MLB The Show 25 Franchise Mode In-Depth Breakdown

I mentioned this at the end of last week’s newsletter but want to lead with it here. I have created an e-mail address, and I want you lovable weirdos to reach out to me there with “mailbag” questions whenever you want. I grew up reading Bill Simmons during the rise of the internet, and I have I always loved the idea of a “mailbag” and so I give you the means to hit me up with comments, thoughts, musings, questions, or whatever else you got. Whether you want to explain who has haunted you the most in your MLB The Show franchise playthroughs, detail house rules that must be followed when you play with friends (or else get punched), or explain to me why Gerald Green is the most overrated player in NBA 2K history, hit me up. If I get enough responses from y’all, then I’d love to feature them in future newsletters or in “mailbags” of our own.

Here is the e-mail: [email protected] (and bonus points if you also include your city, name (or alias), and some sort of subject to go along with your thoughts. I’m going to answer one of the questions I got at the end of this newsletter just to, ya know, incentivize y’all to hopefully hit me up! Okay, now let’s get to franchise mode.

For a lot of folks on OS, this is the biggest week during the pre-release coverage for The Show. Y’all love franchise mode, and y’all also hate what’s been done to your favorite son in many sports games — and rightfully so. A lot of these annual games are finally realizing the error of their ways after multiple years of letting these modes rot to some extent, and that’s good, but the issue is the deficits are real. It’s not easy fixing what’s been left to rot. You can’t just paint over where the termites ate away at the foundation and say “all fixed!” I mean, you can, but you’re lying, and you shouldn’t lie (much).

SDS came to that point with The Show in the last couple seasons. Year-to-year saves and rosters being able to be transferred between versions of The Show hid a lot of foundational issues (and were incredible features we all want back). You could argue that removing those features has not been worth the foundational reworks to this point, and I think you could make that case, but the point is SDS made a choice to stop pretending everything was normal and stripped a lot of stuff from franchise mode in order to start fixing the foundation.

Of course, the issue is they didn’t immediately replace missing features with new stuff, and that’s been an ongoing problem since other legacy issues still remain. Now, legacy issues are always going to be a thing because fixing franchise modes is an eternal game of wack-a-mole, but you want to get to a point where the legacy issues don’t linger for 5+ years. SDS isn’t past that point yet, and I don’t think this is the year they overcome that problem either. However, while I have negative things to say about franchise mode, it’s not from a place of “hopelessness” that I’m going to be saying them. It’s more the nature of the beast where they clearly fixed one thing, but because they’re fixing that thing, it’s now going to make the other legacy issue more obvious (see: pesky moles).

(I’m sorry for reminding you that Caddyshack 2 even exists, but it has a gopher, which is mole-adjacent).

The Hot Stove Is The Focus

What SDS has done with the offseason is take a lot of what worked in March to October and added on to it in some major ways. One of the long-running theories many of us on OS have had is that franchise mode was so busted logic-wise that March to October was more or less the “new” franchise mode that would slowly take its place. This is not what has happened as those two modes have remained more like season mode vs. franchise mode (as they should be).

But the bigger thing is they seem to be aligning more and more in terms of features and logic. That’s a good thing because you don’t want SDS to have to do completely different work for two different modes that have a lot in common. This also means there’s probably a lot of unseen work and development hours that have gone into making that a reality. My theory is that we should see more improvements at a quicker pace in franchise mode now that these two modes are more aligned, and I think ‘25 is a good sign of that sort of progress.

I use ‘25 as proof of that because what was in March to October previously with free agency was a good enough foundation, but it’s clearly got way more logic and depth now within franchise mode. The shared framework is obvious as both modes now have three free agents you put on your power rankings to chase in the offseason. This framework was already in MtO and now has depth in franchise mode.

There are a variety of factors that will go into free agency, and it’s way more logic than we’ve seen in The Show’s franchise mode in any recent season (in part because some of it was only in MtO before).

• Player motivations: money, positional need, dynamic AAVs based on the team, players are aware of what style of player you want (power bat, contact guy, and so on)

• Human nature: wanting to feel wanted, being angry if you get lowballed, panicking and just signing because it’s getting late in the offseason, other players waiting for the “market setters” to sign so they know their positional worth

• League/Team motivations: big market clubs will dominate the top of free agency, fog of war for who is also involved in negotiations, getting the chance to screw over rival teams, qualifying offers now based on top 150 free agents, you now have a set budget for each squad that can’t be topped

This idea of “motivation” is the stand-in for what’s driving a lot of the offseason concepts. You can’t offer contracts until a player is at least 50 percent motivated to sign with you, and the higher the motivation, the more likely it is a player signs with you. You’re never 100 percent guaranteed to sign someone, which I think is good, and you go through a process of trying to win someone over. The exception is when you’re offered the chance to screw over a rival as the game comes to you with these moments where you can try to swoop in and sign someone that might be on the verge of going to another hated squad. I would eventually like to see more in-depth recruiting (The Show’s version of recruiting from College Football 25) but this is a logical base to implement and seems fun overall.

