This is the first iteration of a new regular column here at Rotographs about baseball video games, focused primarily on MLB The Show and Out of the Park Baseball. I’m looking at every other week here to start and then weekly during the regular season. Why video games? Well, because frankly these two games are legitimate iterations of fantasy baseball.

It is different than a 5×5 rotisserie league, obviously, but it’s still constructing teams under a set of parameters in order to be the best. OOTP is a pure sim that allows an incredible level of depth into creating your organization from the ground up. More on that brilliant game in future pieces dedicated to it. MLB The Show is dropping the first trailer for the 2018 version on Monday so I thought it’d be a great time roll out the debut. By the way, I’m looking to name this column so if you have any ideas of what to name a baseball video game piece, drop it in the comments!

The Show has an online mode – Diamond Dynasty – where you collect cards for your team and take them into battle in the various modes against both other humans and the computer. The cards are divided into two groups: Live Series and Flashback/Legend. The live series cards based on the Opening Day roster that then change with the player performances across the season. Having an idea who is likely to be upgraded can be profitable in accumulating the game’s currency and being able to acquire other cards if I’m not winning them on the field.

The game has a Topps license tied to these virtual cards so you’re collecting a digital version of the card you may well have pulled out of a pack while chewing some delightfully shitty gum years ago. Flashbacks are previous season cards of current players. Sometimes it’s just a postseason card from a particular – Carlos Beltran’s Houston postseason card might be the game’s best offering – and others can be based on an award-winning or All-Star season. Legends are cards from impactful players no longer active in the game. Don’t get too hung up on the “legend” aspect as it’s not only the inner circle Hall of Famers. Sure, Ken Griffey Jr. was 2017’s cover boy and there are Ted Williams, Cal Ripken, and Robin Yount legend cards, but there are also guys like Dave Stieb, Kenny Lofton, and like 900 Gaylord Perry cards for some reason.

This content is the lifeblood of the mode. They did an unbelievable job with it in 2017 and I have no reason not to expect another banner year in 2018. I could honestly make a list of 100 guys I’d love to see in the game with ease. In fact, we discuss this topic regularly on my Twitch streams and while we repeat a handful guys a lot, there’s always someone new brought up in those discussions that just gets added to my mental list. The game releases March 27th (March 23rd if you pre-order) and I’m hoping we see some of these gems included. There are some obvious guys I’m leaving off because well, they’re obvious. We all want to see Randy Johnson in the game. He’d be nearly unhittable. So I have a couple no-duhs in my lists, but I tried highlight really fun players who might not immediately jump to mind when you’re rattling off names in your head. I split the hitters and pitchers up to avoid a 9000-word tome.

In these profiles, I’ll be citing the stats that will most directly translate to the metrics the game uses to generate the cards. Hitters get individual ratings in Contact vs. righties and lefties (AVG), Power vs. righties and lefties (HR, SLG), Vision (K%), and Discipline (BB%) plus a host of defense and speed ratings.

The legend & flashback cards are part of different series: Rookie (RK), Breakout (BO), Impact Veteran (IV), All-Star (AS), Hardware (HW), and Postseason (PS) – all of which are pretty self-explanatory.

Albert Belle | LF | Indians, White Sox, Orioles

I rave about Belle’s 50 2B/50 HR season pretty much any time I can. If people are just talking about actual bells or are thinking of eating at Taco Bell, I find a way to weave it into the conversation. I love that season and I’d love a card based on it. Belle never won any major awards (Silver Slugger seasons don’t qualify for Hardware, or at least they didn’t in 2017) so he’d be looking at potential cards in the BO, VI, and AS sets.

Here’s the funny thing about the 50/50 season, he was actually better the year before, but only for 106 games in the strike-shortened 1994 season. He hit .357/.438/.714 that year compared to .317/.401/.690 in ’95. Making cards of both would be overkill and y’all already know I’m picking ’95. I admit that ’94 would be a more balanced card (1.149 OPS vR, 1.155 vL) because he “only” hit .973 vL in ’95, but we’re talking marginal differences. Let’s make that his AS card.

His BO card could be any season from 1991-93, but I’m choosing ’93 for 23 stolen bases (plus it was the best OPS of the trio). He crushed lefties that year, too, so it’d also play a little differently than the ’95 AS. His IV card won’t be a Cleveland card, but I’m torn a little as both 1998 and 1999 are worthy choices.

The ’98 effort was a 163-game (yep, 163 – not a typo) tour de force for the White Sox that saw him pop 49 homers and lead the AL in both SLG (.655) and OPS (1.055). He was remarkably balanced, too, with a 6-point platoon split. He “only” hit 37 yaks with a .941 OPS in ’99 with the Orioles, but added 17 SB in 20 attempts so it’s another speed option that adds a little extra flavor to the slugger. One of the most underrated aspects of Belle throughout his career is that he rarely struck out (14% career) which would make him a completely lethal card in The Show. Defense would be the downside, but many of us playing the game are willing to sacrifice some defense – especially in leftfield – for top of the scale hitting.

