Big Injuries That Will Impact Your MLB The Show 25 Franchise Mode Playthroughs

The biggest injuries in the league may affect your Franchise mode playthrough. Here's who's hurt, so you can prepare.

Kyler Wolff

Published: Mar 7, 2025 12:29 pm

We are now a week or two into spring training and a week out from the early access release of MLB The Show 25, which means it is officially baseball season! I’ve been getting prepared, looking at rosters, watching spring games, and bombarding you all with my long winded predictions for player ratings for pitchers and hitters for this season.

Big Injuries Impacting Franchise Mode

Coming into the season, the pitchers are overwhelmingly more injured than position players, creating opportunities for inexperienced arms to shine in the game. Batters right now are generally healthy, with a few notable exceptions.

There are quite a few minor injuries in the league that MLB The Show doesn’t highlight. These injuries are the ones that will keep a guy out for a few weeks to start the season and aren’t necessary to include in the game because they are so short-term.

For this list, I focused on players who will likely be out until at least mid-to-late April. With more than 50 players injured, I took the liberty of breaking them up into sections based on the level of impact they would likely have in the game.

The majority of these injuries are continuations of injuries suffered last season or from surgeries needed after last season. I will denote these kinds of injuries with the word “recovery” at the end of the injury description. Any description without the word “recovery” denotes an injury that was suffered over the last few months.

Elite Players

Kyle Bradish, SP, Orioles – Tommy John recovery (5-6 months)
Eury Perez, SP, Marlins – Tommy John surgery recovery (4-5 months)
Clayton Kershaw, SP, Dodgers – knee/toe surgery recovery (2-3 months)
Ronald Acuna Jr., RF, Braves – ACL tear recovery (1-2 months)
Spencer Strider, SP, Braves – UCL surgery recovery (1-2 months)

Eury Perez had a lot of hype around him when he entered the league, and he delivered on that hype with a 3.15 ERA in his rookie season in 2023. Unfortunately, ol’ Tommy John got a hold of him and killed his 2024 season. His recovery has had some setbacks, and at this rate, he may only get to pitch a few times at the end of the season. Bradish is in a similar spot with Mr. Tommy John. He played only eight games last season before being shut down, and his timetable will likely force his 2025 season to be even shorter.

Clayton Kershaw is at a point in his career where injuries start to pile up. He had two separate surgeries this offseason and will likely miss a good chunk of the first half of the season.

The Braves, as usual, are having to contend with some of the most impactful injuries in the league. Former MVP Ronald Acuna tore his ACL fairly early last season and missed about two thirds of the year. It’s likely he’ll miss at least a month of this season as he nears the end of his recovery.

Spencer Strider is also nearing the end of his recovery after that horrible UCL tear caused by a bone spur in his shoulder. Although it was a surgery to his UCL, I believe it was a different procedure than Tommy John, which means the timetable for his return is less predictable, but we know he will at least miss the beginning part of the season.

Upper-Middle Tier Players

Joe Musgrove, SP, Padres – Tommy John surgery recovery (season-ending)
Gavin Stone, SP, Dodgers – shoulder surgery (season-ending)
Joe Jimenez, RP, Braves – knee surgery (season-ending)
John Means, SP, Guardians – Tommy John surgery (6+ months)
Josiah Gray, SP, Nationals – Tommy John surgery recovery (6+ months)
Luis Gil, SP, Yankees – lat strain (4-5 months)
Christian Javier, SP, Astros – Tommy John surgery recovery (4-5 months)
Brusdar Graterol, RP, Dodgers – shoulder surgery (4-5 months)
Shane Bieber, SP, Guardians – Tommy John surgery recovery (3-4 months)
Giancarlo Stanton, DH, Yankees – injuries to both elbows (3-4 months)
Ha-Seong Kim, SS, Rays – shoulder surgery recovery (2-3 months)
David Fry, 1B, Guardians – elbow surgery recovery (2-3 months)
Javier Assad, SP, Cubs – oblique injury (1-2 months)
Spencer Horwitz, 1B, Pirates – wrist surgery (1-2 months)

Joe Musgrove got hurt in the Wild Card round of the playoffs, which absolutely sucks because not only did the Padres miss him for the rest of the postseason, but they will also miss him for the entire season this year. Young pitcher Gavin Stone of the Dodgers and dependable Braves reliever Joe Jimenez will also miss the entire season this year due to offseason surgeries.

John Means, Josiah Gray, and Shane Bieber all faced Tommy John surgeries last season.and are on similar timelines with both Gray and Means likely missing the majority of the season while Shane Bieber could be available before the All-Star break.

Luis Gil was a beast last season and should be a fun player to pitch as in the game, unfortunately in franchise mode you may have to wait a until after the All-Star break for him to make his season debut.

There are a number of non-pitchers who will be out for the start of the year as well. Veteran DH Giancarlo Stanton has problems with both his elbows, likely keeping his power out of the lineup for the first few months of your season. Spencer Horwitz, Ha-Seong Kim, and David Fry are also incredibly important players on their respective teams.

