SDS Details Changes Coming to MLB The Show 26's Franchise Mode

SDS spent Thursday detailing the changes coming to franchise mode this year in the usual fashion, a trailer earlier in the day followed by a stream in the afternoon.

“Logic” was the word thrown around the most when discussing the improvements coming to the mode, and that is coming in the form of bullpen logic, lineup logic, and trade logic.

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Of course, when “logic” is the word thrown around the most among your improvements, you’re going to get some Angry Andys in the replies. I'm bucking that trend a bit though because I actually came away more impressed with this year’s preview than the prior couple years.

My general take on franchise mode stuff coming into the cycle has been detailed in various spots as I’ve been going franchise-mode crazy the last couple months here in the newsletter:

• Build Your Perfect MLB The Show 26 Franchise Mode

• Here’s What a Perfect Franchise Mode Looks Like in 2026

• The Worst Part of Every Major Franchise Mode Right Now

• Non-Negotiables In All the Major Franchise Modes

The long and short of that is while I wasn't expecting carryover saves, or online franchise, or a posting system to be in this game, The Show’s lack of “stickiness” and keeping me interested enough in one season — let alone multiple seasons — has not been there for me.

Now, you can create that desire to stick with something over the long haul any number of ways in franchise mode, but I didn't think SDS had gotten much closer to that goal the last couple years with its improvements.

And, on some level, I see why it wasn't happening because they were clear that they were stripping out a lot of bad and outdated stuff and trying to replace it with new parts.

The problem was the new parts like free agency or the MLB Draft were only small portions of the yearly schedule. And both those things relied on me wanting to play multiple seasons, which I didn’t want to do.

And as for the features themselves, I just wasn't that impressed with them as individual features either. There is still so much more they can and should do with the draft and talent development in franchise mode, but you need more minor league roster space, an international signing period, a posting period, and a lot of other stuff to flesh it out. But I don’t think you should do that until the foundation is solid enough elsewhere.

With the free agency system, I like the “new” FA system more than the “new” draft system in terms of the things introduced the last couple years, but neither moved the needle much for me because the game-to-game experience was too boring.

What this year’s improvements seem to be doing is whether you play one season or multiple seasons, these changes are going to be ever-present, and that’s what SDS needs the most of right now to just get this going in a positive direction.

So the stream today was enlightening for me in that sense, and I came away far more content than a lot of my OS compatriots it seems because that’s how I was looking at everything.

Was it full of massive back-of-the-box features? No, and it’s not like I was blown away or anything either, but I’m more excited about franchise mode than I have been in previous years because I can see how my game-to-game experience is likely to improve due to these logic improvements.

And whether you do 30-team control or not, it seems like all the logic improvements will impact CPU and human teams rather than just your team, which has also been an issue in the past.

TRADES, TRADES, TRADES

Before I get a little more into the on-the-field-logic stuff, they did spend a majority of their time going through the new trade engine. And, yes, it is actually “new” it seems (this isn’t the usual “new” that game companies try to throw around when it’s not really new).

SDS has hyped up “logic” improvements for trades in prior years, but this year they showcased the system in a live setting and taped setting, and I'm mostly buying what they’re selling after watching it all.

I will start with the negatives and point out that obviously being able to trade four players on your side for four players on their side (with no third team option either) is still too little considering how weird some baseball trades can get, and I think there were too many “one for one" big prospect for big MLB player trades as they’re far less in style now than they were in previous eras.

In addition, one simulation had the Marlins getting probably too aggressive for how much short-term money they were willing to take on while only being 5-6 games above .500 well before the deadline, but it was nothing like a lot of the worst trades we’ve seen before.

But on the positive side, I did see teams get ultra-aggressive as buyers and sellers, and it was different ones in each simulation. The "Untouchables" concept also seemed to be working great as even when guys like deGrom, Seager, and all these other Rangers got dealt when they went into sell-it-all mode, they didn’t trade Langford. There were multiple Top 100 guys dealt in every simulation, but even as the Pirates went into “buy” mode in one, they didn’t trade Konnor Griffin along the way.

These might be things you just expect games to get right, but we all know they don’t. Trade logic is bad almost across the board, and baseball trades are way more complicated than trades in most other sports games due to the years of control, the lack of a salary cap, and the idea that a 67 overall top prospect can have tons more value than an 85 overall player with multiple All-Star appearances.

And I do think some might say, "well, why is a more challenging trade system even a selling point when you can just choose to not swindle the CPU while leaving on 30-team control, and my response — even as the king of House Rules — is that in a perfect world you do want to be able to just play the game with no House Rules. A lot of us don’t do 30-team control because we love it, we do it because we don’t trust the CPU to tie its own shoes.

Other big components of this new trade system are that they did remove instant trades so now you will be waiting at least a day or two for a response, and there's not a crystal clear feedback loop for how far away or close you are to a done deal, so you can give up far more than you need to and then get mocked in the news for it (no, really they will troll you in the news section it seems).

