Community Forum

I decided to load up every old game and check out the diamond monthly award cards for each month and year to speculate on what we might see this year, if we don't get baseball at some point. Here's what I found:

May
MLBTS 19: 95 Josh Bell (Lightning), 88 Rafael Devers, 87 Brandon Woodruff, 87 Hector Neris, 85 Derek Dietrich
MLBTS 18: 92 Justin Verlander (Lightning), 86 Michael Brantley, 85 Brandon Crawford, 85 Ross Stripling
MLBTS 17: 94 Carlos Correa (Lightning), 94 Alex Wood, 93 Lance McCullers, 90 Justin Bour

June
MLBTS 19: 95 Charlie Blackmon (Lightning), 90 DJ LeMahieu, 89 Lance Lynn, 88 Liam Hendriks, 87 Yordan Alvarez
MLBTS 18: 92 Paul Goldschmidt (Lightning), 85 Blake Treinen, 85 Jesus Aguilar
MLBTS 17: 94 Cody Bellinger (Lightning), 93 Jose Ramirez, 92 Gary Sanchez (in TS 20), 90 Chase Anderson

July
MLBTS 19: 97 Yuli Gurriel (Lightning), 91 Mike Clevinger, 91 Seth Lugo, 91 Ramon Laureano, 90 Tommy Kahnle, 88 Patrick Corbin, 88 Danny Santana, 88 Travis d'Arnaud, 85 Alex Dickerson
MLBTS 18: 91 Matt Carpenter (Lightning), 89 Edwin Diaz, 86 Corey Dickerson, 85 Yasmani Grandal
MLBSTS 17: 96 James Paxton (Lightning), 92 Jonathan Schoop, 92 Aaron Nola

August
MLBTS 19: 95 Nicholas Castellanos (Lightning), 91 Jack Flaherty, 90 Trevor May, 90 Gio Urshela, 88 Jorge Soler, 87 Ryan Yarbrough, 86 Nick Anderson, 85 Tom Murphy, 85 Mark Canha
MLBTS 18: 91 David Peralta (Lightning), 88 German Marquez, 88 Miguel Andujar, 88 Matt Chapman, 87 Jose Leclerc, 86 Zack Wheeler
MLBTS 17: 93 Rhys Hoskins (Lightning), 92 Corey Knebel, 91 Dylan Bundy, 91 Eugenio Suarez

September
MLBTS 19: 97 James Paxton (Lightning), 92 Yu Darvish, 92 Chad Green, 91 Tommy Edman, 91 Yoan Moncada, 87 Brad Miller, 86 Merrill Kelly, 86 Brandon Workman, 85 Victor Reyes
MLBTS 18: 92 Christian Yelich (Lightning), 89 Trevor Story, 88 Walker Buehler, 86 Nathan Eovaldi, 85 Adalberto Mondesi (in 20)
MLBTS 17: 96 Carlos Carrasco (Lightning), 92 J.D. Martinez, 90 Jake Odorizzi, 90 Jon Gray

I did this last year, so I figured I'd do it again. Some people might not know a lot about the new legends coming into the game, so I wanted to make it easily accessible for them. It also allows for some fun speculation about what cards we could see in DD. I'll continue to update as new players are revealed.

1. Gary Sheffield (First gameplay trailer)
2. John Franco (First gameplay trailer)
3. Shane Victorino (First gameplay trailer)
4. David Ortiz (First gameplay trailer)
5. Mariano Rivera (First gameplay trailer)
6. Greg Maddux (Second Twitch live stream)
7. Tom Glavine (Second Twitch live stream)
8. John Smoltz (Second Twitch live stream)
9. John Olerud (Third Twitch live stream)
10. Brian Roberts (Third Twitch live stream)
11. Todd Helton (Fifth Twitch live stream)
12. Craig Biggio (Sixth Twitch live stream)
13. Dave Kingman (Fuzzy YouTube video)
14. Ryan Klesko (QuashTag YouTube video)
15. Dennis Martinez (Mills Twitch stream)
16. Mark Buehrle (Scuffy YouTube video)
17. Juan Pierre (Koogs YouTube video)
18. George Foster (Sporer YouTube video)
19. Robin Roberts (Shelfy YouTube video)
20. Dan Plesac (Atrin YouTube video)
21. Al Leiter (Healy6 tweet)
22. Jason Isringhausen (Clutch YouTube video)
23. Mickey Mantle (!!!) (Seventh Twitch live stream)

Seems to me like you just got the base round to choose from.

I would think he'll probably start as a gold, but he should get upgraded soon for many of the points people ahead of me posted. People love to talk about how overrated KB is offensively, but the guy is a career .901 OPS hitter, and he had a 131 OPS+ last season during a "down" year. If he stays healthy for the full season, I wouldn't be surprised to see him put up MVP numbers in 2020.

