Brent Rooker Questions Controversial Elimination After Cal Raleigh Wins 2025 Home Run Derby

Living up to the pre-event odds, the Big Dumper notched the 2025 MLB All-Star Home Run Derby. The Seattle Mariners’ star Cal Raleigh ended the night with 17 home runs to his name in the pool round. It won’t change much, but A’s star Brent Rooker matched Raleigh’s home run total. He just fell 0.8 inch short and was clearly dismayed. However, at the end, Raleigh bagged $1 million along with a custom Derby chain and a bit of controversy.

As the game concluded, Rooker couldn’t come to terms with the fact that the scoreboard displayed the rounded-off numbers for home run distance, but MLB used the non-rounded figures for the official measurement determination. What makes things interesting is that both Raleigh and Rooker hit a distance of 471. But as per Statcast, Rooker’s home run was measured at 470.53 feet, whereas Raleigh’s was measured at 470.61.

What followed was not just the echo of bats, but questions: Were the rules fair? And that’s precisely the question Rooker put forward. Visibly disappointed, he questioned his elimination in the postgame media appearance.

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“I know we were both at 471 because that’s obviously the number that they put up there. You know, maybe if they have it to the decimal point, they should display that during the Derby and not wait till everyone’s done to bring out that information. That might be helpful,” he told the reporters. In the wake of the Derby’s wild ending, it’s Rooker’s frustration and a rulebook’s cold precision that have everyone talking.

Rooker didn’t shy away from addressing that it should have been pre-informed that the exact distance was measured down to the decimal point. But that wasn’t all he pointed out. Instead of getting 40 pitches, he was only thrown 38. That was because he didn’t know that he had 40 pitches in total to hit. “I took two pitches that didn’t count. But when we went to do the round, there was only 38 remaining. So we got down to have two pitches with five seconds left, and they’re out of baseballs.” Despite these mishaps, Rooker didn’t lose his spirit.

Though he didn’t agree with certain things, Rooker didn’t forget to praise Raleigh. He also mentioned that he had a “great time” overall. However, you would certainly like a breakdown of how it really went downhill.

Cal Raleigh and Brent Rooker’s tiebreaker explained

We can now collectively agree that baseball is actually a game of inches. With a length of 471 feet and 17 homers recorded, Rooker was the second competitor of Derby night. That was only until Mariners’ phenom and the league home run leader stepped to the plate.

Raleigh recorded the same figure around the exact same distance. Soon enough, the broadcasters had already laid out the “what if” situation about the tiebreaker. There were possibilities of a swing-off, but eventually something totally unexpected happened.

As per the rules, the swing-off cannot happen in the first round of the competition. If that was out of the picture, then what’s next? The coin toss. Apparently, this was also an option that was laid out. That is why MLB eventually had to reveal the non-rounded distance of the home runs. That was the only way to come to a conclusion. By merely 0.8 inches, Raleigh had beaten Rooker. Consequently, he advanced, and Rooker was eliminated.

Then, after how the first round looked, the second round had a bracket-style format. As Raleigh had the fourth highest total in the first round, he was put against Oneil Cruz. He had the most hits, including a 513-foot-high soaring homer.

Yet, Raleigh effortlessly defeated Cruz with 19-13 and advanced to the next round against Junior Caminero. The 22-year-old hit 15 homers, while Raleigh had hit 18. Again, he defeated him and owned the Derby night. After all of it, many believe that the tiebreaker with Rooker was confusing, which made him the eventual winner.

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