Community Forum

Top right....support...repot a bug...be specific. With Skubal's contract I can possibly understand why arb prices for SP being higher, because actually he could have gotten even more if he would have asked for it, but if it's limiting even singing FA minor leaguers in future year to fill out the 93 man limit, this is definitely a problem.

That sounds like a great idea. I know mlbtr does a pretty good job on arb projections.

Prospects aren't dealt as much as it seems. Soto was the last trade that involved multiple top 100 prospects, but in the 3 years since only 1 top 50 prospect has been moved (DeVries - SD->ATH). You ask the question I'll be most curious about. When the team's status changes from normal to rebuild or playoffs, will the rebuilding team's rental players be put on the trade block, and will the playoff team's prospects become available?

@PriorFir4383355_XBL I can only speak to Franchise. Probably spent 1,500+ hours on MLBTS25. After about 3 months I submit feedback directly to SDS on improvements that can be made and I've seen a lot of those come to fruition with the changes they've made the last few years to scouting/drafting, free agency and now trading. When I noticed an error in the salary cap calculations for traded players, I submitted and they fixed it in the very next game update. My submissions are reasonable, logical and detailed so they clearly understand the point I'm trying to make. Besides trading, it looks like a few other points I had about the level of competition by the CPU have been addressed, but I guess we'll see in the next few days. I've only played since MLBTS20, so it seems like a lot of improvement to me.

I think SDS's 2 problems are: 1) gamers think every change is easy and can be made immediately AND 2) SDS doesn't communicate very well. I would have been more content playing 24 and 25 if I knew they had these changes coming for trade hub in 26. We would all be happier if we knew SDS was working on online franchise, even if they didn't think they could achieve it until 2028. SDS would be better telling us it's coming but not until 2028, or simply tell us it doesn't make sense because of X, Y & Z. (I'd like online franchise, but it's also not in my top 50 of things to improve about Franchise). Ideally SDS should annually share their goals list of target improvements, along with the date they expect to achieve. Owner/GM/Manager personality traits that affect the game by 2029? Full 165 man minor leagues with all 4 affiliates by 2030? Expanded scouting/draft/players in total to go along with it? AI announcing by 2032?

@alstl04_PSN I can understand SDS trying to create more unpredictability to match real life, but there are 3 reasons why a player doesn't become who they are expected to be. 1) Scouting, 2) Player Development or 3) Injury. I also did the math a few years ago when they first started fog of war. About 80% of the time I could predict +/- 1 of what the prospect was expected to be. That seems reasonable. If you're saying you can 100% predict what they're going to be, SDS should make revisions to make some uncertainty, as no scout in The Show or IRL is 100% for either Pitchers or POS Players. Player development is too predictable, as the player will grow to their potential unless they age out. The issue is their potential number only varies up/down 1-2 points. Seems like the variance should be bigger and that player progression across attributes shouldn't be as linear as it is. In The Show I've never had a player lose potential (other than drafting an injured prospect) due to injury. My conclusion is SDS should address all 3 areas rather than just trying to "fix" by deepening the fog of war on scouting.

I definitely agree with you about more draft picks. I'd like to see it moved to the full 20 rounds, but that would also require giving us a full 165 man minor league squad and adding both "A" ball teams. I see where this could be overwhelming to some gamers, so maybe this can be part of their franchise streamline settings where the gamer chooses how many minor league affiliates they have and the game scales accordingly the # of draft picks and number of minor league players. I also think there needs to be more players in the draft pool. Only having 200 prospects for 190+ draft slots isn't realistic. More draft pool players introduced into the game annually would help realistically force out low OVR and older players. Jackson Chourio is still in my game at age 43, which isn't necessarily a problem, except that he hasn't played in the majors for 10 seasons.

International signings in The Show might hinge on the upcoming CBA. During the last negotiations there was serious discussion about moving to a true worldwide draft, and I think with the perception that the Dodgers were able to easily sign 2 top flight SPs from Japan the last few years, I think a majority of owners might want that changed.

