MLB The Show 25 Ratings Reaction: What They Got Right and Wrong

It’s like Christmas morning! The MLB The Show 25 player ratings (at least some) were revealed! They released the overall ratings (none of the individual attribute ratings, unfortunately) of the top players on each team.

There were some surprises, to be sure, and a few clear trends that I noticed as well. Some of the ratings were infuriating. As a guy who loves analytics and stats as well as realism in my simulators, it’s frustrating to see when numbers in the game are completely off from real life. Despite those frustrations, it was a decent ratings list.

Of course, I predicted the overall ratings of both the position players and the pitchers last week. In this article, I want to discuss some of my insights and takeaways from the ratings release and compare them to my predictions.

My predictions obviously aren’t the be-all and end-all of what the ratings should’ve been, but as I explain in different parts below, my predictions seem to be more based on statistical reality than some of the games’ ratings. 

With that being said, let’s examine the nine takeaways I drew from the ratings reveal.

MLB The Show 25 Ratings Reactions

The Three 99 Overall Players Make Sense But Are Still Slightly Off

• Shohei Ohtani – 99 overall (same as predicted)
• Aaron Judge – 99 overall (same as predicted)
• Juan Soto – 99 overall (+1 than predicted)

Of course, Ohtani and Judge were 99, which was obvious, but I was always curious as to who else might sneak into the 99 club. I predicted that Bobby Witt Jr. (96 overall) would be that third guy, but the 2nd place finisher in the AL MVP race was rated in the mid-nineties despite his league-leading 9.4 WAR. It’s a pretty big whiff right at the top of the ratings, with such a low rating for such a skilled guy.

MLB The Show apparently wasn’t willing to give Witt a high-nineties because of his relatively light resume, so instead, they went with a guy who has been putting up MVP numbers every season over the last half-decade. Juan Soto was made a 99 overall, which isn’t a crazy overrated number, but Soto is now on his fourth team in three years and hasn’t necessarily been the same type of star he was early in his career.

The Top End Of The Pitching Class Is Underrated 

• P Tarik Skubal – 94 overall (-3 than predicted)
• P Chris Sale – 94 overall (-3 than predicted)
• P Paul Skenes – 93 overall (-3 than predicted)
• P Zack Wheeler – 90 overall (-6 than predicted)
• P Spencer Strider – 88 overall (-6 than predicted)

MLB The Show 25 clearly has a batter bias. The pitchers were so underrated that I had to do multiple double-takes when reading the ratings. The ratings are especially egregious with the top end of the pitching class. 

The two Cy Young winners, Chris Sale and Tarik Skubal are (rightly) rated as the top pitchers in the game. However, they are both rated at 94. With no pitchers at or above 95 overall — or in the top 10 of all players — it is clear that the intention was to make this an offense-forward game. The player ratings being skewed toward batters wasn’t surprising; I think we are in a slight rut regarding pitcher talent in baseball at the moment, but nothing like this — these ratings are criminal and vastly undervalue elite pitching talent.

Despite putting up numbers that deserved a high-90s grade, MLB The Show punished Sale and Skubal for their pre-2024 inconsistencies. Likewise, The Show also punished Paul Skenes for his youth and inexperience, despite putting up Cy Young-type numbers and being arguably the most dominant pitcher in the league. Skenes put up such a great rookie season last year that I think it is a mistake not to assume he will be one of the best players in the game this season, but The Show only rated him at 93 overall.

Zack Wheeler was also rated ridiculously low for seemingly no reason. He is one of the most consistently great pitchers in baseball and nearly won the Cy Young last year with a sub 2.60 ERA and 6.1 WAR, but he was given an underwhelming 90 overall.

Spencer Strider obviously didn’t play the vast majority of the season last year due to injury and will likely miss a portion of this season as well. Still, his Cy Young-winning 2023 season was so impressive that it was absolutely shocking that he fell below 90 overall (88, to be exact) in the game’s ratings. It’s ridiculous!

The Second Level Of Pitching Talent Is Even More Underrated Than The First

• P Emmanuel Clase – 91 overall (-4 than predicted)
• P Gerrit Cole – 88 overall (-5 than predicted)
• P Cole Ragans – 87 overall (-5 than predicted)
• P Corbin Burnes – 86 overall (-9 than predicted)
• P Framber Valdez – 85 overall (-9 than predicted)
• P Dylan Cease – 85 overall (-6 than predicted)
• P Shota Imanaga – 85 overall (-5 than predicted)
• P Ryan Helsley – 85 overall (-5 than predicted)
• P Hunter Greene – 83 overall (-6 than predicted)

The pitcher slander continued and honestly got worse as you looked to the second level of ace pitchers and closers in the league. I honestly think it’s fair to say that, even before the game releases, it’s clear that the balance of this game is going to be off. These pitcher ratings are way too low.

