The World Series is here, and Sony have announced next year’s MLB The Show 20. With a release date of 17 March 2020 we are already gearing up to hit the diamond once again and take on the big bats and power pitchers to claim another World Series title.
MLB The Show 19 received superb
reviews from critics and players alike, but no game is perfect. What
additions and changes would we like to see for MLB The Show 20?
Narrow the hitting window
Gameplay has been pretty strong in The Show 19, but there are a few areas of frustration for those in the community. One is the wide window hitters have to make contact and extend at-bats. Swings that get labelled as “too late” or “too early” can still make contact, fouling off a pitch that had them totally fooled and preventing an out.
SWING: 19's timing window was too forgiving
That doesn’t make any logical sense, and can become a real
frustration in online play when your opponent is constantly fouling off on bad
swings until he finally squares one up and drops it in for a hit.
Narrowing the window hitters have and making those “too
early” swings into sword
strikes would help reward the skill.
Reward vs realism
Speaking of rewarding skill… How often have you squared up a pitch and just lined out? What about correctly guessing the pitch, moving the plate coverage indicator to the right spot AND squared up the pitch before lining out?
READ MORE: Everything you need to know about MLB The Show 20
Baseball doesn’t constantly reward every well hit ball with
a homer, and if The Show did that games would last hours, but The Show 19 was
definitely off in the way it rewarded hitter skill. It seemed like well-timed
swings that were paired with good PCI use would result in outs way too often, while
if your timing was off a little you could drop a hit over the second baseman
with regularity. It was enough to drive you insane and is definitely something
that needs to be adjusted in MLB The Show 20.
Relocation/Expansion
This topic is once again coming up in MLB, with talks of the
Rays wanting out of Tampa Bay and Quebec wanting back in to baseball. There has
even been talk of a two-team expansion of the Majors.
Adding this option to The Show 20 would be welcomed by
franchise mode players and is already something you can find in EA’s NHL and
Madden games. They could limit it to the smaller market teams. The Yankees and
Red Sox aren’t going to relocate, but Oakland or Tampa Bay could, and an
expansion team would open the door for expansion drafts which brings another
level of gameplay to franchise mode.
Better starter options in Dimond Dynasty
ROTATION: You can build a strong 5, but not use them all
The Show’s version of Ultimate Team is pretty good, but one issue is the starting pitcher options. It is currently the luck of the draw if you get your #1 starter or your #4 for game. This is good as it forces players to properly fill out their rotation, but it also means you can get stuck with some bad luck and rarely get to use your ace.
READ MORE: Javier Baez on cover for MLB The Show 20
A better system would be to allow you to pick your starting
pitcher, but then have him locked in your rotation and unusable for 4 games
after that. This would create a proper rotation and mean you need to manage
your rotation accordingly.
New attributes & fixes to OP ones
Things like HR/9 have a big effect on if a pitcher gives up
a homer, even on a meatball down the middle which makes no real sense and is
another contributing factor to the line drive problem. Nerfing the effect of
HR/9 would go some way to helping out
There also needs to be more attributes to help differentiate
between players who otherwise are pretty similar. Things like diving or
spectacular catch for fielders, and tagging or double play for infielders.
Acceleration also needs to be added to give quick bursts to
the ball in the field and add a bit more dynamic decision making to base running.
You can take a bigger lead with a player if they have good acceleration and
still make it back safe even without top end speed.
All this would help create more of a unique feel for each
player, especially in Diamond Dynasty where many cards feel the same at the
plate and in the field