Ranked Seasons has returned for yet another year in MLB The Show 21. The change with Ranked Seasons 1 in MLB The Show 21 is that you can now get the World Series rewards by hitting a total wins threshold rather than just getting to the WS rank. We’ll outline the whole rewards structure below, but first let’s cover the rewards themselves.
The first World Series diamonds are All-Star Prince Fielder, All-Star Ryne Sandberg, and 2nd Half Heroes Nolan Ryan. The first Pennant Race rewards are Breakout Paul Molitor, Breakout Duke Snider, and Veteran Lee Smith.
Ranked Seasons 1 – MLB The Show 21
Rewards
Spring Training – Play 1 game
- Bronze live series player
Regular Season – 200 points
- Silver live series player
All-Star – 400 points
- Silver live series player
- Silver nameplate and icon
Pennant Race – 500 points
- Choice of gold Lee Smith, gold Duke Snider, or gold Paul Molitor.
- Gold nameplate and icon
At first glance, Lee Smith seems like the potential pick here if only because of the 115 K/9 to go with a high-90s fastball and forkball. Smith can be downright unhittable at times, but of course with the new pitching mechanic, you might need to see how comfortable you feel with him on the mound. Paul Molitor is his usual high-contact, iffy-defense self. Duke Snider is the riskiest pick to me because he’s a CF who is just middling in everything so he might be caught without having a real role, even early in the season.
Wild Card – 600 points
- Gold live series player
- Gold nameplate and icon
Division Series – 700 points
- Diamond bat skin
- Show pack
- Gold nameplate and icon
Championship Series – 800 points
- Gold live series player
- Show pack
- Diamond nameplate and icon
World Series – 900 points
- Choice of diamond Nolan Ryan, diamond Prince Fielder, and diamond Ryne Sandberg.
- Diamond nameplate and icon
This seems like the easier pick to me because you should know whether you like using Ryne Sandberg or Nolan Ryan at this point if you’ve been playing DD the last couple years. Many folks swear by Ryne Sandberg, but Nolan Ryan is certainly more of an acquired taste due to how wild he can be. Plus, his pitch mix is not always ideal for online play. Prince Fielder seems like he will be the pick for anyone who already knows what they need to know about Sandberg and Ryan. Fielder has 102 power vs. RHP, and the defense is serviceable enough while working over at 1B. Prince is who I will be choosing if I can knock out 40 wins here in Season 1.
Rewards Structure For Total Wins
The big things to note here are at 20 wins you now get a Pennant Race reward, and then at 40 wins you get a World Series reward. If you get to these tiers by actually ranking up to them via rating, then you get to double dip and get a second player. In the case of World Series, you also get the WS icon and nameplate for that season if you get there by rating — you do not get one for total wins.
The season ends on 5/17 at 6 p.m. EST. Good luck to everyone as they start a new journey here for ’21.
