St. Louis Cardinals: Adjusting MLB The Show 20’s player ratings

The player ratings of the St. Louis Cardinals in MLB The Show 20 could use some tweaking.

The St. Louis Cardinals in MLB The Show 20 are in the middle of the pack ratings-wise. With the current roster as of Aug. 12, 2020, no player in the Cardinals organization has an overall rating of 90 or higher. Paul Goldschmidt leads the way with a rating of 89.

The Cardinals are a balanced team, but some ratings make me raise an eyebrow.

I will cover a few players in this article who have ratings that stand out to me.

Dakota Hudson – overall: 71

Dakota Hudson is an interesting case. In the real baseball world last year, he outperformed his peripherals by a large margin. His ERA was 3.35, but his FIP was a less-than-stellar 4.93 and he led the league in walks. This rating might take that into account, and if so, I commend the people in charge of the ratings for looking into that. But he did get results last year, and with seven strikeouts per nine innings in 2020, I think his K/9 rating should be above 55.

John Gant – overall: 69

It was a tale of two halves for John Gant in 2019, and that definitely affected his ratings on MLB The Show 20. In the first half, Gant held opponents to a .178 batting average, fanned 39 and walked 16 in 46 innings.

But after the All-Star break, Gant had an ERA of 6.20, striking out 21 and walking 18 in 20.1 innings. Player ratings will go down if a player struggles for a while, but I don’t think they should be affected this much from 20.1 innings. I’d put him above Alex Reyes (70), at least.

Andrew Knizner – overall: 62

The Cardinals’ third catcher and potential successor to Yadier Molina, Andrew Knizner’s rating seems a bit low. While he did only hit .226 in 53 at-bats with the Cardinals in 2019, his minor league stats show a player who might deserve a few more overall points.

His lack of power in the game is especially noticeable, with a rating of 24 against right-handers and 29 against left-handers. In 1,180 at-bats between his minor league and major league career, Knizner has 39 home runs

Knizner is rated below catchers Jose Godoy (66), Julio Rodriguez (65) and Ivan Herrera (63) in this game. Godoy has power ratings of 42 against right-handers and 46 against left-handers despite hitting fewer home runs than Knizner in more plate appearances in his career — 15 home runs in 1,498 at-bats.

Kwang Hyun Kim – overall: 60

Kwang Hyun Kim hasn’t received much of a chance to prove himself in the U.S. yet, but if his Korean stats are any indication, he should be rated a fair bit higher than this. With only 38 walks in 190.1 innings last year, a BB/9 of 54 seems unfairly low. I know the Korean Baseball Organization generally doesn’t have the talent of the MLB, but Kim should be able to get a fair shot before the game developers put him below Roel Ramirez (61).

Harrison Bader – overall: 78

Harrison Bader’s rating, on the other hand, feels inflated. While he is an excellent fielder, those attributes seem to play a deceptively large role in his rating. His reaction and fielding ability are both at 99, but for an outfielder, that shouldn’t be what pushes up his rating.

The developers probably haven’t figured out how to weigh the attributes differently by position; after all, an infielder with these defensive ratings is more valuable than an outfielder because infielders generally have a higher number of tough plays to make. And Bader’s hitting attributes, as in real life, leaves something to be desired, especially in the contact department.

Jose Martinez – overall: 64

No, not THAT Jose Martinez. This Jose Martinez is a shortstop who will wind up on your 26-man roster after Spring Training. He hit .278 with Memphis last year but struck out 20 times in 90 at-bats.

Austin Gomber – overall: 74

Austin Gomber is the player I am most surprised to see rated so highly relative to what I believe are his real skills. Gomber has the same rating as Adam Wainwright and is notably above Dakota Hudson by three points.

His ERA in 2019 was 4.44 in 75 innings, and he gave up 81 hits. His H/9 rating is 77, which seems quite high for such an unimpressive total. Gomber is by no means a great player in the game, and maybe he deserves this rating, but I don’t think he’s played enough to show it, and there are other players I would put above him in the rotation.

Next. An F-minus for the St. Louis Cardinals? That’s ludicrous. dark

Some of these ratings make me scratch my head, and I’m not ashamed to admit I edit the players’ ratings sometimes to make them what I believe to be more accurate representations of their skills. And if you’re one of those people who cranks everyone up to 99, go for it; after all, this is just a game anyway.

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