The T-Mobile Home Run Derby will have a new format in 2026.
Major League Baseball is doing away with the timer that's governed the Home Run Derby since 2015, reverting to a swing-based format for this year's competition at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia on July 13 -- the first Derby to stream live on Netflix.
Eight players will still make up the field, same as in years past. But instead of trying to hit as many homers as they can during timed rounds, participants will start each round with a finite number of swings: 20 in Round 1, 15 in Round 2 and 15 again in the final round.
All swings will count against a player’s swing allotment, whether it results in a homer or not. However, a player who homers on his final swing of a round can keep swinging until he doesn't hit one out.
HRD Format: Quick facts
- No timer and no “outs”
- Round 1: 20 swings
- Round 2: 15 swings
- Finals: 15 swings
- Each swing counts toward a player's allotment, homer or not
- If you homer on your last swing in any round, you keep going until you do not homer
- There is no bonus round and there is no “bracket” for the first round
- Tiebreakers: HR Distance (Round 1); three-swing swing-offs (Rounds 2 and 3)
Like 2024 and ’25, all eight hitters will be entered into a single pool for Round 1. The players with the top four home run totals from that round will advance to the semifinals, where they’ll be seeded based on their first-round homer totals and face off head-to-head (No. 1 vs. No. 4 and No. 2 vs. No. 3) to determine the two finalists.
Ties in the first round will be broken by home run distance, with the player who hit the longest homer among the tied participants advancing. In subsequent rounds, ties will be broken by three-swing swing-offs until a winner is determined.
The new swing-based setup is closer to the Home Run Derby's pre-2015 era, which saw players begin each round with a specific number of “outs” and try to hit as many homers as they could before their outs ran out, with each non-homer swing counting toward that total.