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As the MLB All-Star festivities starting this week with Home Run Derby tonight and the All-Star game tomorrow, Jason Benetti joins the show to talk to his friend DD about what to expect from this year’s event in Cleveland and what he will be broadcasting for the derby and game tomorrow.

Do you like the rule of the million dollar winner-take-all prize for the Home Run Derby winner?

“Yeah, I like the incentive.  I don’t love what these guys have to do to get paid what they’re worth.  I don’t love that as a baseball fan.  But I do love the idea there is an amount of money that’ll have guys saying ‘Yes, I wanna do this’, because frankly the Home Run Derby can be a better show than the dunk contest.  It can be a better show than any of the skills competitions in any of the other sports I think.  I think because of the sheer great of baseballs leaving the stadium.  Then you start to give bonuses for longest home run and people just love that stuff.  I got to tell you, I think I told you the day after the derby last year because I had never been to one and only watched it on TV.  I was saying, ‘Well, I’ve watched it on TV and looks sort of fun’ but that place was ELECTRIC last year when Bryce Harper went on his run.  Even when Schwarber was doing what he was doing as well.  As an arena where you feel something, it was tough to top what I saw last year.”

What broadcasting are you doing for the Home Run Derby tonight?

“Yeah, we are doing the Statcast game.  Which means, we did the Wild Card game last year.  We actually did the derby last year that was the first time our team got together.  People were really positive and thankful for what we did during the wild card game.  What we do for the derby, we’ve got some more stuff on the screen about launch angle and velocity.  But it’s not just about numbers for the sake of numbers, we have some really good stuff on who do we think is winning  Who do we think will hit the most 440 home runs because you get a bonus for those. What the value is of a left-hander in this ballpark because of the tall wall in left field for a right handed hitter.  We’ve got a lot of stuff that will show you, who you think you might be picking in a situation like this if you were inclined to choose this sort of stuff.”

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