James Wood And Cal Raleigh Are Your 2025 Winners Of The "Home Run Derby Fall Off" Award

It never fails, every year we head into the 2nd half of the baseball season and some poor soul who participated in the Home Run Derby weeks earlier has had their season completely derailed and they've fallen way off. It's the reason fans are terrified of their star players doing the derby, everyone's nightmare. Well this year we have 2 prime candidates for the fall off after the derby and it's James Wood and Cal Raleigh. Both guys participated in the Derby and ASG and Raleigh even won the derby, dude put on a show, but man have they both fallen off the map since hitting those dingers. Maybe there is a derby curse after all? 

Raleigh still has the home run stroke, he's got 4 since the ASB and still leads all of baseball with 42 but the average has plummeted. He's at .195 since the derby win for the big dump man. 15 hit, 8 driven in and 29 Ks compared to 5 walks since the break too, woof. He also hasn't hit a double since June 27th, so it's either HR or strikeout for Big Dumper now, he's been so bad that Aaron Judge has bounced back to odds on favorite for MVP in the AL after missing a few weeks. Cal had a real chance to put some distance between them and just couldn't do it. Incredible first half, record setting from the catcher position, but it's taking a toll on him. No shame in that either, you're seeing how and why it's very hard for catchers to play behind the plate full-time and have these great offensive seasons. The regression is full on hitting Cal. 

It's obviously a long season and he could bounce back down the stretch but right now he's killing the Mariners. Not much production out of their franchise guy, but it does help that they were able to add Eugenio Suarez at the deadline. That allows him to be able to slump a little bit but you've got to wonder what they do if this continues into the playoffs. He did start his slump before the derby too, not great leading up to it but the struggles still continuing after it just adds fuel to the fire that the derby ruins your swing and second half. Tough go of it currently for Cal but he'll still ideally end up around 50 homers and hopefully he can find that swing we saw in the derby again. Maybe a double or 2 as well. 

James Wood is going to win an MVP award one year, like sometime soon. But it won't be 2025, not after the summer this kids had. He's incredibly talented and going to be a very good player for a long time but man did he hit a wall, that's what happens with these young guys. He was cruising through the first half on his way to the derby appearance and All-Star game and fell on his face during the second half. 8 hits since the Derby, 8! This kid looked like Superman in the first half and now can't buy a hit. He's got 1 HR since the 4th of July, big time power outage for Wood. Went into the break hitting .278 and is down to .254, not great at all for a struggling Nats team. He had a 5 hit game on July 3rd and is batting under .120 since that night, a true nosedive. Hopefully he can find it and end 2025 strong and build on that, but it's not pretty right now at all. 

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Safe to say neither of these guys are going to do the derby again, just off superstition alone. These guys were having fantastic first halves and seemed to have lost it after they announced they were doing the derby. Gunnar Henderson had a bit of a dip last year after the derby too, that's why I think James Wood is just running out of gas. Super young, he did it all in the first half. Takes a toll on you, just like catching with Cal. Had high hopes for Wood this season too, he's a super fun player to watch up the road. And who didn't want to see Cal break the famous AL HR record held by Aaron Judge, could have had a fun end of the summer with that chase. It's been a tough 2nd half for these guys but plenty of time to find it and get hot and maybe dispel the rumors of a derby curse.