Alex Rodriguez had a rough go of it interviewing Justin Verlander ahead of the Home Run Derby.

Rodriguez appeared to be setting up some kind of underdog redemption angle for Verlander, asking him, “How do you explain being a late draft pick, being designated for assignment a couple of times with two different teams?”

Awkward moment for A-Rod, interviewing Justin Verlander saying we was designated for assignment by two different teams.

Verlander, a 10-time All-Star, has never been designated for assignment. pic.twitter.com/nxLbChZbDq

— SportsTalk 790 (@SportsTalk790) July 13, 2026

Neither half of that sentence is true. Verlander went second overall in the 2004 draft, one pick after Matt Bush, and was in the majors within a year. He’s also never been designated for assignment, not once, across 20 seasons and stops with the Tigers, Astros, Mets, and Giants. Being DFA’d is a process reserved for players a team is trying to get off its 40-man roster. It has never once applied to a 10-time All-Star and three-time Cy Young winner.

Verlander, understandably, did not know what to do with this.

“Me? No, you’ve got the wrong notes,” he said.

Rodriguez laughed it off and pivoted to asking how Verlander has pitched at a high level for so long, which, fine, is actually a reasonable question. It’s just not the one he’d spent the last thirty seconds building up to.

Whether it makes him feel better or not, Rodriguez wasn’t the only Fox voice getting called out for scrambling a Hall of Famer’s career this week. Derek Jeter needled Colin Cowherd on Monday over a 2024 interview where Cowherd asked what it was like facing Nolan Ryan — a pitcher whose career ended two years before Jeter’s started.

Someone might want to give A-Rod the same warning next time.

The post Alex Rodriguez botches Justin Verlander’s career history in awkward interview appeared first on Awful Announcing.

PHILADELPHIA — The young upstart beat the veteran hometown hero in MLB’s Home Run Derby.

Cardinals outfielder Jordan Walker upset Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber in the league’s home run contest before a raucous crowd at Citizens Bank Park, prevailing by a 12-11 score in the final. Walker completed a closing rally with six straight home runs on his final six swings to overtake Schwarber. 

The 24-year-old Walker, a fourth-year player in the midst of a breakout season for the resurgent Cardinals, will gain a $1 million prize for winning the Home Run Derby—the largest part of the league’s $2.5 million prize pool for the event. Those winnings for Walker more than eclipse his entire 2026 salary of $799,400. 

He is also the first Cardinal to win the Home Run Derby, despite a storied franchise history that includes former stars such as Mark McGwire and Albert Pujols.

Schwarber will get the $500,000 runner-up prize. 

Bryce Harper, the other Home Run Derby competitor from the All-Star Game host club Phillies, did not advance beyond the first round. 

Harper and five other Home Run Derby competitors—the Rays’ Junior Caminero, the Red Sox’ Willson Contreras, Royals’ Jac Caglianone, White Sox’ Munetaka Murakami, and Yankees’ Ben Rice—earned $150,000 each. Caminero also had the longest home run of the night, at 491 feet, to garner an additional $100,000. 

Despite a move to an untimed competition format for the first time since 2014, this year’s Home Run Derby still moved with crispness and was complete before 10:40 p.m. ET. Instead of going by batter outs, as had been the case before the use of a timer, this year’s structure went by the number of swings.

Cheering on Schwarber’s run to the finals, the Philadelphia fans, meanwhile, are giving an even more definitively local feel to an All-Star Game missing MLB’s two biggest stars and many top pitchers. 

New-Look Broadcast

The Home Run Derby was shown exclusively on Netflix for the first time, with the streaming giant picking up the rights previously held by ESPN. 

Similar to the migration of sports content to streaming that has sparked governmental outcry elsewhere, Netflix carrying the derby prompted a predictable run of complaints from fans. 

“I miss when the hardest part of watching sports was finding the remote,” read one typical fan complaint on social media. “Now I need a flowchart, six streaming services, QR codes, two-factor authentication, and blood samples just to watch guys hit the long balls us chicks dig so much.”

