Almost exactly a year ago in Atlanta, Kyle Schwarber stepped into the batter's box for something the Major League Baseball had never done before: a three-swing, sudden-death tiebreaker to decide an All-Star Game.
He hit three home runs on three pitches, and the National League walked away with a win nobody saw coming in quite that form. Tonight, Polymarket is asking whether Philadelphia gets a repeat, and right now the market has it as close as it gets.
A Coin Flip a Year After the First Swing-Off
Polymarket's "Swing Off?" contract sits right around a toss-up, and it's worth separating this from the extra-innings question covered in our American League vs. National League preview.
That earlier market was pricing something close to impossible: MLB retired traditional extra innings for the All-Star Game once the tiebreaker rule took effect, so a truly deadlocked game skips straight to the swing-off instead of a 10th inning. This Polymarket contract asks whether nine innings end tied at all, and with two deep, well-pitched rosters on the field, that's genuinely close to a coin flip.
It's also worth remembering this market only opened recently, so the price has swung wildly in its first few days and could keep moving right through first pitch.
Who Might Get the Call
If it does come down to three swings a side, deciding who's actually standing in the box is trickier than it sounds.
Managers pick three hitters and an alternate from each roster, and the honest truth is that the choice often comes down to who's still in the ballpark late rather than who's the biggest name. Last year, Aaron Boone and Dave Roberts had already lost access to headliners like Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge, who'd left after their innings were up, so the field ended up mixing proven sluggers like Schwarber and Pete Alonso with lesser-known names such as Brent Rooker and Jonathan Aranda.
This year could follow a similar script.
Several of the game's biggest bats, including Ohtani and Judge, are already unavailable, which opens the door for whoever's still playing in the ninth. Schwarber, fresh off leading MLB in home runs and reaching the Home Run Derbyfinal, is the obvious repeat pick if the National League needs him. On the American League side, sluggers like Junior Caminero and Bobby Witt Jr. fit the profile of players managers like to have on hand for exactly this moment.
Nobody predicted last year's ending, and that's precisely the appeal.
A Tuesday night that already features a loaded lineup, a home ballpark that rewards fly balls, and a fanbase primed for a moment doesn't need a tie to be memorable. But if it happens, Philadelphia gets its own shot at the kind of ending Atlanta stumbled into last July, three swings at a time.
