MLB The Show 19 (PS4 exclusive)

[Octavious]

Pull Mookie Betts in a pack tonight. My team is flat out ridiculous now. I put him at 2B for now as my OF is totally stack.

[Baroquen]

Hit Silver level 40 today, so I added 99 Kershaw to my rotation. He and 99 Bumgarner are a nice pair. 99 Hoffman would have been good for the bullpen, but I already pulled Diamond Andrew Miller at the start of the year, Diamond Gossage as the first inning reward, and Osuna is pretty nasty. Thought it better to fill out my rotation. (Absolutely hate 87 David Price... sold him. And the Diamond reward Cliff Lee wasn't good either).

Fun to have so many good cards to play around with so early in the game season.

[Octavious]

I haven't grabbed any of the 99 pitchers when they come up. I really probably should the next round, but I know I won't The 99 Kershaw is flat out broken. I can't hit him in online seasons. I just try and tire him out by not swinging.

[ChuckB]

Something strange seems to be going on with the Attributes in the RttS mode in MLB 19:

I'm still playing my character (2B of the "Mr. Utility" type). I spent 2019 in AA and then AAA and 2020 was my first MLB season with the Cubs. My final stats (playing 158 games) for that season were batting .352, 220 hits, and 15 HR.

My character is now in 2021 and after 71 games (I had an injury earlier in the season), I'm hitting .261 with 69 hits and 7 HR and I really struggle with my batting (timing is mostly off, many late and very late hitting). My attributes are pretty good: Contact R/L: 95/86, Power R/L: 67/64, Vision 69 and Speed 78 (and while I did not make huge improvements from 2020 to 2021, these attributes were certainly lower before).

The really strange thing is if I play the game outside of RttS (for example in "March to October") using the same difficulty level (All Star) I have no problem with the batting.

[Baroquen]

Hmmm... I haven' t been playing RttS as much as I was, but I haven't seen anything funky with stats/batting. After that prolonged slump to start my current season (first full season at MLB level; second season total), my guy has been back to those crazy good stats. I'm currently leading the league in batting at about .380ish average, about 40 points ahead of Trout. I'll play around some and see if I notice anything different after latest patch (whenever that was).

Pretty crazy that I have an all-diamond DD team this early in the game's cycle. But I don't think it's a bad thing necessarily. There are so many diamond choices, and so many different ways to get them, that I'm not seeing the same teams when I'm playing RS. And there's lots of debate online about lineups and player preferences. While I agree that the diamonds have made the lesser tiers pretty meaningless, I'm enjoying all of the great cards to collect/use.

[ChuckB]

I'm still playing this game a lot (mainly RTTS but also Road to October and some DD). Overall, it's a fantastic game but a few things are just weird (many of which are specific to RTTS - "Road to the Show" where you play ONE player through his career), especially given how established the series is now (none of them are serious issues that are ruining the game):

1. The new "personality traits" that are supposed to make this more RPG are really half-baked. There are basically four traits (captain, Heart and Soul, Maverick, and Lightening Rod) and they basically give you little perks (some would call them cheats) but with enough time you can work yourself through all trees, which is really strange. There are some little corny "talks" with teammates but overall, it doesn't make this anything close to an RPG and none of that really seems to matter, especially not within the social environment of your own team.

2. While the "personality traits" try to make this more personal/RPG, some other (simple) opportunities to make you feel more involved are simply overlooked. So, my character is playing 2B for the Cubs and I joined their MLB team in 2020, a year after my AA debut. When I joined, all the currently well-known Cubs players were still on the roster (I was throwing a lot of balls to Anthony Rizzo on 1B) but over time, the team changes but no one tells you. You basically find out that Kris Bryant joined the Atlanta Brave when he steps up to the plate one game and I have to throw him out. The manager of the team has now changed twice during my career but I did not only not get the memo but not even a notification. To be honest, I don't even know the name of the current manager but I press the X button often after his pep talks. There doesn't even seem to be an option to check up on any team-related news. It's really strange, as you don't really feel that you are part of a team and that stuff could be so easy to establish (major injuries of team members? No clue, just a new name showing up next to me on the field - also, someone has to work on the name generator "Guiseppe Obama" is NOT a good name).

3. The weirdest thing in RTTS is the complete lack of coaching signs. Yes, there are base coaches that give the base runner signs but I cannot tell you how often I was yelling "oh shit" and start to scramble when I was on base and my team's batter would drop a bunt without anyone telling me about this plan)- Seriously, I'm pretty sure that was in the game years ago.

4. Minor gripe: if you are at-bat and the opponent's manager calls an intentional walk, it starts this excruciatingly long animation where the managers waves his hands, then you watch the manager for a while after his hand-waving and then your player trots to the base. It's really not a very exciting event but they sure milk it.

Again, great game overall and looks fantastic but some things could be (rather easily) further improved.

Chuck