Emmanuel Clase was the top closer, as expected, but given his 0.61 ERA, AL-leading number of saves (for the third straight year), and 3rd place finish in the AL Cy Young race, he should have been in the mid-nineties, not the low nineties. Ryan Helsley led the NL in saves and finished 9th in their Cy Young Voting, yet he only got an 85 overall.

Gerrit Cole was a 95 overall in last year’s opening day roster, and his 2024 performance was not bad enough to warrant a 7-point drop. But hey, if they want to be extremely reactionary and adjust player’s ratings by huge margins just because of one mid season, they need to be consistent with that approach. If they’re basing their ratings on one season, Cole Ragans, Shota Imanaga, and Hunter Greene deserve 90+ overalls. Ragans and Greene put up career years and established themselves as true aces, and Shota proved to be a star in his rookie season out of Japan. Ragans, Imanaga, and Greene were given an 87, 85, and 83 overall, respectively, which is a slap in the face to each guy.

My vote for the worst rating in the game announced so far has got to be Corbin Burnes. I assumed (wrongly) that MLB The Show would come back to their senses after rating Burnes 88 last year and given the mid-to-high nineties rating he deserves. After all, last season was his fourth season in the previous five years where he pitched a sub-3.00 ERA and was in the top-10 in Cy Young voting. What did SD Studios do, though? THEY LOWERED HIS OVERALL RATING! I do not understand the reasoning. Is it because he’s changing teams again? I simply do not know; please inform me in the comments if you know why they are slighting Burnes in this way.

In a similarly confusing boat to Burnes, Framber Valdez is also criminally underrated. He improved nearly every stat from last year and made it into the top-15 MVP finalist list for the first time in his career, yet his overall rating went from 84 last year to just 85 this year.

The Cover Athletes Didn’t Get Much Of A Boost

• Gunnar Henderson – 94 overall (-3 than predicted)
• P Paul Skenes – 93 overall (-3 than predicted)
• Elly De La Cruz – 93 overall (-1 than predicted)

I assumed that the three cover guys would have their ratings artificially inflated, but they were not. None of the three guys are 99-97 overall type players, but I felt that since they were on the cover, they would at least put two of them above 95. That did not happen.

Gunnar Henderson’s rating is probably fair at 94. Given his dominant performance last season, Paul Skenes should be at least a 95, if not a 96. Elly might be slightly overrated; his numbers aren’t as great as you would expect from a cover guy. Don’t get me wrong, he is an exciting player to watch, and I think he can have a really great career, but he’s barely scraping the .800s in OPS and led the NL in strikeouts. He should be closer to 90, in my opinion.

They Didn’t Get The First Basemen Right

• Bryce Harper – 95 overall (+3 than predicted)
• Freddie Freeman – 90 overall (-3 than predicted)
• Vladimir Guerrero Jr. – 90 overall (-3 than predicted)

It may just be me, but I just don’t understand how Bryce Harper can be rated five overall points better than Freeman and Guerrero. Vladdy Jr. is a better pure hitter than Harper, slashing .323/.396/.544 to Harper’s .285/.373/.525 last season. For his part, Freeman slashes just under Harper at .282/.378/.476, but he is a much greater defender and doesn’t strike out nearly as often.

I am very interested in seeing how they justify these overall ratings with attribute ratings. I can’t think of any rating where Harper would be better than both of these guys. Contact and power will go to Guerrero, and so will plate discipline because he only strikes out roughly 14% of the time, while Freeman strikes out 15% of the time, and Harper strikes out 20% of the time. Freeman should have a slight edge against Harper in plate vision, drawing walks 12.2% of the time, while Harper sits at 12% of the time.

Baserunning is none of these guy’s strength, but Freeman stoke nine bags last year compared to Harper’s seven. And both guys attempted 11 steals, giving Freeman a much better success rate. Freeman is also the only true 1B in this group of three, with Harper and Guerrero spending time at DH at times in the last few seasons, so it makes sense that Freeman would be the best fielder as well.

