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Have patience. They'll be added. For example Carter Kieboom is in there now. He's a 74 rating with A potential.

I like to see the player progression and how draft picks turn out, so I sim a lot. My goal is to get through each season as quickly as possible to see how players progress.

I do a lot of Player Lock. Those are short games, and it's fun to play and up and coming prospect. I'll often play minor league playoff elimination games. Otherwise, I would consider just playing games against a team you're trailing in the division, or a hated rival.

Yes I have the same thing mine is offline and I am really mad about it because my team is 98-39 and has a chance at breaking the record if anyone finds a fix let me know

It's a bug, that has been reported. When they got rid of the pitch info on screen it also got rid of the info on the score bug in the corner of the screen. The info in the corner of the screen is all that's needed.

Yes fielding is been a problem in almost every game now. Ball hitting the back, the front of the fielders, running around the ball aimlessly... to catch a flyball can be a really challenge sometimes. Forge it if its going near the fences.

@jsauri said in Exploring my choices in franchise day 1 for the first time.:

I usually don't play my MLB team at all in Franchise mode. I GM the team and handle all the scouting and transactions and all that and sim all the games. I occasionally play individual prospects with Player Lock on, especially during all star appearances or playoffs. My main franchise is in the year 2055 and is a juggernaut -- almost all A potential players, winning the world series about once every three years just simming.

This year, I am also playing a 2020 franchise in real time in lieu of actual baseball.

Either way, I never compare to real world transactions. The whole fun for me is proving I can GM a team much better than the real world. I'm actually surprised I haven't received any offers from a real MLB team yet. 😉

wow, I'm sure you'll get the call soon enough

I think the point is no one can predict who will have a good or bad year. However, in franchise mode, you have a lot of options to affect that. You can promote or demote players if they are not over or under performing at their level. You can set training options to address attributes that are dropping. You can change positions, which can increase or decrease their rating. You can look at morale to see if they are wanting more money or playing time or whatever which will change their rating. Sometimes players just want to be close to home, or have enough players from their country on the team, so a change of scenery can greatly affect their performance.

I get not everyone wants to deal with all that and being able to shut it all off would help some people and not hurt others. But seeing as how there are so many mechanics built around player progression, I can see how they don't want to disable the majority of the mode's mechanics.

A lot of rosters have many players who haven't had enough service time to be a free agent(6-7 years, depending on whether or not the team manipulated the service time). These players are basically on a series of 1 year deals where only the current team can have negotiating rights. Then there's the arbitration years, which are similar but if there's a money disagreement they go to an independent arbitrator who gets to decide who is right

I've noticed this for years in franchise mode. I think other users are correct in that those players weren't included in the licensing agreement with the MLBPA. However, I've found that EA Sports usually (sometimes?) creates a similar player with a different name. Over the course of the season you may see those players created after live roster updates. However, that would not add them to your existing franchise. You would have to restart a franchise with the current live roster to get them.

Does anyone know if the players released as a diamond card can be used in franchise mode?

Are you talking the display of the strike zone, or how umps are calling it? You can change the view to make the displayed strike zone different. Try playing around with Pitching View to see different options. If you are talking about bad calls, there is a setting to have individual umps call slightly different strike zones and occasionally make mistakes, or have perfect calls every time. I think you can only set that one time when you start the mode.

But for the record, I pretty much only play Franchise and haven't noticed issues with meatballs not being punished. But I play on Zone hitting with Veteran difficulty.

I agree only after SDS released the three patches - the game plays closely to 2018 and 2019. I like the faster play option now - it actually plays faster. Diving for balls seems a little off from 2019 but its workable. Pitching and hitting are prettu improssive. Won two pitcers duels , 1-0 and 2- recently playing franchise. Love this game.

I don't know if this is related, but I'm playing two different franchises. I tried to have different settings in each. But if I set Scouting to manual in one, it sets it to manual in the other as well. Those settings seem to apply to all franchises, which I don't think it did before. I would set everything how you want it, and then go into Data Utility and manually save the franchise. Then exit and reload the franchise to see if the settings were retained. If they are not, or if they are changing after that without you changing the setting in a different saved franchise, then I would think it's a bug.

@Amadioha72 said in GM contracts:

You turn them off at the beginning of the mode only. Otherwise you got 3 years to turn the ship or get the boot lol

K thanks lol

You using analog throwing?

yes it seems to be fixed. played last nite and today and no issue with it. that is great!