Ranking Every MLB The Show Franchise Mode Team: NL Edition (Part 1)

When I was making up my most “intriguing” teams list for MLB The Show’s franchise mode, I stopped at five teams, but this time I don’t want to stop at just a handful of teams.

So today’s newsletter will rank every NL team based on some completely subjective rankings that I’ll detail below. The AL will get their time to shine in a future newsletter because it was a bit too daunting trying to do the entire league in one go (plus every NL team didn’t even fit in a single newsletter this week, so premium members are already getting a double newsletter today in your inbox).

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.

So what makes up my rankings? It’s not just who are the “best” teams or who are expected to be the best teams. No, I’m going to factor in a variety of other things:

• How much of a challenge will it be to win - Harder isn’t always better, but usually I will consider it better.

• Home stadium - We’re playing half our games here, a good park matters

• Cornerstone players - Who are we building this team around?

• Contracts/payroll - How much payroll can the team handle and who is already paid?

• Farm system - How good or bad is the prospect pool?

• Potential storylines - What are the stories you can tell with this team?

• Market/owner - As I discussed in the “intriguing” teams list, role-playing the market and how good/bad your owner is can play a role if you want it to.

On top of that, I like to have a clear direction for my franchise team. Are we rebuilding? Is this the last hurrah before blowing it up? Is this a total teardown? The clearer the identity of the team (for better or worse), the more I like it.

We always have a “who are you planning to play as?” thread on the forums, so I want these rankings to help people out who aren’t quite sure which direction to go as of yet. This is why I’ve dedicated 10,000 words to these rankings that you can read between the two newsletters today.

Let’s get to it and start with the 15th team on the list:

15) Miami Marlins

Projected O/U win total as of today: 73.5 wins

The vibes are always off, and they refuse to lean into being the tacky franchise that wears loud colors and has bright things going on in its almost-always-empty stadium. On the field, they did play better than expected last season, so that’s something.

Because the pitching could be a strength, they could overachieve again this season, but the problem is they’re also in a division with three other beasts. On the bright side, you’re fielding a young team with a promising outfield and have Pete Fairbanks on the back end.

The Marlins lack stars that you can get truly excited about, but it’s reasonable to expect someone like Max Meyer or Eury Perez to take a leap at some point.

You have an active team on the bases, and while you’re not going to hit tons of home runs, you can be aggressive taking an extra bag as often as possible to fit the culture the Marlins are striving to instill.

The Cabrera trade got you Owen Caissie to go with Stowers and Marsee in the outfield, and Xavier Edwards is going to continue to be nothing but energy to give you a lift day to day. It’s a “gritty” squad to me, and you’ll be in a lot of close games, which should be fun.

But, again, it’s not a very exciting franchise to be because some part of the “core” is already in place yet you still don’t have the top-end talent, and most of the aesthetics are below average. You’re also likely to be in 3-2 games rather than 10-9 games, and that’s less appealing to me.

• How Hard to Win: 8/10 — It’s not impossible to see a team built around pitching and speed surprising a bit, but you’ll need older teams to fall back to make any noise in the NL East.

• Home Stadium: 2/10 — It could be more than it is, but unless The Show lets you edit pre-existing stadiums, it’s going to be a bit of a drag. At least it will be more full in the video game.

• Cornerstone Players: N/A

• Contracts/Payroll: 77M (30th in MLB), the epitome of a cheap franchise, and they’ll always cry poor along the way, which makes it all the more insufferable. Alcantara has an opt-out, and I wonder how that will be handled in The Show, and I’m sure Pete Fairbanks might be offered up at the deadline as well if you struggle. This team could have as little as 10M in long-term money on the books next year before factoring in arbitration.

• Farm System: (10th in ESPN’s latest rankings) - Thomas White (LHP), Robby Snelling (LHP), Joe Mack (C), Owen Caissie (OF) are Top 100 prospects. I love a couple of LHPs at the top of the list, and the Fish have been bringing in plenty of talent the last 24 months through the draft and trades. The good thing is all four of the top prospects could all make their debuts this year in some capacity, but the pitchers obviously won’t be ready for full workloads right away.

• Potential Storylines: What happens with Alcantara and Fairbanks if you’re not in it, and what could you get for them? It’s clear the Marlins do have some semblance of a core, but they’re not there yet and so how many more young pieces can you grab at the deadline if you’re well out of it?

• Market/Owner: Bruce Sherman appears to be bad at owning a baseball team.

• Wild Card(s): Alcantara was not good last year, but we all know what he’s capable of doing, and you’ll be hoping he gets back to Cy Young status this year. If he’s great, he either helps your team over-perform or gets you a haul in a trade.

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