Cards for Belle: Breakout 1993, All-Star 1995, Impact Veteran 1998

Vladimir Guerrero | RF | Expos, Angels, Rangers, Orioles

This is my obvious hitter. Anytime we’re having the discussion on my Twitch stream, he’s mentioned like five seconds in and it’s not just because he is so clearly elite, but because he brings a five-tool game that makes using him in a video game so enticing. The incredibly elite eye, power, speed, and arm out in right are all things that translate very well into gaming enjoyment. It’s great that someone like Matt Carpenter has an awesome walk rate and it shows up in his digital card by way of the Discipline metric (which aids check swings), but if you’re not a patient hitter yourself, that skill isn’t truly leveraged. Vlad’s excellence is usable by novices and experts alike as every playable skill is present.

Obviously, a Hall of Famer like Guerrero will have a collection of seasons worth replicating for the game. Let’s start easy with the HW card based on his 2004 MVP campaign. He hit 39 HR with a .337/.391/.598 slash as well as 15 SB in just 18 attempts. It was actually just his fourth-best OPS season as he had three others north of 1.000. He savaged lefties (1.157) and more than held his own against righties (.931), especially with a .335 AVG. I think his best card would actually be a 2002 AS one.

It was still only his third-best season by OPS (1.010), but he was a homer shy of 40/40! It also flips his platoon and makes him better vs. righties (1.026 OPS) compared to the MVP card. The speed aspect would be interesting because the 40 SB are awesome, but they came in 60 attempts so his raw Speed rating would be solid, but the Stealing rating would be pedestrian making it tough to get great jumps. I think with these two cards in the mix, his best overall season by slash line would be left out or else it just waters things down. So we’d be missing out on a relatively platoon-neutral .345/.410/.664 powerhouse season with 44 HR, but only 9 SB in 19 tries.

His rookie season could definitely get a card, too. Not every card has to be a jaw-dropper. There are modes where mid-tier cards are required/very usable so making a card off his 1997 debut where he went .302/.350/.483 with 11 HR in 354 PA would be cool. It’d be similar to how Beltran has that beastly Houston playoff card I mentioned earlier, but also a silver-level St. Louis Cardinals card that is very popular in the awesome Battle Royale mode. For those who don’t play the game, but are still reading this deep because you might want to play, I will take this chance to mention that you can’t use multiple iterations of a guy in your lineup at once so it’s not like you’d have an outfield of Vladdies with these three cards.

I considered choosing the Texas Rangers season for an IV card (.841 OPS, 29 HR) just to get a third team in the mix, but I gotta pick 2006 for that one almost entirely because of the savagery he unleashed on lefties that year: .401/.483/.687 in 172 PA. His .307/.347/.509 vs. righties would make it a solid all-around card, but the draw would be a 99 Contact/99 Power vs. southpaws. He was so good they could even do a 1998 BO card, but it’s not different enough from the offerings.

Cards for Guerrero: Rookie 1997, All-Star 2002, Hardware 2004, Impact Veteran 2006

Alfonso Soriano | 2B, OF | Yankees, Rangers, Nationals, Cubs

Sori is a perfect addition to the game. He has a bunch of interesting seasons to choose from, played multiple positions across four different teams, and was flawed enough that it won’t just be a bevy of Diamond-level cards. Don’t get me wrong, I love dominant 99-rated cards, but it’s also fun discovering the Gold- or Silver-level players who play like Diamonds for you despite their drawbacks. Jake Lamb has terrible ratings against lefties and it kept him as a Silver for most of the year, but almost everyone who plays the game swears by that card as one of the most devastating cards to slot in your lineup, even against lefties for some of us. I could see Soriano developing into a big time favorite regardless of card tier.

We start with a 2001 Rookie card fueled by 18 HR and 43 SB at second base, but his .268/.304/.432 line netted just a 93 wRC+ with a balanced platoon so your margin for error would be small. This card could be made available on Day 1 of the game and whet everyone’s appetite for the beastly cards to come. His very next season would be the BO card as he surged to 39 HR and lost just two SB down to 41 along with a much sharper .300/.332/.547 line. His OPS was better vs. lefties, but it was OBP-influenced so the Contact/Power metrics would be similar vs. both sides.

I’m not leaving the 40/40 season out so that’s his AS card (2006). Plus, it gives us a second team with the Nationals, though I’m afraid the Rangers will be skipped over as his two seasons there just don’t offer much that we aren’t getting elsewhere. In addition to his 46 HR and 41 SB, he was north of .280 ISO against righties and lefties en route to a .277/.351/.560 line. The Contact vs. righties would be the card’s deficiency (.271 AVG, 22% K – which was very high back then), but he’d be a superstar vs. lefties (.293/.401/.581).

His IV card could come from several of his Cubs seasons. Most of them are dominant against lefties and solid-if-unspectacular against righties, except for 2012 which was quite balanced and thus is my choice. He has just a 13-point platoon split favoring lefties (.831 OPS). He also had a pretty solid season in left per the defensive metrics so it’d likely be a nice gold card.