To document my scouting point, I went off autoscout and did it manually for my 2048 season. Also of note I'm running 30 team control so I can see everything that the CPU teams are doing. The CPU teams on average scouted 27 players, while I scouted 90. This also gave me a huge advantage for signability, as players had a lot more interest in my team. I was able to sign 5 of the 6 players on the first day of signing. Using Discovery provided 3 prospects that were originally Not Rated that I took in the first 4 rounds, and all 4 draft picks were scouted in the top 20 of prospects. A CPU team drafted 6th overall and took a SP that they scouted 100%, but was 65th on their draft board and projected by them with mid "C" potential. I could better understand if they scouted him as an "A" potential that turns out to be a "C" bust. The CPU teams also do not actively improve their scouts, whereas I can. None of this is realistic. While this exercise reminded me that scouting is fun, the lack of competitiveness by the CPU in this area forces me to leave it on autoscout so it's a level playing field. Otherwise your just playing the game with a cheat code. Perhaps if The Show had sliders where you can ratchet up how competitive the CPU is.

This also highlighted what you said that there should be more scouts. All teams should have completed some scouting on at least half the draft pool.

@alstl04_PSN This generational talent issue came up 2 years ago when they first revised the scouting system. There were a few easily identifiable attribute totals and gaps that you could look for to identify a generational talent, if there was any for that draft. That item was resolved for last year's game. I'm guessing he was referencing that issue, as I haven't seen anyone document being able to do that for 25.

I don't remember specifics on the prior scouting, but the revised scouting has always been a fog of war. You can scout someone 100%+ and still only have a range that they fall into, and they can still turn out to be a bust, just like IRL.

My only problem with the current scouting is any concerted scouting effort I make gets me about 5 times the info that the CPU teams get, so to make it competitive I only use autoscout. That takes away some of the immersion into the game.

For anybody that played whatever online franchise was in The Show years ago, got a couple questions. Did it function well? Did you get 30 players, or just as many as you could and all other teams were CPU? Could you re-assign teams as CPU if a player dropped out? Did you play all 162 or was there some simming to get through the season? Maybe it doesn't matter what The Show did years ago, so what to other sports online franchises do?

Looking forward to the revamped trade system. Builds off of improvements to free agency and scouting, both of which are vastly improved from previous versions, although they still need work.

Trade logic has improved very slightly over the years. Now most of my trade reversals are non-playoff bound teams trading for rental players. Looks like some of the improvements will address this issue. I think a possible solution that would appease most gamers would be to have a trade commissioner mode where all trades have to be approved prior to execution.

I'm not saying that I wouldn't want online franchise eventually, but if I'm making a top 50 list of things to improve about Franchise Mode right now, this wouldn't make the list.

It's both that the game isn't good about selecting award winners (including all star selections) and the poor MLB rule about having 1 player from every team. I've had a pitcher 2 years in a row that was leading for Cy Young award and ERA crown that didn't get selected to ASG. I suspect it was because he didn't have the strikeout numbers of some of the top pitchers. But you saw it in MLB last year with CHC Suzuki leading NL in RBIs but didn't make the ASG, even as a replacement player.

I had ideas of doing the same, but it still gets too frustrating. I only do a few obvious things. For teams that are out of playoffs, I reverse trades they make for imminent free agents. I also setup the trade block for these teams, but the game re-evaluates every so often (sometimes a few weeks, sometimes a few days) and removes the players I put on the block, so I have to constantly monitor the trade block and redo it.

@sullivanspring_MLBTS I think they can do 2 things to fix it. First, make spring training more realistic, so all 93 players involved, even if you can only play the games as the major league team. Spread whatever progression or regression over the entire season, including spring training. Second is to get rid of the gap between end of spring training and Opening Day. They schedule 2 teams to start early like the Japan series, but its obviously messing up how the game tries to adjust attributes based on game stats.

