MLB The Show 26 Showcases Presentation Upgrades and New Commentators

We continued the march towards MLB The Show 26’s release with presentation getting the spotlight from SDS this week.

SDS pushed the CWS and DD-specific commentary (and the addition of Robert Flores and Jessica Mendoza for those things), “dynamic” commentary, and a whole bunch of visual treats like additional Statcast replays and more stadium-specific visuals.

We now have an official OS Account that you all can sign-up for right now. I implore all of you, whether you want to subscribe to a paid tier or not, to go that site and sign-up. Go there, click the “Sign In” button and then use either Discord or your OS name to log-in and connect everything together.

It will make your life easier on the forums and Discord even if you’re just going with the Rookie/free tier. If you somehow have no account on OS or Discord, you can make a totally fresh account at that link as well. You can subscribe to the premium newsletter through your OS account as well if you don’t want to do it here.

And speaking of which, please join the OS Discord.

But before I get into detailing some of the upgrades and giving some takes, I have to be honest with you all real quick. I think we’ve built up a good rapport and, you know, a lot of you have been reading this long enough that we can tell each other things — we’re in the trust tree together.

So as we swing together in the trust tree, let me say that while I have been saying I don’t believe SDS quite gets how to market their game this year or most sports games know how to handle a universe where graphics aren’t coming to save them anymore, I don’t care in this specific case.

I’m a full-on mark this year for this game, and it’s not going to change no matter what. I wrote 10,000 words breaking down just the NL franchise mode teams this week in the premium newsletter, which should tell you everything you need to know already.

And it has almost nothing to do with The Show. Instead, it’s the fact that I’m looking forward to the real baseball season so much so that I just need a new MLB game injected into my bloodstream to satiate me on some level.

Let’s go through my brain real quick and make it clear what I’m about right now when it comes to The Show:

• Do I think the presentation video today was great? No.

• Has anything so far gotten me truly amped up about ‘26? No, not really.

• Could I just get a baseball fix by playing ‘25? Yes.

• Will I play ‘25 again? No.

• Do I think ‘26 is going to be soooooo much better than ‘25 at this point that I shouldn’t re-examine that question above? Probably, but I won’t engage further with those thoughts — and you can’t make me.

• Is that rational? No.

• Do I care? Abso-freaking-lutely not.

• (Am I also at least a little bit more excited than usual because I think the looming lockout might last a real long time next year? Yes.)

And here’s the other thing, many of you know exactly what I’m talking about in terms of being so hyped for the real sports season that you just want the new sports video game to fill that hole in your heart in the meantime. None of you SOBs (sons of baseballers) should judge me because I know you all know that feeling I’m talking about.

So let me be clear that while I feel I’m still clear-eyed about the video game itself, I’m so ready to play the hell out of this game because I need a baseball fix, and a sports game with all the official licensing is one of my favorite ways to get it — no matter the sport.

Okay, now let me get into the actual presentation stuff.

What exactly “dynamic” commentary means is up for debate whenever it is brought up in any sports game. I believe what SDS is probably talking about is there will now be actual integration of the pregame storylines that were more just visual fodder in last year’s pregame flow.

The idea is that you have these game storylines once again, but this time some of them will actually be brought up by Boog and Singleton during the pregame and game itself. And then I think what the plan appears to be is (some) of those storylines will be called back on at least one time during the game depending on how it’s going.

So if we use the example in the picture above, if Will Wagner hits a home run, then I think Boog and Singleton will point back to this storyline during the game. Or if he’s 0-4, then they’ll say he’s still searching for that power.

How “dynamic” is that? It’s moot to me because plenty of games have been saying “dynamic” commentary for years when all it really means is “we built multiple choice routes into our decision tree based on a starting point.”

What got more attention than that from SDS in their videos this week is the addition of Robert Flores for Diamond Dynasty and Jessica Mendoza for your RttS journey in the CWS.

