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@beatlesnews_MLBTS said in Wow ... Rickey Handerson passed away.:

FYI, the only source for this so far is Dave Winfield's Instagram post. No credible wire service has picked this up yet.

Not true. It's been reported in national newspapers, including the New York Post.

Wow! Did not know he was suffering from any health issues. Last interviews I saw of him he appeared to be in very good health.

Sorry, but the Expos had an original cap logo but beyond that their uniforms were quite basic.

The Atlanta Braves won popular and expert polls on best uniforms for many years. That tomahawk uniform is spot on and classy. The Braves switch to a red piping on their alternate road uniforms was a terrible idea. The silver piping looked great on the Navy tops and the Braves need to go back to it.

Personally, I hate the all navy road caps. The red-billed Braves caps on the road uniforms looked awesome and when they were debuted it was rated the best road uniform in baseball by the players.

Interesting that starting next season MLB is going back to using team uniforms in the All Star game. I don't know if this extends to the minor league versions, but I hope it does. I never liked these all star game special uniforms. Some of them were plain ugly, and even at their best it reduced the fun factor of knowing which teams the players represented.

SDS is a PC-obsessed company, overtly so. The cover selection won't have as its top criteria statistical performance. If that had been at the top, the cover for MLB 24 would have been Matt Olsen, Ronald Acuna, or Shohei Ohtani. Acuna wasn't selected because of a contract conflict with another baseball video game company. Ohtani was not selected because he was the cover athlete on a previous release. That left Olsen, and it shouldn't have been a tough choice.

There is no way. You desire would violate the basic premise of the Franchise mode. You're GM of only one team. The Rule 5 draft is where talented teams get poached at an unlimited rate so the bottom feeders can improve their teams off your unprotected players. Playing the other teams would render that reality moot.

@beatlesnews_PSN said in Juan soto is a met:

@blu_birdie43_PSN said in Juan soto is a met:

Im a huge giants fan. im sad that posey couldn't sign him because he would be a great help, but I don't think we would have been willing to pay almost 800 million for just one player until 2040. I haven't even seen any reports on the giants meeting with him.

Also a big Giants fan. The reports I'd seen seemed to indicate the Giants didn't really have him in their plans. But he's not the only player out there and from the looks of things, Buster Posey is heading down a good path starting with the signing of Willy Adames. (Still can't believe Posey's behind a desk now instead of being behind the plate only a few years ago.)

@blu_birdie43_PSN said in Juan soto is a met:

@dbub_PSN said in Juan soto is a met:

Just glad he's not a Yankee or Dodger.

THANK GOD HES NOT A DODGER

And yes. Thank the Lord he's not a Dodger. Or a Yankee. Though having him in the National League is bad enough.

It's not that big a deal. The Mets WAY overpaid for him and contract size doesn't improve a player's talent level. If anything, a huge contract actually lowers a players productivity due to the pressures of performing up to the gargantuan contract value, or because the player relaxes having earned his big pay day.

Think of it this way. Two years ago, Matt Olson belted 54 homers, drove in 139 RBI, scored 127 runs, and earned an OPS of .993.

Last season, Juan Soto's career was: 41 homers, 109 RBI, 128 runs scored, and an OPS of .989.

Moreover, Olson plays a much harder defensive position at first base and has earned two Gold Glove awards. His defensive range factor per game was 7.96 two seasons ago and improved to 8.42 last season. His two GC years were 9.18 and 8.76. So, he's not far off those two high water marks. Juan Soto is a below average defensive outfielder. Last season, it was only 2.33, and the year before that an even lower 2.06. To put into perspective, a Gold Glove earning outfielder's RF/G would be about 2.96.

In short, Matt Olson earns $15 million a season. He produces better offensive numbers year in and year out than does Soto, and is a much better defensive player playing a much more difficult defensive position.

Yes, this is true. But, unless these many issues are faithfully addressed and implemented, I will not be purchasing MLB 25. I said that would be the case for MLB 24, and then I saw where they did put the standing crowds in the game for Stadium Creator, and the player modeling and graphics were improved, so I decided to purchase it.

But, more than enough time has gone by without these basic things put into Stadium Creator. I've reached the limit of my patience.

SDS really needs to expand RTTS to start at Low A, promote to High A, and then onward to AA and AAA. There have been some hints about some sort of collegiate option if you don't like your first draft selection slot.

But, SDS really needs to flesh out the full measure of minor league affiliates complete with accurate virtual models of the stadiums these minor league teams play in.

@xsdert34_PSN said in Juan soto is a met:

For an average of $51 million per year and being a bad defender in both left and right field, the Mets drastically overpaid. The thing that saves Soto is that great bat.