Middle Tier Players

Brandon Williamson, SP, Reds – complete UCL tear (season-ending)
Sam Hentges, RP, Guardians – shoulder surgery (season-ending)
Patrick Sandoval, SP, Red Sox – Tommy John recovery (5-6 months)
Alek Manoah, SP, Blue Jays – Tommy John surgery recovery (5-6 months)
Jonathan Loaisiga, RP, Yankees – Tommy John surgery recovery (4-5 months)
Tyler Wells, SP, Orioles – Tommy John recovery (4-5 months)
Johan Oviedo, SP, Pirates – Tommy John surgery recovery/lat strain (3-4 months)
Frankie Montas, SP, Mets – lat injury (3-4 months)
Trevor Stephan, RP, Guardians – Tommy John recovery (2-3 months)
Wade Miley, SP, Reds – Tommy John recovery (2-3 months)
Trevor Rodgers, SP, Orioles – knee subluxation (1-2 months)
Lance McCullers, SP, Astros – flexor tendon surgery recovery (1-2 months)
Aaron Ashby, SP, Brewers – oblique injury (1-2 months)
Matt Brash, RP, Mariners – Tommy John surgery recovery (1-2 months)
Kutter Crawford, SP, Red Sox – knee injury (1-2 months)
Andrew Benintendi, LF, White Sox – hand fracture (1-2 months)
Jorge Mateo, 2B, Orioles – elbow subluxation (1-2 months)
Luis Garcia, SP, Astros – Tommy John surgery recovery (1-2 months)

These guys may not be as flashy or as fun as the first two tiers, but these players make up the bulk of your MLB roster. Without them, you’re forced to bring in a minor leaguer or a bench warmer to key positions on your team.

Pitchers like Brandon Williamson and Sam Hentges aren’t stars, but without them, for a full season, you’re pitching staff is going to have weak links, and any other injuries could cripple the staff entirely.

Some of these guys even have the potential to turn into stars or, more specifically, turn back into stars. Alek Manoah, Trevor Rogers, and Lance McCullers have all had monster seasons in the past, only to get sidetracked by mediocre play and a litany of injuries.

Jorge Mateo and Andrew Benintendi are the only two position players in this tier, and neither of them is super impactful. Mateo is a base-running specialist who often comes off the bench for Baltimore, while Benintendi plays for the one team willing to start him.

Low Tier Players

Josh Winder, RP, Diamondbacks – Tommy John surgery (season-ending)
Thyago Vieira, RP, Diamondbacks – Tommy John surgery (season-ending)
Jeff Criswell, RP, Rockies – Tommy John surgery (season-ending)
Drew Smith, RP, Mets – Tommy John surgery recovery (6+ months)
J.P. France, SP, Astros – shoulder surgery recovery (5-6 months)
Anthony Rendon, 3B, Angels – hip surgery (4-5 months)
Robert Stephenson, RP, Angels – Tommy John surgery recovery (4-5 months)
Luis Patino, SP, Padres – Tommy John surgery recovery (4-5 months)
Dauri Moreta, RP, Pirates – Tommy John surgery recovery (3-4 months)
Chris Murphy, RP, Red Sox – Tommy John recovery (3-4 months)
Josh Sborz, RP, Rangers – shoulder surgery recovery (3-4 months)
Akil Baddoo, LF, Tigers – hand fracture (2-3 months)
D.L. Hall, SP, Brewers – lat strain (2-3 months)
Ken Waldichuk, SP, Athletics – Tommy John recovery (2-3 months)
Alex Lange, RP, Tigers – torn lat recovery (2-3 months)
Mason Thompson, RP, Nationals – elbow injury (1-2 months)

This tier is full of bubble MLB players, some of whom would have wound up on the triple-A roster anyway, but now you can avoid using one of their minor league options by just stashing them on the IL.

Don’t get me wrong, these guys aren’t terrible. They’re professional baseball players, after all. They’re in the top 0.001% of what they do. It’s just that this season, it’s not expected that any of them will put up a 1.0+ WAR even if they were healthy.

There are still some interesting players here, though, including J.P. France, who put up decent numbers his first season in the Astros rotation before putting up -0.5 WAR in just five starts last season. France is someone who would typically be SP 6 or 7 in the Astros organization, but with the other injuries to key starters (Christian Javier, Lance McCullers, and Luis Garcia), he would’ve had another chance to step up and earn a place in the rotation, but his injury killed that chance. Now, the Astros have to rely on youngsters like Spencer Arrighetti, Hayden Wesnecki, Colton Gordon, and Ryan Gusto.

Prospects

Alejandro Rosario, SP, Rangers – Tommy John surgery (season-ending)
Robert Gasser, SP, Brewers – Tommy John surgery recovery (6+ months)
Ricky Tiedemann, SP, Blue Jays – Tommy John surgery recovery (6+ months)
Daniel Espino, SP, Guardians – shoulder surgery recovery (3-4 months)
Chase DeLauter, LF, Guardians – core muscle injury (1-2 months)
Drew Thorpe, SP, White Sox – elbow bone spur surgery (1-2 months)

These up-and-comers represent the future of the league, but that future will have to wait. Young pitching studs Alejandro Rosario, Robert Gasser, and Ricky Tiedemann are all getting Tommy John surgery early to prevent UCL problems during their big league careers.

A couple of the Guardians’ top prospects are hurt, with Daniel Espino recovering from shoulder surgery and outfielder Chase DeLauter getting surgery on his core. This could impact your decision to pick the Guardians as your franchise this season, as these two players will likely have their MLB ETAs delayed.

Finally, Drew Thorpe is desperately needed for a White Sox pitching staff that is held together by duct tape and bubble gum. Unfortunately, it will be a month or two before he can hit the field, and they’ll have to rely on a rotation led by Jonathan Cannon and Martin Perez.