spot. Expect at least one round to end in total chaos because of this rule. Ties in Round 1 go to whoever hit the longest homer of the round, and ties after that get settled with a three swing swing-off.
Why this matters for your bets: the old timed format rewarded conditioning and pitch tempo. Guys basically won by swinging more, and the big fellas ran out of gas in the late rounds. A swing count flips that. Now it’s about efficiency, how many of your hacks actually leave the park. That’s barrel rate, not cardio. Keep that in mind as you scan the board, because the market is still pricing this thing like it’s the old marathon format.
The board
Odds from the major books as of Monday morning. Numbers will move all day, and Contreras in particular is all over the place depending where you shop, as low as +1200 at some shops.
Meet the field
Kyle Schwarber, Phillies (+330). The favorite, and it’s not hard to see why. He leads all of baseball with 32 homers at the break, he’s a lefty pull hitter in a park that’s kind to lefty pull hitters, and a sold-out Citizens Bank Park will lose its mind on every ball he hits over 380 feet. This is his third Derby, so the moment won’t rattle him. The catch: he’s 33, favorites have a rough history in this event, and +330 is a thin price for a contest this random.
Junior Caminero, Rays (+380). The runner-up from last year’s Derby is back, and he’s 23, which matters in an event where young legs travel well. He comes in scorching hot, 28 homers on the season including a stretch where he hit 11 in about two weeks from late June into July. If he wins, he’d be the youngest Derby champ ever. The market knows all of this, which is why he’s nearly co-favorite.
Munetaka Murakami, White Sox (+500). The most fun swing in the field, full stop. The Japanese superstar holds the NPB single season record for a Japanese-born hitter with 56 homers, and his shots aren’t line drives that sneak out, they’re moonshots that make the crowd gasp. He has 20 homers as a rookie despite missing time with an injury. If you’ve never watched him hit, tonight is your introduction, and it’s going to be loud.
Jordan Walker, Cardinals (+550). Remember when Walker was the prospect everyone gave up on? He rebuilt his swing over the winter and turned into a first time All-Star, hitting .294 with 22 homers at the break. The raw power was never the question, he’s run a max exit velocity of 116.6 mph this season, which is Judge territory. First Derby, something to prove, and a swing built for exactly this kind of show.
Bryce Harper, Phillies (+650). The sentimental play with real teeth. Harper is the only man in this field who has actually won a Derby, and he did it in 2018 at home in Washington, in one of the great Derby finishes ever. Now he gets the same setup: home park, home crowd, prime time. His 20 homers this season undersell how dangerous he is when he’s allowed to sell out for pull-side damage with nothing on the line but noise.
Jac Caglianone, Royals (+750). The 23-year-old is eighth in the field in season homers with 15 and might have the most raw pop of anyone here. He’s run exit velocities up to 116.1 mph with a 14.9% barrel rate, and he hit nine homers in June alone with a 1.036 OPS while figuring out big league pitching in real time. He’s a 6-foot-4 lefty who grew up in Tampa launching balls into the parking lot. Derby formats love guys like this.
Ben Rice, Yankees (+950). Read this one twice: Rice has 29 home runs this season. That’s second in this entire field, one spot ahead of Caminero and nine clear of Harper, Murakami, and Contreras. He carried the Yankees’ offense for the first two months of the year, he swings left-handed in a park that rewards it, and he’s priced like a guy who snuck in through the media entrance. More on him below.
Willson Contreras, Red Sox (+2000). The old man of the field at 34, and the biggest number on the board. He’s been Boston’s best hitter this year with 20 homers, but the book’s skepticism is about his swing, not his strength. Contreras is a line drive hitter, and Derby scoring doesn’t pay out for 105 mph rockets that land in front of the wall. Then again, at 20 to 1, nobody’s asking him to be likely. They’re asking him to be possible.
The longshots we’re actually betting
Ben Rice at +950 is the bet of the night. This is the kind of price that only exists because of name recognition. The market sees Schwarber, Harper, and Caminero and prices the star power. Meanwhile Rice has out-homered all but one of them this season, he’s a lefty in a lefty-friendly park, and the new swing-limited format rewards exactly the kind of efficient, repeatable stroke he has. If he’d done all this in a Phillies uniform he’d be +400. A quarter unit here feels like a good spot.
