Welcome to Rates and Beryls presented by Tops. Check out Topps Project 70, celebrating 70 years of

Topps baseball cards. It is Friday, July 9th. At least I'm pretty sure, it's Friday, July 9th.

Derek Van Riper, Richard Rueh, Eno Seris here with you just ahead of All-Star weekend, a much-needed break in the schedule.

And lots of fun stuff to talk about on this episode. The home run derby field is officially set. We will talk about the matchups in the schedule. And lots of fun stuff to talk about on this episode. The home run derby field is officially set.

We will talk about the matchups in the first round, who we'd like to possibly win that event

this year.

We'll also talk about some players we're excited to see in the futures game, which will

go down on Sunday afternoon, a few of our favorite storylines from the first half of

the season, and a question about innings concerns from the first half of the season and a question

about innings concerns in the second half, what some teams might be

doing to combat that.

Let's get right after it, though. Let's start with the home run

derby. The field, eight players in it. The bracket style format

continues. Great adjustment as we talked about a couple shows

ago. Shohay Otani versus Juan Soto, Joey Gallo versus Trevor Story, Matt Olson versus

Trey Mancini, and Salvador Perez versus Pete Alonzo, who could be one of the handful of players

to win the event twice if he happens to win in Denver this weekend.

When you guys think about the whole run derby, what matters to you?

What are you looking for?

Because it's really a glorified batting practice, but it's kind of hyped up and sped up in a way where you don't get to relax.

Like you actually did to be pretty fit to do well in the current format of the home run derby.

Britt comparing this to the older format where guys could really take their time and

...