When the season got suspended due to COVID-19 pandemic, Major League Baseball wanted to give the fans something to watch while they are stuck in their houses. San Diego Studios partnered up with MLB to have one active player represent each team in a 29-game round robin tournament of MLB The Show 20 on PlayStation 4. The season started on April 10 and postseason play will begin on May 2. The postseason qualifiers will participate in a best-of-three series and the world series will face off in a best-of-five series. The winner will be able to donate $25,000 to a Boys and Girls Club in his community.
The rules to the tournament are as follows: The players will be using the team that they play for in real life. Games will be 3 innings, so this way they can play multiple games a day. Batting will be on difficulty level veteran and pitching will be a step harder on all-star difficulty. The designated hitter will be turned off on all teams so this means the pitcher will bat. Quick counts, guessing pitches, and balks are all turned off. Most important, umpire accuracy is set to level perfect (the game otherwise has variable strike zones and the potential for missed calls in order to simulate their real-life influence on games). These are some of the settings that you can change when playing your own game of MLB The Show.
Below is a list of who is playing for their team in the tournament.
American League
East: Dwight Smith Jr. (Baltimore Orioles), Bo Bichette (Toronto Blue Jays), Tommy Kahnle (New York Yankees), Eduardo Rodriguez (Boston Red Sox), Blake Snell (Tampa Bay Rays).
Central: Carlos Santana (Cleveland Indians), Brett Phillips (Kansas City Royals), Niko Goodrum (Detroit Tigers), Trevor May (Minnesota Twins), Lucas Giolito (Chicago White Sox).
West: Ty Buttrey (Los Angeles Angels), Lance McCullers (Houston Astros), Jesús Luzardo (Oakland Athletics), Carl Edwards Jr. (Seattle Mariners), Joey Gallo (Texas Rangers).
National League
East: Luke Jackson (Atlanta Braves), Ryne Stanek (Miami Marlins), Jeff McNeil (New York Mets), Juan Soto (Washington Nationals), Rhys Hoskins (Philadelphia Phillies).
Central: Josh Hader (Milwaukee Brewers), Matt Carpenter (St. Louis Cardinals), Ian Happ (Chicago Cubs), Cole Tucker (Pittsburgh Pirates), Amir Garrett (Cincinnati Reds).
West: Jon Duplantier (Arizona Diamondbacks), Gavin Lux (Los Angeles Dodgers), Hunter Pence (San Francisco Giants), Fernando Tatis Jr. (San Diego Padres), David Dahl (Colorado Rockies).
The games are will take place at 9 p.m. EDT each night and you can find them on the players’ personal twitch stream, or their team’s twitch stream. You can also follow the action through the official social media accounts for MLB (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch) and MLB The Show (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch). There will be prime time streams with commentary and conversations from Robert Flores and Heidi Watney. These streams will be on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
“This tournament is great because it gives us baseball fans something to watch while the season is cancelled. I also like to see the different personalities of the players as they are playing this game as it is different than in real life where they are locked in and not joking around like they are when they are playing this tournament,” said by Brandon Mahnke, a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals.
This tournament is exciting for the fans as they get to see some of their favorite players hop on the MLB The Show 20 to see a different personality of them. The tournament regular season will end
You can check out the standings by clicking [here].