Munetaka Murakami at +500 is the format bet. Here’s the thinking: 20 swings is not a lot. The old Derby let volume swingers pile up attempts against the clock. The new one asks a simpler question: when you swing, does it leave? Murakami’s hard-hit and barrel rates both sit in the 99th percentile, and when he connects, the ball doesn’t scrape the fence, it lands somewhere in the second deck. The market is dinging him for the injury layoff and for being the guy American bettors have watched the least. That’s a discount, not a warning. He’s the wild card of this field, and wild cards win this event all the time.
Bryce Harper at +650 is the storybook bet. Only past champion in the field. Won his title at home, and now he’s at home again. Nobody in baseball feeds off a crowd like Harper, and Derby history is littered with hometown guys going supernova. You’re getting 6.5 to 1 on the best big-moment player of his generation swinging in front of the loudest fans in the sport. That’s not analysis, that’s just fun, and fun is the whole point tonight.
Willson Contreras at +2000 is the lottery ticket. Every Derby slip needs one bet you can brag about for a decade. The case: he’s strong as an ox, he’s having his best offensive season, and in batting practice, which is what this event actually is, even line drive hitters can lift when that’s the only assignment. Throw the smallest unit you have at it. If it hits, dinner’s on you all week. If it doesn’t, it cost you a coffee.
The prop board
The outright market gets all the attention, but the props are where Derby night gets interesting, because the books are guessing just as much as we are on a format nobody has hit under before. Here’s what’s hanging at DraftKings as of this morning, and the ones we like.
Longest home run of the night. The distance line is 480.5 feet, with the over juiced to -120. We predicts the big one lands somewhere between 486 and 511 feet, and this park in July with no defense and grooved batting practice pitching is built for it. We’re on the over. For which player hits it, Schwarber is +250, Caminero +400, Jordan Walker +450, and Caglianone +500. Walker at +450 is our favorite of the bunch. His 116.6 mph max exit velocity is the biggest raw distance tool in the field, and this market doesn’t care whether he wins a single round.
To make the final. Schwarber +140, Caminero +210, Murakami +235, Caglianone +250, Rice +400, Contreras +500. If the outright prices feel too skinny, this is the softer landing. Murakami at +235 to make the final is the play we’re pairing with his outright ticket: you’re betting he’s healthy and locked in, and this cashes even if he runs into a buzzsaw in the last round.
Round totals. The full-night total is 119.5 homers, and Round 1 alone is 74.5, with the over at -120. Individual Round 1 lines: Schwarber 10.5, then 9.5 for Caminero, Murakami, Caglianone, Walker, and Rice, with Harper and Contreras at 8.5. Remember the bonus rule: homer on your 20th swing and you keep going until you miss. That rule only pushes totals one direction. We lean over on the round totals generally, and Rice over 9.5 is a sneaky add for everything we said about him above.
The chaos props. Every player to hit 6 or more homers in Round 1 pays -125, 7 or more jumps to +220, 8 or more is +600, and 9 or more is +1200. The 7-plus at +220 is legitimately tempting. Twenty swings with no clock means nobody rushes, nobody gasses out mid-round, and even the line drive guys get to settle in. One cold streak from anybody kills it, which is why it pays what it pays.
Finals matchups and forecasts. You can name both finalists: Schwarber vs. Caminero and Caglianone vs. Schwarber both pay +1000, Schwarber vs. Murakami +1100, Caminero vs. Caglianone +1400. Or go full degenerate with the straight forecast, picking the winner and runner-up in order: Schwarber over Caminero +1500, Schwarber over Murakami +1700, Caminero over Schwarber +2000. If you like our Murakami lean, Schwarber vs. Murakami finalists at +1100 is the hedge that keeps the whole night interesting.
How we’d build the ticket
Half unit: Ben Rice to win (+950)
Half unit: Munetaka Murakami to win (+500)
Quarter unit: Bryce Harper to win (+650)
Sprinkle: Willson Contreras to win (+2000)
Quarter unit: Murakami to make the final (+235)
Half unit: Jordan Walker longest home run (+450)
Quarter unit: Every player 7+ homers in Round 1 (+220)
That spread costs about two units and gives you a live rooting interest in basically every swing of the night. If chalk wins and Schwarber sends one onto Pattison Avenue, fine, you lost two units watching one of the best shows of the summer. If Rice or Murakami gets hot for three rounds, you just paid for your sub here.
One last thing, and I say it every year: the Derby is a coin flip wearing a jersey. Eight guys, batting practice pitching, and a format nobody has hit under before. Bet small, bet for fun, and enjoy the bombs.