Common baseball wisdom says that the average player will peak at or around 28 years old. Given the additional requirement of league-wide recognition, it’s not a coincidence that the average age of a Home Run Derby participant lands right around there as well — just about 28 1/2.
The eight-man field for the 2025 T-Mobile Home Run Derby skews young — a full year younger — but even in a group where Byron Buxton counts as a grizzled veteran, the inclusion of Junior Caminero of the Rays and James Wood of the Nationals, both 22 years old, is notable. With a win on Monday night, either would become the youngest Home Run Derby champion.
With that possibility in mind, here’s a look at the youngest champions since the first Derby in 1985.
1) Juan Gonzalez, 1993: 23 years, 265 days
This Derby is most famous for being the one where Ken Griffey Jr. hit a home run off the warehouse at Camden Yards, but Gonzalez ultimately bested him in the final — it did take two extra rounds, but given that Griffey would go on to win three of these, that sounds altogether reasonable. Griffey is actually even younger than Gonzalez — at the time of the ’93 Derby he was 23 years and 233 days old — so this year would have been heading up the list either way.
2) Juan Soto, 2022: 23 years, 266 days
Had the 2022 Derby taken place any earlier, it would have had the potential to turn out the youngest or the oldest champion in event history — Soto on one end, and on the other Albert Pujols, who at 42 years old became the oldest Derby participant ever and remains through 2025 the only guy to give it a go in his 40s. It wasn’t to be — Soto missed tying Gonzalez’s record by one day, but the bracket did have him square off against Pujols in the second round, making for quite a cool moment.
3) Ruben Sierra, 1989: 23 years, 277 days
Sierra was the youngest man in the ’89 Derby by a mile, his closest competitor being Bo Jackson, who was 26 years and 222 days old at the time. He was also a co-champion, tying then-Reds outfielder Eric Davis with three total home runs. (How far we’ve come.)
4) Wally Joyner, 1986: 24 years, 28 days
Another shared win here. Joyner was just younger than his co-champ, Darryl Strawberry, at the second Home Run Derby, back before it was the prime-time event it’s since become. Joyner was also the only rookie Home Run Derby champion for over 30 years before he was joined in quick succession by Aaron Judge (2017) and Pete Alonso (’19).
5) Vladimir Guerrero Jr., 2023: 24 years, 116 days
At 20 years and 114 days old, Guerrero was the youngest Derby participant ever in his first try in 2019, and remarkably, his loss had nothing to do with his relative inexperience. It had nothing to do with him at all, really — that was the year in which he set the standing record for the most total home runs in a single Derby (91). He wouldn’t be back for a while, but after four years, he was still green enough to slot in as the 5th-youngest Home Run Derby champion.
6) Darryl Strawberry, 1986: 24 years, 124 days
The other 1986 Home Run Derby champion. This Derby is also best remembered for a legendary blast, since it’s the one in which Strawberry himself allegedly hit a home run off one of the speakers that hung from the roof of the Astrodome — an estimated 350 feet from home plate and 140 feet off the ground.