These mega deals work out fewer times than they bust. There's a really good reason for this. When you devote such a huge percentage of your team resources on just one player, you're rolling the dice. One play, injury, and your investment suddenly craters for the season, and you don't have the money to replace the talent lost.

Of course, Met's owner Steve Cohen is one of the richest men in the world, and worth an estimated $20 billion. Still, this man just bestowed about one-twentieth of his wealth to one person paid out over 15 years. There are a great many players who can hit 30 homers, with an OBA of .400. They can be signed for about $15 million a year. You can in theory field four of those players for the price of Soto.

I have a very simple and yet profound recommendation. End the entire tie-in between player attribute scores and equipment, and as a result make all pieces of equipment available upfront. RTTS isn't an online competition mode, it is a versus CPU mode, so equipment should work just like it already does in Franchise. The idea that woefully outdated equipment is worn by MiLB players is utter nonsense. The finest equipment is available for all minor league teams.

All increases in attribute scores should be based entirely on quality of play on the field. Make a good play, get a bump in that attribute. Make a bad play and it gets deducted. You start off at a lower level consistent with where you were drafted, and you have to earn your promotion, not buy it with equipment, perks, or other such phony means.

Rebranding needs to be expanded to all 30 teams after the World Series ends, vice just the team you are GM for. There is really no reason in the world against this given Franchise is a versus CPU game mode. Right now, you can only change a stadium for any of the 30 teams, and ironically, that impacts game results when uniforms don't at all.

Trades also need to allow for more than three players to be transacted in a single trade, and trades should also be allowed for multiple teams. I mean trades among three or even four teams happens rather often and so it should be in the game, and certainly, teams often trade one veteran player for four or five prospects.

Finally, the All Star game should be allowed to be played in any stadium the player has, meaning if a stadium is assigned to a team, and that team's time comes up for the All Star game, then the game should be played in the stadium assigned to that team in the player's GM configurations for the league.

Let's play a hypothetical game here. Let's say you reading this are the CEO of a software company with one of the prize contracts signed with a major sports league in America. Your customers ID a bug and report it to you within a few weeks of title release. Do you fix it? Or, do you allow ten months to roll along, release 27 updates to the code, and let that bug go without fix?

Here is the bug report summary that I sent to SDS:

"In the custom stadiums, when the players holding bats vignette screens are displayed between innings, the seats in the stadium have their colors reverted to white, vice the color that was assigned when the stadium was created. This bug then remains in place for the rest of the game."

Doesn't that bug report seem detailed and specific enough to allow your coders to identify the cause and fix it?

It sure does to me!

So, why did this but get ignored? How can anyone rationally argue that the cause is anything other than lack of care?

Universally considered the best catcher in the history of MLB -- Johnny Bench. Best combination of throwing, fielding, framing, calling a game, and hitting.

I believe all BBHOF decisions are announced at the same time. I recall that announcement is about 17 January 2025.

Do you think these people working TV broadcasts for the games would agree to their voices being used without compensation? The two who currently form that service in the game were paid a significant amount of money, as was the person who voices the PA.

These three people had to sit down for literally hours reciting scripted phrases, with the careful adjustment of inflections to seam together appropriately to game action. Would you do that for free?

Now imagine having to pay not three people, but around 90? Because given there are 30 teams, that's how many people would have to be paid to provide what you are asking for.

I really don't know why this persistent non-sequitur keeps materializing. This is well known truth. SDS has written entirely different code for the legacy and modern gaming consoles, and even the code among the various modern consoles must be different to handle each system.

Yet, this false claim of "either or" keeps getting asserted.

Folks, again, nothing in the support for legacy systems holds back the modern console versions unless SDS chooses those compromises for reasons having nothing to do with the various consoles.

Moreover, MLB has written into their contract with SDS the continued support for the legacy consoles and until that reality changes, SDS supporting both generations will continue.

Excellent list. SDS would be very wise to adopt this!

Well folks, it has been about ten months since MLB 24 was released. So, truth is we are close to Thanksgiving and in about six weeks we will see 2025 roll in and soon thereafter MLB 25 is the focus and the release. So, the ride in terms of new released content is over for MLB 24.

In many ways this is part and parcel of the focus on DD content, with the periodic release of cards, equipment, packs, etc ...

Truth is, and this is my root opinion, the prime motivation to play this game should be to play virtual baseball games for its own rewards and joy of the game. For well over 20 years, that was the only draw to this game, and it was more than enough to keep people interested in it.

It's the game, people ... not the cards, the rosters, the fancy designed conquest boards, or the like -- but the simple and beautiful game of baseball -- that's the draw and always will be.