Cards for Soriano: Rookie 2001 at 2B, Breakout 2002 at 2B, All-Star 2006 at LF, Impact Veteran 2012 at LF

Eric Davis| OF | Reds, Dodgers, Cardinals, Orioles, Tigers, and Giants

Despite playing for six teams, he never played more than two for anyone but the Reds so there probably won’t be a ton of team variety. We could start with a flawed-but-interesting rookie card that might actually be bronze as he hit just .224 in 200 PA, but did also have a .241 ISO while stealing 10 bases in 12 tries. His defense was just OK per the metrics. From there, we move to pair studly Reds cards in the BO and AS sets. He broke out in 1986 with a .277/.378/.523 slash that included 27 HR and 80 SB! He was only caught 11 times.

Good power, utterly blazing speed, and total devastation against lefties (1.012 OPS) outweigh modest contact against righties (.255 AVG, 24% K – very high for that era) and average-to-below-average defense split between center and left, though the speed would cover some of that deficiency. From there, we move to the 1987 AS campaign which was an insane season, especially when you consider that it came in just 129 games. He had a .293/.399/.593 slash with 37 HR and a 50-for-56 mark on the bases. Again, this was in 129 games (562 PA)! He was even filthier against lefties than the ’86 season (.340 AVG, 1.181 OPS) while also handling righties with aplomb (.272, .906). It was also his best season by the defensive metrics and the overwhelming majority of it came in center so we could be looking at a 99-rated card here.

His last big push came in 1998 with the Orioles and that will serve as his IV card. He needed just 508 PA to pop 28 homers and 29 doubles (.287 AVG, .254 ISO). He was only 7-for-13 on the bases so the speed had degraded by then, which isn’t surprising given the injury issues he dealt with throughout his career. He played a poor rightfield and spent half of his season as DH so it might only be a high silver card… maybe low gold. There is no DH in the Diamond Dynasty mode so even if someone spent the entire year there, they’d get defensive ratings for the position they last played closest to the season in question.

These are essentially ranked in order of how much I hope they’re in the game, but there is an imperceptible split between these first four. I’d be just as happy to see Davis as I would Belle. By the way, there is a durability rating and injuries are on in Diamond Dynasty (though they only last for the one game they’re hurt in) so that would make Davis a bit of a risk, but not enough to avoid using him or anything.

Cards for Davis: Rookie 1984, Breakout 1986, All-Star 1987, Impact Veteran 1998

Craig Biggio | C, 2B, OF | Astros

I’ve referenced card diversity a few times already because it’s important to keeping things fresh and not watering down the market. You could make a card from just about any Belle or Guerrero season, but many would essentially be carbon copies, especially because they were firmly entrenched in the corner outfield. Biggio is the dream get for card diversity even when you consider that he played for just one team. Logging major time at three positions, two of them key up-the-middle ones, opens the door for many Biggio offerings without getting stale.

What a 1989 Rookie card lacks in overall offensive prowess would be countered by the fact that it’d come as a catcher and not only that, but one with speed! He hit .257/.336/.402 with 13 HR and 21 SB (just 3 CS) which still netted a healthy 115 wRC+ and these cards are era-adjusted. The speed would probably take him into the Silver tier (cards are deemed Diamond, Gold, Silver, Bronze, or Common based on the overall rating of the card). His BO at 2B could be ’93 or ’94 with the former having the twist of a terrible Steal rating as he was just 15-for-32 on the bases.

His homers dropped from 21 to 6 which makes it look like a big power dip, but he hit 44 doubles in ’94, three more than ’93 and he did that in nearly 200 fewer plate appearances so there’d still be some punch on a ’94 card and he was also 39-for-43 on the bases. I’m not gonna lie, I kinda like ’93 as the choice so there’s a little flaw in his game and it would make you yearn from an AS card out of his ’97 or ’98 season. Let’s go with ’97 because he won the Gold Glove that year and the defensive metrics suggest that he was substantially better in the field that year. A slick-fielding 2B card that pummeled lefties (.988) and aptly handled righties (.895) with 47 SB on an 82% success rate could give the Cleveland Roberto Alomar card in this year’s game some competition at one of the thinner positions.

We’re probably looking at a bronze tier IV card from just about any season in his mid-to-late 30s/early-40s. I’ll go with 2005 since it would be different look with the bat as he was better against righties (.810) and reverse platoon cards are always interesting. He was a primary 2B again by ’05, but he’d have secondary positioning in CF/LF having played there the two years before and they do defensive positions based on a three-year period (for example, Carlos Santana’s Live Series card still had C this year because it was created off of 2014-16).

Cards for Biggio: Rookie 1989 at C, Breakout 1993 at 2B, All-Star 1997 at 2B, Impact Veteran 2005 at 2B (with OF-elig.)

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Who would you most like to see in the game on the hitting side? Again, don’t get hung up on the “legend” aspect and think it must be a Hall of Fame-level guy. There’s plenty of room for Hall of Very Good guys. (If you don’t play the game, don’t worry about maybe posting someone who is already in the game!)