It’s hard to know how all this will feel without playing it ourselves, but it seems like a good system with a lot of depth. On the nerdier side of things, the AAVs and years on contracts seem more in line with real life now. Some of us noticed Vladdy’s numbers were maybe a little low in the preview video on Tuesday, but their explanation should remove most of the AAV fears. Basically there’s a 25 percent cushion on either side, so while a prediction might be 7 years, 25 million AAV for Vladdy, he could end up at something like 40 million AAV over 9 years. It just depends on how free agency plays out. They also made the point that no 1B has eclipsed 30 million AAV as of yet, which is fair. Vladdy Jr. is going to be at 28.5 million for this year, and if you want to now say Harper is a 1B (even if he wasn’t signed to play there), he’s at about 27.5 million.

The argument against the big board I saw was that it’s unrealistic to only have three guys on your board at one time. If we look at 2025 free agency (at least so far), the Mets lead the way with 13 signings (five of those signings being their own guys coming back), but that’s the only team that I think even has 10+ signings (I’m not talking arbitration-eligible players, this is strictly free agency). Free agency is not generally where you sign tons of players, and not everyone will be signing in the first couple weeks. On top of that, while it’s a silly thing to have to note on some level, you can now withdraw contract offers, which you could not do last year.

One other argument I saw that I want to dispute revolves around the idea of your budget being “set in stone” not being realistic. Look, I love the Moneyball scene involving Billy Beane getting ownership to take on more salary so he can trade for Ricardo Rincon so damn much, but it’s probably for the best to start “small” for this stuff. You don’t add the sweeteners like arguing with your owner for more budget until you actually get the nuts and bolts of something right. SDS needs to get the base-level logic correct first before adding that sort of fun addition.

(The budget isn’t even truly “static” either it’s just based on where your team is at right now. If you sign arbitration-eligible players to hefty extensions, that number is going to go down. If you get players on your team to take smaller-than-expected extensions, the number goes up. It’s just making sure you don’t bankrupt yourself, which was an issue with negative budgets in the prior game. They’re just doing the math for us now so we don’t have to worry about it.)

There’s even more here, but I want to keep moving because I almost don’t feel like I need to say much more about the mechanics of free agency itself. It clearly got a lot of work, and I think it’s going to be a net-positive. I have knock-on concerns that I’ll get to in a later section, but free agency itself looks much improved.

Odd That We Didn’t See More Storylines

The irony of the deep dive stream was they mentioned wanting to streamline the offseason but then spent the whole stream just showing the offseason. I think some people took the “streamline” comment the wrong way because it’s not that they want people to speed through the offseason, they just don’t want people to be bored by it. They want people to play multiple seasons in franchise mode and not get bogged down by boring stuff. For example, yes, it did suck to go through free agency day by day in past games, and it’s good they’re streamlining that. However, the offseason is 3-4 hours of a 162-game playthrough that could last months. The offseason is a blip in a playthrough. An important blip, but still a blip.

This brings me to my storylines point. There is no feature premiere for presentation this year, and one of the coolest things from the video on Tuesday was highlighting some of the new storylines and other presentation elements within franchise mode. In the deep dive, we got to see basically none of that, which I don’t think means something is wrong, it just remains a mystery box. How much commentary will play for these storylines, and do the storylines involve stuff like big trades in the league as well?

This Gunnar for Julio trade is certainly going to rub lots of people the wrong way, and it was an offseason trade in the simulation, but would this trade come up during a game between the Angels and Yankees if it had happened during the season? Or would it only come up if the Orioles or Mariners were involved in the game you’re playing? Or would it not come up at all? I would have liked some more clarity around that sort of stuff, but I remain excited either way for the new presentation touches. (By the way, who says no faster if the Mariners and Orioles even discussed a trade like that?)

We also didn’t hear about opt-outs, no-trade clauses, player/team options, and front-loaded or back-loaded contracts. It seems clear those things are not going to be in free agency contracts (which sucks), but for contract extensions during Spring Training (or other times) you could do player/team options and front-load deals. I’m assuming that’s still in place, but I would have liked confirmation there.

Legacy Issues That Will Likely Return

To start off with a disclaimer, SDS has essentially redone drafting, scouting, free agency, and trading in these last two years. That’s a lot, and it was arguably all busted or just bad before the reworks. Not all of these elements are “perfect” now, but even with drafting, SDS mentioned making sure relievers/closers weren’t first-round talents anymore for ‘25. Who knows if a lot of 19-year-old prospects still have full beards or whatever, but the point is that it seems easier for them to fix stuff that they’ve finally re-worked.

Still, when that much of a mode is in a bad place, it means there’s still plenty more to go. The “big three” legacy issues I think we’re still going to have are:

• Bullpen management issues

• Lineup issues

• Regression/progression issues

All of this plays into roster management, and that’s probably the next big thing to tackle. Bullpen management issues can be deciphered by scoping out Matt Strahm in free agency:

Maybe he was injured, but it’s more likely the AI teams still aren’t using middle relievers the right way. On the bright side, it looks like he’s still getting paid the proper amount so at least he won’t rot in free agency due to his low stats.

If you want to make a positive out of a negative, at least it will be easier to track this issue. The player cards will now have a “recent games” tab (plus stuff like what round a player was drafted) so now we can see how long guys are going between bullpen appearances.