The parameters that go into the system are extensive as well as it does involve:

• Buyers vs. Sellers

• Market size (small-market teams will only take on walk-year or walk year+1 big-money deals in trades — the closest I saw to a team breaking this rule were the Pirates taking on Nimmo’s deal, which has four years left at about $20M AAV)

• Untouchables (they’re marked and you know a team won’t deal them), so the Gunnar Hendersons of the world won’t be changing teams often.

• In-division trades are harder to pull off

• Positions of need matter

• Positions of strength matter

And then from a league-wide perspective, based on who is on the trade block, it changes how much value you can get at certain positions. Are there no shortstops on the market? Well, then you can probably get more if you decide to trade one.

It was cool to see the ebbs and flows of teams going through a season, too. In one simulation, the Diamondbacks were a seller early on and then sort of went half back-in by the deadline as they turned things around. And there were not an insanely high number of trades either, it just seemed to pick up a bit as the deadline approached (and then got a little wilder on deadline day itself).

It's also a positive that you can see how a prospect stacks up in someone’s system, as well as various new info on player cards. Even some sweeteners like fake trade rumors are now a thing, so there is real depth to the league-wide intrigue. They even remembered to include secondary positions in this new system, so we’ll finally not see CPU teams trade away good players for pennies just because they technically have two good left fielders while not realizing they could just play one in RF.

If this all goes well, to me it seems like the next obvious step would be creating actual GM personalities — or at least team traits — where certain teams tend to target power hitters or up-the-middle players, or pitchers with great fastballs, etc. in trades or the draft.

(After all, layering depth on a system with good bones is much easier than adding layers to something broken on a fundamental level, and this system seems like it might not have a rotten core this go around.)

Lineup And Bullpen Logic

The other major pillar here is that both you and the CPU now get to have brains. Not only will CPU teams be willing to have the slow but high OBP guy in the leadoff role, they will now move players up and down the lineup based on in-season performance. If the high OVR guy is not cutting it while some 74 OVR guy is crushing it, the 74 OVR will start to move his way up the lineup if he keeps it up.

The CPU also has access to bullpen games:

So if a pitcher is low on stamina, you have a short-term injury, or you just don't have a 5th starter right now, you can use an opener. This means we'll see actual bullpen games without needing to do it ourselves, and this should also be the end of poor CPU bullpen usage overall.

The CPU will now consider:

• Has a bullpen pitcher gotten work in the last 3-4 days? If not, let’s try to get him in there.

• How much has he pitched the last 10 days? A lot? Well, then let’s give him another day off.

• Leverage and situation will now drive usage more (your 8th inning guy may be used earlier if leverage/situation calls for it).

We’ll still need to see about starter innings and if the simulation engine is handling the entire staff in an appropriate manner in terms of divvying up innings, but this should still be the end of at least one long-standing bug that has driven many of us mad for years.

Quick Notes

-Regression was also mentioned, and it seems like it won’t be so severe now if you're still playing at a high level on the field as an aging star.

-“Fog of war” has been increased when scouting prospects, and apparently some players had figured out how to pinpoint “generational” prospects each time, so that scouting system has been tweaked as well.

-There is new DFA logic, so you can’t just hose the veterans on your team anymore to weasel out of certain contracts.

-HOF selection committee logic has been updated.

-March to October is out, and the “streamlined” franchise mode seems to be taking its place with less presentation than you got in an MtO. To me, it seems like you now have more ways to say what you do/don’t want to control, and then the Custom Game Entry Conditions feature and how you set that up will drive how much you get involved during a season. I'm sure some folks might be mad MtO is out, but this feature is one I had said for years seemed like it would clearly go away once they felt franchise mode was a little more solid again -- MtO was always this weird bandage that was put in after carryover saves/rosters were removed.

Bottom Line

The picture below (from the franchise mode trailer) is a good way to sum things up in the “is the glass half full or half empty?” discourse coming out of this one:

My glass half full take is because “renewables” and “arbitration” are their own auto/manual options in franchise mode now, the setting was set wrong in 30-team control or it’s just a standard pre-release bug since none of those players were moved in any trades and are all likely “untouchable” in franchise mode.

The glass half empty take is SDS has had games where free agents can’t be signed by year 4-5 because no one has any money left, and maybe this is just that sort of bug.

Either way, I don’t think there’s any world where this wouldn’t be patched. Still, if something like this made it into the final release, it would be a much worse look than when they sometimes patch something post-release one year only for it to be a bug again that needs the same patch the following year (see: time of day certain teams end up with on their schedule, which has needed the same patch in multiple years).

That discourse aside, you can look at “logic" as the buzzword and be frustrated that it is the major overall feature this year. We’re not getting larger rosters, or NRIs, or online franchise mode, or far more stats like wRC+ and xFIP that could also help drive trades, and that’s a bummer. However, my general point has been having deeper minor league rosters, deeper stats, and so on would only be interesting if there were a better development system or a better trade system in place.

In short, you can’t skip steps with this stuff. I want the pool table and pinball machine in my finished basement, but I don’t get to have that fun room if my foundation is rotted or my home falls into a sinkhole. For better or worse, The Show has been in its foundation stage, and this year I'm at least excited that a 162-game season will finally have teams using their full rosters and making moves to strengthen or obliterate those rosters as the seasons play out.

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

-Chase