Even if you don’t like DD, the Flores thing is a good add. These modes aren’t going anywhere, so building good presentation into them is logical. And it seems like they might get at least a little “weird” with it in terms of breaking the fourth wall and calling out that it’s a video game.

Boog and Singleton would sort of touch on this with the fake league that was already in DD, but it would still be couched in the idea of it being “real” on some level. I don’t think Flores has that mandate, so I’m all for him talking about “Supercharged” players, new cards and how they look, or specific attributes. Have fun with it, and maybe they’ll learn some lessons to bring over to the “realistic” side of the game.

Mendoza will be handling the CWS, and the whole CWS thing feels like such a tease (even more than the WBC to me). I genuinely do hate that I’m going to need to boot up RttS to see it because I don’t like playing RttS. I understand that the WBC is probably a licensing nightmare (there’s a reason the World Cup got its own games and had different licensing even if there was a FIFA game in the same year), and so I’m sure it can’t be in franchise mode or its own mode because they won’t have the rights to enough players and all that.

However, unlike the WBC’s potential licensing issues, the CWS seems like it should either be its own little standalone thing as well with fake players, or it should be integrated somehow in franchise mode so you can see some of the “prospects” you’re scouting playing in it.

Overall, I’m always a little frustrated when I see a lot of work going into stuff like the CWS or WBC and it not being utilized in multiple modes or areas of the game because those things could add a lot to multiple areas of the experience.

Nevertheless, the CWS stuff all looks great, and it seems like SDS is most proud of it this year as it’s been mentioned in almost every feature premiere.

Beyond those new things, I’m also always impressed by the Storylines presentation (which is getting a Season 4) because while the gameplay is mostly glorified “moments” stuff, the presentation is A+ overall. It’s basically just a lot of cutscenes, but that’s fine because they’re informative and entertaining, and the gameplay is really just there to break that all up before you get another sweet treat of presentational goodness.

Elsewhere, the OS forums crew was obviously poking around and they did seem to notice some jersey fit tweaks. The top button will now no longer always be buttoned up (OSer TripleCrown and others picked that out).

Some others speculated that maybe there is a “baggier” jersey option as well, but that didn’t seem as obvious to me so far, so we’ll need to wait on that one.

SDS did make it clear that they’re adding more stadium effects in the form of new fireworks, and things like CO2 smoke and flames. It seems like there will be more stadium-specific stuff as well, which everyone on OS always begs for (along with as many real ads in the stadiums as possible since we want to hit bombs off the real Coca-Coca bottle at Oracle Park, not some generic brand).

Overall, it seems like they’re trying to make all the game modes more unique (which is good), and they’re adding some fresh faces to those modes to make it work, but I suspect a bunch of people will be bummed there isn’t at least one “new” commentary duo for regular games to go along with Boog and Singleton. It’s almost becoming a norm at this point for the biggest sports games to have at least two full teams, and SDS is one of those biggest games.

Beyond the commentary side of things, SDS’ best stuff has come in the form of its presentation visuals, banners, and graphics, so it is good to see they have a Sunday Night Showcase and some updated “regional” broadcast stuff in there, too.

The bottom line here is a lot of stuff had been shown elsewhere before this week, so there weren’t too many surprises from the presentation premiere. Still, I think their priorities are in the right place, even if I’m bummed the big ticket items like the CWS and WBC are “mode locked” in big ways.

One More Thing…

Before I go, let me quickly mention that Super Battle Golf came out this week on Steam. I love “party” golf games, and “friendslop” has become its own sub-genre in such a big way the last two years that sports games are becoming more of a mainstay in the category — even if I don’t like calling the sub-genre “friendslop” because it’s a pejorative in a way that undermines the games themselves.

It’s for 1-8 players and it’s only about $7 right now. I dabbled with it yesterday, and I already feel comfortable saying snag this one. Get a couple mates together and laugh your asses off playing it.

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

-Chase