Every July, mid-Derby, millions of viewers ask the same question: do these count? The short answer is no — not one of the hundreds of home runs hit in a Home Run Derby counts toward anything in a player’s official statistics. Josh Hamilton’s legendary 28 in 2008 appear nowhere in his career record. Kyle Schwarber hit three homers to win the 2025 All-Star Game itself and finished that season with 56 — a number that includes exactly zero of them.
Here’s the full accounting: what counts, what doesn’t, what gets tracked anyway, and the one thing a Derby winner keeps forever.
The chart below covers the official answer, the famous non-counting nights, and what’s actually real. Take a look, then we’ll break it all down.
Why Baseball Keeps a Wall Between Fun and the Record Book
The no-counting rule sounds obvious once stated, but the reasoning is worth a beat, because baseball guards its statistics more jealously than any sport. Season and career records are the sport’s connective tissue across 150 years, and they’re built on a single premise: every counted event happened in genuine competition, against a pitcher trying to get you out. The Derby fails that test by design — grooved 60-mph batting-practice pitches, no defense, no stakes beyond the event itself — so a Derby homer counting toward a season total would be like a three-point-contest make counting toward an NBA scoring title. The same wall holds for the All-Star Game, which is real competition but not the regular season: its stats live in a separate all-star career ledger, which is how Kyle Schwarber can win an All-Star Game with three home runs in 2025 and finish the year with 56 that include none of them, and how Vladimir Guerrero Jr. can hit 91 home runs in a single evening (still the most ever in one Derby) without his baseball card noticing. What the Derby produces instead is everything around the statistics: the $1 million check, the trophy, the Statcast distances that get replayed for decades, and event records that are permanent history in their own right — just filed on a different shelf. Watch Monday accordingly: nothing will count, and everyone will remember it anyway.
Final Word
Do Home Run Derby homers count? No — not toward season stats, career totals, or any official record, and neither do All-Star Game numbers, which live in their own separate ledger. Hamilton’s 28, Vlad Jr.’s 91-homer night, and Schwarber’s game-winning swing-off all officially count for nothing, while the money, trophies, and event records are entirely real. Monday’s edition in Philadelphia adds another few hundred gloriously meaningless home runs to the pile.
The format producing them is in the Home Run Derby rules, explained, the event records that DO get kept are in Home Run Derby records, and the very real money is in Derby prize money.