MLB’s strategy with placing the Home Run Derby on Netflix, though, was getting in front of a younger group of fans, and a larger collection of people as well. Netflix has a domestic reach of about 90 million homes, and has more than 325 million subscribers globally, and both measures are still growing. ESPN’s linear channel, by comparison, is in roughly 60 million U.S. households—down by 40% from a peak seen 15 years ago. 

That strategy largely paid off for Netflix earlier this year for a season-opening MLB broadcast, despite some production issues for that Yankees-Giants contest. 

The Home Run Derby production itself alternated between two different crews of talent. That collection of personalities was highlighted in part by MLB legends Barry Bonds and Pujols, MLB’s Nos. 1 and 4 all-time home run hitters.

The post Jordan Walker Edges Out Kyle Schwarber in New-Format Home Run Derby appeared first on Front Office Sports.

Derek Jeter may never let Colin Cowherd off the hook.

After Jeter’s first appearance on The Herd around the All-Star Game in 2024, the veteran radio host went viral after misremembering the timeline of Jeter’s legendary career. During the interview, Cowherd asked Jeter what it was like to face Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan on the mound, only for Jeter to hilariously correct him in real time that their careers did not overlap.

“I never faced Nolan, slow down,” Jeter laughed. “No, I was way after Nolan.”

In fairness to Cowherd, Jeter’s rookie season came just two years after Ryan’s retirement.

But Jeter got another opportunity to rib Cowherd about the mistake on Monday, as the former New York Yankees star once again joined The Herd to promote Fox’s coverage of the All-Star game. And he did not pass it up.

“Before we get started, I just want to remind you … you just said, ‘Smart people make mistakes,'” Jeter said. “Last time I was on your show, you asked me about facing Nolan Ryan, so let’s just hope you got your facts straight this time.”

“Last time I was on your show, you asked me about facing Nolan Ryan. Let’s just hope you got your facts straight this time.” – Derek Jeter sets some ground rules before his appearance with Colin Cowherd https://t.co/CqKJgftqZepic.twitter.com/ERwA1TdqHH

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 13, 2026

Jeter clearly has Cowherd’s respect and handled the gaffe cleverly, especially for someone MLB fans typically think of as defensive and dry on-air.

Jeter will be part of Fox’s studio coverage for the All-Star game on Tuesday night at 8 p.m. ET.

The post Derek Jeter reminds Colin Cowherd of awkward interview gaffe appeared first on Awful Announcing.

PHILADELPHIA — MLB’s All-Star Game activities in the City of Brotherly Love are in full flight, with Monday’s Home Run Derby featuring a new broadcaster and a star-filled lineup, and Tuesday’s Midsummer Classic set to happen despite the mounting player absences.

But could this be the last All-Star Game for the foreseeable future? 

The league is approaching its midseason showcase in a particularly delicate position. On one hand, the game has arguably never been stronger, and key business metrics support that notion. Attendance is up again this season, entering the break with a 1.5% increase in the per-game average to 29,169, and is in line to end with a fourth straight annual boost—something that hasn’t happened since 2004–07. National TV audiences also are growing, with a new set of short-term rights deals paying significant dividends.

Most recently, NBC Sports’ Sunday Night Baseball coverage of a Yankees–Red Sox averaged 4 million viewers, the most for MLB in that window on any network in 15 years. 

All of those gains, in part, continue to benefit from the impactful introduction of the pitch clock in 2023 and the automated ball-strike (ABS) system this year. A strategy to place more games in national broadcast windows, modeled somewhat on other major sports leagues, is similarly driving wider fan awareness and appeal. 

On the other hand, MLB and the MLB Players Association are in the early stages of what has already been a rocky labor negotiation—with an ownership lockout widely expected when the current collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1. Management is proposing a wide range of massive changes to the sport and how it operates, including a hard salary cap and floor, new limitations on how and when amateur players become professionals, and heavy restrictions on free-agent contracts.

“The perception among our fans is really strong that we have a lack of competitiveness,” said league commissioner Rob Manfred. 

Not surprisingly, players have staunchly opposed all of that, and instead are attempting to increase their access to free agency and salary arbitration. 

So MLB is staging this All-Star Game amid a particularly thorny problem: the game continues to grow in stature and popularity, but team owners are also seeking an overhaul of the economic model in order to promote better competitive balance. 