I think it's all strategic, and I like it. I get that everyone wants to see a bunch of 99 studs right now, but that raises the bar to an unsustainable level for the rest of the year. Starting with 90-93 overall cards, then progressing to 94-96 overalls before jumping into the 97-99 club is a good idea, in my opinion. By having all the future stars cards out now (even if their stats are inflated more than they probably should be), they are going to be usable for a longer period of the year, as opposed to if they were released later in the summer or fall when there are already a ton of OP cards. I think this only adds to lineup diversity, as well, which is something people should be happy about. MLB 18 was so poorly received because the content was bad, and there was no lineup diversity once the immortals released

Stephen and Luis did mention during yesterday's second live stream that there would be "dozens" of new legends this year, with an emphasis on players from the 1990s and 2000s, so that's really encouraging. I don't know if that means 24...36...48 new legends, but we should expect a healthy influx of new players this year.

I always prioritize getting the live series collection done as soon as I can. If you can do it now, I say do it. Story is a great option, but there are going to be other end-game shortstop options, probably in the not-so-distant future. Soriano is an end-game option at second or the outfield, and Chipper is an end-game bat, as well. Glavine is still very good, so I think a three-for-one tradeoff, if you will, would be the move.

@DriveByTrucker17 said in NEW LEGENDS in 2020:

@xFearTheForkASUx said in NEW LEGENDS in 2020:

Stephen and Luis did mention during yesterday's second live stream that there would be "dozens" of new legends this year, with an emphasis on players from the 1990s and 2000s, so that's really encouraging. I don't know if that means 24...36...48 new legends, but we should expect a healthy influx of new players this year.

Hopefully that doesn’t mean at the expense of losing other legends though.

Inevitably, SDS does lose the rights to some guys. It happens every year. I can remember players like Gaylord Perry, Jack McDowell and Yogi Berra being in multiple versions of The Show, but they weren't in this year's edition. Even last year, guys like Darin Erstad, Doc Ellis and Albert Belle were in the game, but they aren't this year. I think SDS will probably lose a few ancillary legends from this year's cycle, but they tend to replace them with big names. This year, we had Willie Mays, Ivan Rodriguez, Rogers Hornsby, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, and a ton of other big-name stars enter the cycle. By teasing Rivera, Ortiz, Maddux, Smoltz and Glavine for 20, SDS could be setting up the community to not realize that some lesser-known guys might not be coming back.

Vida Blue. There are a lot of good lefty options in the game already, but it's much easier to find a bopper for the outfield than a front-line starter

From what I gathered, you have control of each throw you make to a specific base. Using your catcher example where the ball is put in play, I would assume the batted ball would "cancel out" your catcher throw because you would not be able to complete said pre-loaded throw. The meter would then reset to whichever player you are controlling and allow you load a throw to a base you then choose. I could be wrong, but that would make sense to me. Guess we'll find out at launch.

~updated as of February 13 live stream~

He did play one inning as catcher in 2019, so I think, by technicality, he should have catcher eligibility on his card.

~Updated after YouTube/Twitch creator reveals and March 7 live stream~

I updated the players with hyperlinks to the actual tweets, videos and streams of where to find them, so hopefully it's a little more enjoyable

@MrGamebred said in MLB 20 Legends (Updated after 03/07):

Did they say if they'd be revealing anymore legends before the release?

No confirmation on anymore pre-release reveals, but I'd definitely expect to see some new ones once the game drops. Someone mentioned that Honus Wagner wasn't revealed in 19 until a few months after release, so my guess would be that there are a number of players left that the developers want to surprise everyone with.

@tomivory23 said in The Show already on its bs :

I'm confused

His three-run HR only accounted for two runs

Be patient and power swing. That's about all I've got for you. Good luck

Gallo, Tatis, Ohtani and Olson, in my opinion. Gallo has always been glitchy; Tatis has a nice swing, good fielding and great speed; Ohtani is good on both sides of the ball; Olson has big pop and strong fielding

@MadderBumgarner said in Every Diamond Monthly Award Card in The Show History (May-September):

You are a hero sir. Give me that 85 B Crawford card!

Appreciate it! I never realized how little love the Giants have gotten over the years. That Crawford could be a solid SS option

@nflman2033 said in Every Diamond Monthly Award Card in The Show History (May-September):

Awesome post, thanks.

Would love that Dieterich card from last year, since I didn't play 18.

I agree. I feel like so many people loved last year's Dietrich that SDS almost has to put it back in the game. That 120 power against righties sounds amazing