Some quick observations...
I really love the feel of the game. Hit variety and feel of the ball off the bat is great. Pitching even feels better.
The animations and feel of fielding seem much better as well. The game feels fresh. I'm not sure how I feel about fish eye yet...
I am starting to play with franchise and have started some sims.
Pros:
I see they tweaked trade frequency this year back to where it used to be. I'm averaging about 35-40 regular season trades a year. Last year after the patch it was way too nerfed. The trade slider is great because now you can crank it up or down based on preference. I'm probably going to move the slider up a few notches. I don't think the logic has been horrible at all.
I love that players seem to hit free agency this year and are not all resigned in the exclusive period. I'm starting year 5 now in a sim.
Team stats seem pretty good. After year 4 no teams have sub 3.00 era's and no teams have over a .277 team average.
Cons.
I do not see any place to enable trade delay. I know some guys(Knight) are going to be disappointed that trades seem to be instant this year. Unless I'm missing something.
I don't like that some guys still get traded multiple times in a year.
I think there are too many sub 3 ERA guys
2016 had 25 2017 had 20 2018 had 20
.300 hitters
2016 had 15 2017 had 8 2018 had 15
My biggest beef is budgets right now. It appears that every team gets a budget increase each year no matter the record. It took to the 2019 season before I even got 2 teams to have a budget unchanged. It kind of defeats the purpose of budgets if everyone is getting 7-15% increases a year and teams have surpluses of money.
After 2018
budget surpluses in millions
mil 47mil tor 23 tex 27
stl 36 was 27 atl 24
ari 45 cle 25.5 phi 35
nyy 27 oak 61 cubs 20.5
tb 21 sea 34 cin 31
After 2019
9 teams 30+
2 teams that were 50+
This is definitely something that gets patched. It was similar last year until a patch tightened it up.
Going to stream the franchise testing if anyone is interested.
https://www.twitch.tv/tabarnes19