The math just doesn’t add up for Harper to be rated above Freeman and Guerrero at all, much less by five overall points!

Overpowered Ketel Marte

• Ketel Marte – 96 overall (+2 than predicted)

I love Ketel Marte, but come on, 96 overall? That’s wild. I thought I was going out on a limb when I predicted him to get a 96 overall, but MLB The Show just had to one-up me! 

Last year wasn’t even Ketel’s best season; that would be the 2019 season when he had 6.9 WAR and a .981 OPS. The following year, MLB The Show rated him a laughable 83 overall in what was one of the most underrated ratings ever. Now MLB The Show has changed their tune, and following a season where Marte put up a 6.8 WAR and a .932 OPS, they’ve decided to overcompensate and give him a 96 overall.

His inflated overall makes him the fourth-best player in the game. That’s crazy. I could argue that he should be in the top ten, but fourth-best is pushing it, don’t you think?

What’s Up With Sonny Gray And Tyler Glasnow?

• P Tyler Glasnow – 91 overall (+4 than expected)
• P Sonny Gray – 90 overall (+4 than expected)

In a game that has systematically deflated nearly every pitcher in the game, two guys stick out like an incredibly sore thumb. Instead of falling four points below what was expected, Tyler Glasnow and Sonny Gray were boosted into the low nineties despite neither one passing 2.0 WAR. 

Sonny Gray had a particularly disappointing season last year. After nearly winning the Cy Young award in 2023, his numbers took a nosedive in 2024, his first year on the Cardinals. His ERA rose an entire point from 2.79 to 3.84. He also went from only giving up 0.4 home runs per nine innings to giving up 1.1 per nine innings this season. His WAR fell from 5.4 to 1.8, so forgive me for being confused about why his overall rose to 91 from 89 last year.

Glasnow is also grossly overrated after a good but not great first year with the Dodgers. He put up slightly above-average numbers in most statistical categories, but had a phenomenal WHIP of just 0.948 that may have helped boost his overall. Well, that and being on the Dodgers.

They Did Jarren Duran Dirty

• Jarren Duran – 86 overall (-7 than predicted)

Jarren Duran was maybe one of the most electrifying players last year, ranking fifth in the MLB in WAR behind Judge, Witt Jr., Ohtani, and Gunnar Henderson. His speed is crazy, allowing him to collect a league-leading 14 triples. He also led the league in doubles and even increased his power, jumping from just eight homers the previous season to 21 last year. 

I could see his power attributes going up by a lot even with his mid-80s rating. He should have at least been a high 80s guy if not a 90+ overall player. His fielding is fantastic, he’s an asset on the base paths, and his hitting tool is growing into one of the best in the league. This was a big miss by MLB The Show.

Outside Of The Imbalance Between Pitchers And Hitters, The Ratings Were Decent

• Shohei Ohtani – 99 overall (same as predicted)
• Aaron Judge – 99 overall (same as predicted)
• Mike Trout – 96 overall (+1 than predicted)
• Francisco Lindor – 95 overall (same as predicted)
• Mookie Betts – 95 overall (-1 than predicted)
• Jose Ramirez – 95 overall (-1 than predicted)
• Elly De La Cruz – 93 overall (-1 than predicted)
• P Blake Snell – 92 overall (same as predicted)
• Julio Rodriguez – 90 overall (same as predicted)
• Brent Rooker – 90 overall (+1 than predicted)
• P Logan Webb – 89 overall (-1 than predicted)
• P Logan Gilbert – 88 overall (-2 than predicted)
• Jose Altuve – 88 overall (-2 than predicted)

As much as it may sound like I absolutely hate the player ratings, I actually thought that they were okay for the most part. I’m definitely still mad about the pitcher-to-batter discrepancy, and there are certainly other ratings that I just can’t get my head around. But there were certainly some great ratings.

Obviously, they got Judge and Ohtani right; it would have been bad if either of those were wrong. I thought that they might underrate Lindor, but they were spot on. They kept wiley veterans like Trout, Betts, and Ramirez high despite the temptation to lower them. 

There were even a few pitchers whose ratings they didn’t completely butcher. Blake Snell was given a very fair 92, and the two Logans were properly put in the high eighties. Brent Rooker made it into the nineties, which I think is more than fair given his numbers; I really didn’t think they would, though. I predicted an 89 for him, but the game surprised me! And in a good way, too.

If I had to grade these ratings, I would give them a neutral C — not too great, but not failing either. You know what they say: Cs get degrees.