Those labor issues are expected to be front and center when Manfred and MLBPA interim executive director Bruce Meyer meet separately with the Baseball Writers Association of America on Tuesday morning. 

Wait ’Til Next Year?

The Cubs and Chicago’s Wrigley Field are set to host the 2027 All-Star Game. Ever since that announcement nearly a year ago, though, there have been plenty of questions about whether that event will happen.  An extended labor stoppage would eliminate part or all of the 2027 season—possibly wiping out the All-Star Game. 

While both sides are well aware of all the gains in fan interest that will be forfeited in such an absence from play, the current ideologies of the team owners and players could hardly be further apart. 

“I think, honestly, the league has done us a favor because their proposals are, in fact, so obviously and extremely bad for players at all levels that it’s actually been a benefit for our unity,” said MLBPA interim executive director Bruce Meyer. “Anybody’s who’s banking on Major League Baseball players cracking: it’s never happened. It’s not going to happen.”

MLB has not missed games due to labor issues since the bruising 1994–95 round of bargaining that led to the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.

“Of course [I worry about a work stoppage]. We want to make an agreement,” Manfred said last month. ‘We’re open to whatever ideas people have, but we need a realistic framework that addresses the fans’ concerns about competitive balance and you just can’t ignore that financial penalties have not gotten it done for us.”

The post MLB All-Star Break: League Growth Shines, Labor Fight Looms appeared first on Front Office Sports.

PHILADELPHIA — MLB’s Home Run Derby will feature a particularly lucrative opportunity for four of its eight participants, while also offering a big dose of hometown heroes and veteran star power. 

The league’s retooled home run contest set for Monday night at Citizens Bank Park, a key part of a new-look run of All-Star Game events, will again feature a $2.5 million prize pool. The payouts, set in the current labor deal between MLB and the MLB Players Association, include:

• $1 million for the winner
• $500,000 for the runner-up 
• $150,000 for each of the other six competitors
• $100,000 for the longest home run

That $1 million top prize is more than the entire 2026 MLB salary for half of the Home Run Derby field: the Royals’ Jac Caglianone ($784,000), the Rays’ Junior Caminero ($794,800), the Cardinals’ Jordan Walker ($799,400), and the Yankees’ Ben Rice ($845,800). These younger MLB players are not yet eligible for salary arbitration or free agency. 

The expanded Home Run Derby prize pool, first introduced in 2019 and a fixture since then, has been an important tool to boost the event’s allure for players, and has certainly aided in bringing in younger talent.

Pete Alonso, now with the Orioles but the 2019 and 2021 winner while still with the Mets, famously said he used Home Run Derby prize money to help pay for his wedding, while also donating 10% to two charitable organizations aiding military veterans. 

Caminero won $500,000 last year in this event, placing second behind winner Cal Raleigh of the Mariners. 

Veteran Presence, Host-Market Pairing

The financial reward for winning the Home Run Derby is less singularly impactful for the other half of the 2026 field: the White Sox’ Munetaka Murakami ($17 million), the Red Sox’ Willson Contreras ($18 million), and the Phillies’ Bryce Harper ($26.1 million) and Kyle Schwarber ($30 million). 

With the MLB All-Star Game events no longer featuring megastars Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge, both battling injuries, the presence of Schwarber and Harper is becoming even more important. The duo represents the first pair of teammates to be in a Home Run Derby while their home market is hosting since the Marlins’ Giancarlo Stanton and Justin Bour in Miami in 2017, and just the third overall. 

Schwarber and Harper famously battled in the final of the 2018 Home Run Derby in Washington, D.C., when Harper was a member of the Nationals and Schwarber was with the Cubs. Harper won that matchup, 19–18.

“Having a rematch of ‘18 would be pretty cool to see, too,” Schwarber said. “I think it would be fun for everyone, not just Philly, but the game and for the people watching.”

This year’s Home Run Derby, meanwhile, will feature a return to an untimed formatfor the first time since 2014, though it will be based on total swings instead of outs.

The post MLB Home Run Derby Could Net Young Stars Big Payday appeared first on Front Office Sports.