Specifically, how is content compared to last year? In MLB The Show, we have short memories. That’s just the way it is. We forget quickly and it’s just as well we do, for the most part. There is also the “rose tinted glasses” effect, where most people believe that a title from a couple of years ago was the best the game ever played and we will never get a game that good again. Trouble is when you revisit it, while it may have been good in some aspects, it undoubtedly also had multiple flaws that would really annoy you as well.
Anyway, that’s not the point of this thread. The point is comparing content. With the super disappointing Brian Roberts/Shane Victorino boss announcements, I did exactly what I alluded to in my opening paragraph. I said “Bah, content was so much better last year!” But was it? Or am I wearing my rose tinted spectacles again? Only one way to find out, I suppose.
‘19 1st inning: 91 Andruw Jones, 95 Goose Gossage, 96 Cy Young.
This year: 91 Helton, 91 Snider, 93 Oswalt
‘19 2nd inning: 92 Miggy, 94 Vladdy and 98 MadBum
This year; 93 Carter, 92 HanRam, 93 Feller
‘19 3rd inning: 99 Alomar, 99 Verlander, 99 Rickey Henderson
Also we received diamond flashbacks at 200 stars from the second inning onwards last year. You could argue that the first inning was pretty comparable from last year to this year. All things considered it’s not far off, in terms of quality. The second inning starts to show the separation. In no way is 93 Feller comparable to 98 MadBum. He’s just not. He sucks. The other two cards, again, not far off. Miggy and Vlad, slightly higher overalls, but you can prestige the HanRam and Carter.
The third inning is where things have started to really diverge from the standard set previously with last years programs. At the time of writing, I don’t know who the third boss is. I lost the will to keep track after the Shane Victorino reveal. But whoever it is, based on Roberts and Victorino, 99 Rickey, Verlander And Alomar have nothing to fear.
Inning programs and the bosses apparently aren’t going to be end game cards this year. At least not for a while. Alomar never left my team from the 3rd inning program onwards last year. I doubt Brian Roberts will be out there come November. That’s fine, but a concern for me already, is the amount of repeats. It’s barely May and we have two Madrigals, two Bohms, two Brian Roberts and two diamond Shane Victorino cards. Yeah, we get repeat cards every year, better versions of players that supersede the old version, but not this close together and not this prominent. They’re being pushed out as headliners, bosses and so on. That’s the premium content designed to get people playing DD and keep people playing DD, so to release a lot of repeated cards so close together with nerfed overalls is disappointing to see. We’ve had a lot of worthless content so far this year from inning programs, events and headliner packs, which is acceptable early in the season, it’s the only time these cards will be useful after all, but we are coming up to 25-30% of the year gone so far. The best content is still all in the team affinity programs, hopefully we get some legends and flashbacks for stage 3 and 4 because they look like the best programs by a mile this year.
Overall, I don’t hate the content this year so far, but If it wasn’t for the team affinity programs and rewards within, I probably would hate the content. We have to wait too long every year for useable versions of popular cards like Griffey, while seeing multiple versions of irrelevant cards like Nick Madrigal ushered out. They should really try to release a big name legend every couple of weeks throughout the year in my opinion. It’s roughly an eight to nine month game. To release a couple of big names per month would take up sixteen to eighteen legends. It’s not asking a lot really to have useable diamond versions of Chipper, Griffey, Babe or whoever by summer. It’s the same every year, by the time you get to access the legends, you’re sick of the whole thing already.