Lineup issues I don’t need to spend much time on, but from what I saw of the simulation and gameplay shown, it seems like AI teams still aren’t always building their lineups correctly. This probably goes into the very black/white way teams are approaching roster building. It’s good that teams won’t stack five shortstops anymore, but I believe that Gunnar-Julio trade happens in part because one of the teams wanted to pursue a a free agent that played either Gunnar’s or Julio’s position. The Show does have “secondary positions” and they went out of their way to mention two-way players (if some pop up beyond just Shohei) have tons of trade value, but you’re not going to trade Aaron Judge to pursue Kyle Tucker. It’s not clear if it’s truly that black and white, but we also had this signing happen:

I’m fine with the Dodgers giving another FU to MLB, but it coincided with Teoscar Hernandez being traded. That makes more sense because Tucker is the superior player on a huge contract, but it does make me think it’s going to be a relatively binary system. This means I’m not sure if a Bregman-Devers situation would be allowed to happen outside of 30-team control. Do the Red Sox just trade Devers in The Show 25? We’ll have to wait and see, but I have doubts about the roster flexibility. Regardless, I prefer that teams be rigid rather than hoarding talent at positions (it’s very annoying in a game like College Football to see five highly rated QBs on one team), but I’d prefer to not have to pick between extremes.

Lastly, the issues with progression/regression are a big deal. The age curve is real, but it’s very extreme in The Show. Guys like Vladdy and Tucker should be getting 10-year deals, but are they going to be useless 2-3 years into the deal because the age cliff hits like a truck? We want albatross contracts and to not be able to move these hefty contracts for quality prospects, but fixing one legacy issue (realistic contract lengths and AAVs) will only highlight the other legacy issue even more (again, friggin’ moles).

I’m less concerned about some of the other simulated stats and signings I saw in the simulation. Zac Gallen had 150 strikeouts in around 200 IP, which is low, but that’s been a ratings issue in the past. They set the K/9 rating total too low, I think in part due to Diamond Dynasty (even though the rating scales are different), and you can usually correct that sort of issue with some simple player edits (yes, I know it would be nice not to have to do that, but it is a fixable problem). I also didn’t see tons of pitchers with over 200 IP and oodles of complete games, so maybe they did work on that problem a bit as well.

I also noticed Dylan Cease signed with the Brewers for a fat contract. I don’t think that’s really the “Brewers Way” or something they would normally do, but it was very late in the offseason and seemed like more of a Bregman panic situation. I’m fine with that in a vacuum.

Online Franchise Shouldn’t Come Back Yet

This comes up every year, but this mode is still not quite ready for online franchise. Nostalgia clouds our memories at times, so I sometimes need to remind people that The Show’s old online franchise mode was a disaster. It barely worked at the best of times, and you can’t bring something like that back until you get a better base. Yes, other human owners could hide some of the roster management issues that are some of the most outstanding legacy issues that still exist, but the end result would still be lots of angry people wondering why the mode is so busted and buggy.

Everything is more fun when you can play together, and I want online franchise back, but I think next year is really the first time that it might be worth bringing that mode back. Hopefully roster management gets lots of love, SDS comes up with more ways to make franchise mode flexible/shorter (only the most insane of us are going to be in 162-game leagues), the simulated stats are better, and then at that point you just need to worry about the usual issues of whether the mode is stable enough to handle online server chaos.

…Oh, Also Jerseys

Look at the belt! So, good and bad here depending on who you ask so far. I think the new pants styles look good, but the jersey fits are a little more hit or miss. O’Neill is a big, beefy, muscular man and looks pretty good. With other players, I think I saw one OSer say it looks like they’re a “buff body wearing a corset” which is a pretty solid burn. Here is a good look at what I think they mean:

How jerseys sit on players has been a thing that’s always been a little hard to get totally right across sports games. My favorite one was jerseys in MLB 2K8 that just had wind constantly going through them:

Ultimately, I think the jerseys and pants are going to be a net-positive. However, I can see some of the complaints about how some of the styles look, and this is probably just playing into the broader point that jerseys getting better bumps up against player models not keeping up.

MAILBAG!

The very first email I got came from Darren, so let’s end this newsletter with his question (and send me your own!):

Darren you have good friends, and this is the perfect sort of question to ask at the bar before the first round. Toughest Stadiums is a distant third because you can technically find that list still, it’s just annoying to get to within the recruiting menu. I am going with Classic Games if I have to pick between that and a Trophy Case. I’ve talked about Classics and Trophy Cases in prior newsletters (trophy cases from both NFL 2K’s The Crib and NCAA Football), but I think Classics are the more important one because it’s just more visual. Being able to go back and look at clips and pictures from epic games in your little Vault area is dope, and it’s fun to see the little “scores” of the games to help rank them. Why did that game get 2,000 points on the “epic” scale, I dunno, but I like big number. It was also a nice thing for online dynasties as a way to remind people of how you owned them in the biggest spot, so yeah, that’s my pick. Thanks for the question, Darren.

Until next time y’all. And, as always, thanks for reading.

-Chase