It's not really a lie that this game is worse than the last 3 years of it. Every game pitchers are consistently showing late on pitches even 90+ rating pitchers both player and cpu. The cpu throws more balls than strikes. Getting hits with less than diamond players is also super hard. All of these complaints are even when on the easiest difficulty.
I dont care about harder difficulties, I'm here for casual baseball while doing diamond dynasty and going for card collections. That being said this game is not easy for the casual player.
The xp in a day restrictions really makes it hard for casual players also complete "seasons" as casual players don't have time to play everyday for hours to hit that cap, while certain days they may have more time and get "capped" out.
Honestly I'm glad this game is free with gamepass because without that I wouldn't be getting (playing) it. I have spent a little cash on packs, but if the series continues to be as bad as 24, I will stop spending, get all achievements and be done with those games.