The release of San Diego Studio’s yearly edition of MLB The Show is just a week away. On Wednesday, the overall ratings for the top 150 players in the game were revealed. Players are rated on a scale of 0-99 in over a dozen categories, including hitting contact and power, fielding, arm strength, and plate discipline. Each of these attribute categories contributes to a player’s overall rating. 99 Overall players are considered to be among the best in the game.
During a three hour special broadcast on MLB’s YouTube account, Robert Flores and Kait Maniscalco were joined by game developers and former MLB stars as they talked about player ratings and new features in MLB The Show 2025.
Before we get to the Mets’ Big Five, let’s take a look at the Top 10 players in MLB The Show 25:
It’s important to note here that Juan Soto is ranked higher than Aaron Judge…probably because he was the only one of the two who showed up in the 2024 World Series against the Dodgers.
Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor, and Pete Alonso are all rated 85 or higher, so they’ll start this year as diamond cards. If Vientos and Senga get off to a hot start in the 2025 season, they should have no issue being promoted from gold to diamond status. It’s surprising that Sean Manaea is missing from the top 5 considering he was the ace of this staff last year, while Senga spent most of the season on the IL. I’m definitely interested to see the full list of ratings for the Mets. San Diego Studios uses a ridiculous amount of metrics to rank and rate players, so I’m assuming they have their reasons.
In the year 2020, everything sucked and there was essentially no baseball. In 2025, everything still sucks…but at least we’ve got baseball? Every spring, in anticipation of the new iteration of MLB The Show going live, I think back to baseball during the worst of times, with a focus on how important this damn game is. For the baseball obsessed, MLB The Show 20 was a lifeline and a invaluable source of escapism during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pro ballplayers were also left missing their sport. As a result, many of them turned to video game streaming as a form of entertainment, competition, and human connection. The MLB Players Association, Major League Baseball, and Sony’s San Diego Studio (creators of The Show) hosted a Players Tournament featuring Trevor May, Hunter Pence, Amir Garrett, and Blake Snell. The 4 players competed in a virtual tournament, which was livestreamed across social media channels. In this inaugural tournament, Amir Garrett bested Blake Snell 2-1 in a three game series to claim the title.
The popularity of this event brought about a MLB The Show: Players League. This time, representatives from all 30 major league teams would compete in a full 30 game season followed by a postseason.
The regular season games were broadcast on ESPN, ESPN 2, MLB Network, and Fox Sports and the action was spread across a dozen episodes and two primetime specials. The MLB and baseball in general does not exactly promote or encourage player personalities, so it was really wonderful to see these guys be themselves and have fun.
As a Mets fan, I think this was the first opportunity I had to see how uber-competitive Jeff McNeil is. By now we all know that Jeff is also an extremely talented golfer, and guys who are scratch golfers also tend to be psychotically competitive. I don’t think they could have picked a better representative from the 2020 Mets than the Squirrel (Maybe Todd Frazier? That dude oozes charisma).
Jeff finished 21-8 in league play and advanced to the postseason. He beat Baltimore’s Dwight Smith Jr. in the quarterfinals before losing to the eventual champion, Blake Snell, in the semis.
There were lots of ways for fans to engage with this virtual event beyond watching the broadcasts. Topps offered a mini-set of baseball cards featuring each of the player representatives in the tournament. To add an extra layer of interactivity for fans, San Diego Studios honored each one of the postseason contenders with a special card to be used in in MLB The Show 2020. McNeil’s card stayed in my line-up for a really long time despite there being plenty of better options. His position versatility and clutch attributes made him a fun card to use.
Video game streaming continues to rise in popularity as does MLB The Show, which has been the only simulation style baseball video game with MLB licensing since 2014. Hopefully it wont take another global shutdown to convince Major League Baseball and San Diego Studios to host another Players League.
