Munetaka Murakami hits a long fly ball in a promotional trailer for World Baseball Classic additions to MLB The Show 23. The screen says Team Japan and "Hanpa Nai," translating the term as "Insane. Awesome. Outrageous."

Friday Starter – Roki Sasaki and Munetaka Murakami join The Show

 March 10, 2023  Posted in Friday Starter 229 Views

World Baseball Classic content coming to Diamond Dynasty

MLB The Show 23 will include World Baseball Classic jerseys, the announcement says, as if that’s the most important thing. Hey, I like these jerseys and all, but the lede was well-buried: A select few non-MLB players are also coming to Diamond Dynasty, including two of the three Japanese players you’d most want: phenom fireballer Roki Sasaki and last year’s home run champion Munetaka Murakami (Yoshinobu Yamamoto would be the obvious third they’d want, the most successful NPB pitcher for the last few years).

If you pay close attention you can see both Sasaki and Murakami in the video. A few names were confirmed in in the video’s fine print and some other names were included in a blog post.

For me, Sasaki and Murakami are pretty exciting and fun additions. The rest of the players announced so far make for a fascinating mix of guys too:

  • Li Lin – Nice-looking numbers in the Taiwanese league.
  • Tim Kennelly – Former Phillies prospect who has played in Australia for like a decade now. He hit a home run in his first WBC game so looking like a great choice so far.
  • Dwight Britton – Former Mariners prospect now in the Nicaraguan league. Weird! Fun!
  • Kungkuan Giljegiljaw – Worth it for the name alone. Former Cleveland prospect.
  • Jung-hoo Lee – Great pick, the best potential MLB prospect currently in Korea according to Fangraphs.
  • Chieh-Hsien Chen – Seems fine? Po-jung Wang would be the more obvious choice I think at his position and nationality if they could get him.
  • Marek Minarik – Pitched at the very lowest levels of the minors about five years ago. Honestly fun to have anyone from Team Czech Republic at all. Curious what his rating will be.
  • Yusuke Masago – On Team China. He mostly plays on a ni-gun team, the Japanese equivalent of AAA.

I love both the WBC announcement and the Negro Leagues content that’s coming, branching The Show out into something that reflects the full world of baseball both now and in the past. If I have one complaint: Both announcements have been framed mostly as additions to Diamond Dynasty, the all-consuming card collection mode.

Both of these things are true:

  1. Diamond Dynasty is fun and cool.
  2. Diamond Dynasty is a nightmare, a black hole at the game’s core whose event horizon pushes further and further out every year, claiming the innocent lives of modes that don’t have their own revenue streams.

Now, I wouldn’t be shocked if we hear soon that Sasaki and friends can be added to teams in Franchise mode. Surely they will make that happen unless there is some odd licensing reason that it’s not allowed. But the fact remains that San Diego Studio announced World Baseball Classic jerseys and World Baseball Classic players but somehow didn’t announce the obvious thing: a single-player (or online multiplayer if you insist) World Baseball Classic tournament mode.

You would have to have some fictional players to fill out all the teams without more comprehensive licensing, but a few star players on each team is more than enough. If Team Israel only exists as a Collection or a Moment in Diamond Dynasty and not a team you can slap into a local multiplayer exhibition, what are we doing here?

We’ll see, maybe they’ll do the obvious thing there. But it’s already revealing how this addition was announced. New cards in Diamond Dynasty. Buy stubs now so you can get these packs. Hope you pull a Munetaka Murakami for your DD squad!

The Show 23 Ratings Reveal video

There was also a Ratings Reveal video this week. Watch if you want to see three hours of this:

San Diego Studio: Hey [Cedric Mullins/David Peterson/Cal Raleigh], guess what your overall is between 1 and 99!
Cedric Mullins/David Peterson/Cal Raleigh: I guess my rating will be… 81.
San Diego Studio: It’s actually 83!
Cedric Mullins/David Peterson/Cal Raleigh: Haha, nice.

I mean, I watched it, so I certainly can’t blame anyone else.

Just a nice clip of a Seiya Suzuki homer

YouTube Viewing Guide