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Major league baseball's All-Star game has been nearly overshadowed by the Home Run Derby, an exhibition of long-ball lust that might feel like a guilty pleasure in the aftermath of the Mitchell Report.

Fans assume that any player would jump at the chance to show off his stuff in that kind of setting, but there's evidence to suggest that the participation is counterproductive.

According to statistics from www.baseball-reference.com and www.thebaseballcube.com, the big leaguers who have taken part in the Derby in this decade have experienced a 10.4-percent drop-off in their home run rate between the event and the end of the season. The rest of baseball has witnessed almost no change — a decline of less than one percent.

Derby competitors in the 2000s are better off skipping the thing. In the seasons when they don't hit in the slugfest, they enjoy a slight boost in their home run rate after the All-Star break. They go from hitting a homer for every 19.76 at-bats to one for every 19 at-bats.

There have been 64 total Derby appearances this decade — eight per year for eight years. After 38 of the 64, a participant's home run frequency — the percentage of at-bats resulting in a long ball — has decreased for the remainder of the season.

All fun and games? Don't tell that to the Minnesota Twins' Justin Morneau, who went deep once every 13.42 at-bats in 2007 before the All-Star game but only seven times in 268 trips thereafter. That's one homer for every 38.29 at-bats.

Perhaps he should have skipped the Derby, which will be July 14 this year at Yankee Stadium in New York.

The issue can already begin for the seven South Atlantic League players who hit in a similar contest at last week's All-Star Game at NewBridge Bank Park. Among them was Mike Stanton, a Grasshoppers outfielder who led the league with 15 homers in the season's first half. Stanton smacked nine homers in the Derby but didn't play in the actual All-Star game. He was intrigued by the numerical evidence about the potential impact of his Derby appearance.

"I may need to go back in the cage for an extra half hour," he joked.

He need not have worried. Stanton hit three more homers in his first three games after the event.

Of course, the link between regular-season homers and a Home Run Derby might all be coincidental. Statisticians say we'll probably need several more years of statistics before we know for sure if there's something to these numbers.

"They're professional hitters," said Greg Booker, a former major league pitcher who played at Elon and now scouts for the Colorado Rockies. "I don't think one day of doing it will hurt them. I think it's coincidental and just something you look back on and find. You can find whatever you want to find to explain it."

Any correlation might result from bad habits picked up during the brief competition. During a game, batters generally think about hitting the ball hard anywhere they can and without regard to distance; in the Derby, the goal is to loft the ball and pull it because that's the path of least resistance.

The mechanics of the swing can get messed up from even a brief exposure to grooved 50-mph, 50-foot tosses, said Jorge Hernandez, the Hoppers' hitting coach and the pitcher-sacrificial lamb in the South Atlantic League contest. Hitting a baseball is tough enough under normal circumstances. Fool with routine, and you might anger the batting gods.

Hagerstown outfielder Michael Burgess won the SAL Derby with 16 dingers in 38 swings, four of which launched balls into the middle of Eugene Street and near traffic.

"Yeah, I was worried there might be a problem there," Burgess said.

Thank goodness, there were no accidents. As for Burgess, he went 0-for-3 at the plate in the actual All-Star game.

Contact Rob Daniels at 373-7028 or rob.daniels@news-record.com