I doubt simming will eliminate the attribute decline. I will also submit something to SDS.

@sullivanspring_MLBTS default sliders. I definitely see that the higher potential players are more likely to grow faster. Of my C potential players I had 1 grow 4, 3 grew 3, everyone else less. Of my B potential players I had 3 grew 5 and 3 grew 4, everyone else less. Of my A potential players I had 2 grow 6 and 1 grow 5.

As for your video, during spring training there is rarely any growth and only minor decline, mostly for the older players, plus spring training only affects the 40 man roster. The major decline I see is the 7+ day gap between when spring training ends and the regular season begins. The game has already determined which players are going to start declining, and since these players aren’t accumulating stats during this 7+ day window, it declines almost all of their attributes by 1.

As for progression, I usually see about 3-4. My current season I had one player grow 6 and the best I’ve seen was 8. It’s rare that I see a player not get to their potential, unless the gap and age from the beginning of their career just won’t allow for it. At two points of the year (before spring training and mid-season) I generate a random list of up to 20 players throughout the league to adjust their OVR and potential. Limit the range of change from -3 to +3. Adds some interest, and it is like real life, because some players finally figure it out and some drop off a cliff.

True, GMs are in communication with agents, but an agent’s job is to get their player the most money. If an agent divulges to a GM the best offer they have so far, the GM would only have to slightly exceed it. But what really happens is the agent bluffs what offers they have to see if a GM will match it or better yet exceed it in AAV or years (or both). That’s why I like having other team’s offers hidden. Like real life, I have to guess how much to offer to get the signing over the finish line.

Maybe a better solution than limiting to 3 FAs is I can allocate my time and effort to be spent each week on any FA. I can devote 100% of my time to Tucker…OR…devote 50% of my time to Tucker, 20% to Bregman and split the remaining 30% evenly across 10 other free agents (including minor league FAs).

I’ll start by saying this free agent system is much better than what they had previously, but it still can be improved. It wasn’t realistic to see all the offers and associated player interest level for each free agent in prior versions of the Show. I think bringing back options and back/front loading would be good. I think having a target board of free agents each team is interested in is realistic, although an improvement might be having 3 primary target free agents and 3 secondary target free agents. I think interest level growing each week is a bit contrived, but there is some logic in that if I’m focused only on top end free agents OFs like Tucker and Schwarber, I might miss the chance to sign Grisham. I like that it is realistically harder to sign a top end free agent if my team (Angels) has no hope of winning.

I don’t play Madden, but the Show’s version seems more realistic than all 32 teams offering each free agent a contract on day 1 of free agency. I’m not going to offer a contract to Grisham and have him take a 40 man spot until I’ve heard back from Tucker or Schwarber.

I think most gamers understand that all the reasonable improvements desired can’t be made in 1 year. I think SDS could better its relationship with gamers by showing a 5 year plan on each item they’re going to tackle and when they expect to accomplish it.

SDS not going to add cap and floor until MLB does. I’d rather SDS spend the time and effort to improve CPU trade logic, CPU free agent signing logic, CPU rebuilding team strategy and CPU scouting/draft logic.

It’s been a few years since I had training on manual. At that time it did seem like those specific attributes increased by maybe 1 each year more than other attributes. This worked good for players that could hit but lacking on fielding, arm accuracy, reaction, etc. However when I realized all the cpu teams were using auto for training, I stopped so as not to have an unfair advantage. As for player lock, I believe that would work, since the results the player is putting out affect CON, PWR, DISP, etc.

The only thing I discovered is that more often, but not always, CF and pull side OF will play slightly deeper, even when supposedly playing straight up when the batter is a pure pull hitter. I don’t think you can see this from game mode, as I had to go back to the player card edit to see each hitter’s tendencies. I’m guessing that there are certain attributes that the pitchers has that are affecting it to.