MLB '10: The Show Official Team Ratings and Explanation

[Russell_SCEA]

Overall, Defense, Pitching, Batting

Yankees--------1st, 6th, 1st, 1st
Red Sox--------2nd, 1st, 3rd, 2nd
Phillies---------3rd, 5th, 7th, 3rd
Dodgers-------4th, 4th, 2nd, 10th
Rays----------5th, 8th, 12th, 5th
Braves--------6th, 22nd, 4th, 9th
Angels-------7th, 16th, 10th, 7th
Rockies------8th, 24th, 16th, 6th
Cubs----------9th, 26th, 9th, 8th
Rangers-----10th, 11th, 23rd, 4th
D’Backs-----11th, 27th, 5th, 13th
Twins------12th, 23rd, 11th, 11th
W.Sox--------13th, 7th, 6th, 18th
Giants-----14th, 21st, 13th, 16th
B.Jays-----15th, 10th, 25th, 12th
Cardinals--16th, 13th, 15th, 20th
Mets--------17th, 2nd, 22nd, 15th
Brewers----18th, 28th, 17th, 19th
Reds-------19th, 19th, 21st, 17th
Orioles----20th, 12th, 29th, 14th
Mariners----21st, 3rd, 19th, 22nd
Astros------22nd, 9th, 24th, 24th
Athletics---23rd, 17th, 8th, 30th
Tigers-----24th, 14th, 14th, 29th
Padres-----25th, 30th, 18th, 26th
Marlins----26th, 29th, 30th, 21st
Royals-----27th, 15th, 20th, 27th
Nationals--28th, 18th, 26th, 23rd
Pirates----29th, 20th, 27th, 25th
Indians----30th, 25th, 28th, 28th

These are some of my favorite threads every year because we all get to debate on why so and so is rated this and that. It's all arbitrary and opinions when you think about it though (which is why I enjoy these threads so much), but for the sake of understanding I'm game lets dig a little deeper.

The Cardinals batting being ranked 20th in the game, but before I talk about their rating let me shed some light on how the game determines this.

1. It's an avg. of your starters and your bench and that's for your starting pitching and lineup. Kolbe gave me a number around 60% to 40% with your starters making up 60% of that rating.

2. Player ratings are not done by human hands its all done by a program that looks at the players past three years with the most recent year weighing in the highest.

Now that we have that out the way back to the Cardinals and this 20th batting ranking which made me scratch my head a little when I first saw it. As most of you and I'm guilty of this myself I think Pujols and Holliday that has to at least make them better than 20th. Not so fast

The Mets are ranked 15th a good 5 spots ahead of them I've uploaded some images to help make this easier.

Image #1

Image #2

If you notice the Cardinals bench is relatively weak compared to the Mets. This is a very important factor in the Cardinals current 20th batting rating. For the sake of science I swaped F.Tatis for S.Robinson on these two teams and their batting rankings changed. This one player swap propelled the Cardinals to 13th overall in batting and dropped the Mets to 21st in batting. What you have to remember is your starting lineup is only half of the story (about 60% give or take) you have to take into consideration your bench and your bullpen for pitching. Hope this helps.

Discuss.

[deucepoppi17]

Nice...Marlins got screwed! LoL!

[CommunityCollege]

woot Yankees 1st

[metsman8669]

Thanks, Russell! Great work as always and greatly appreciated.

Some interesting rankings there. TB fifth? Dodgers fourth? Braves sixth??

[mph2k]

Cool, The Mets are second in defense.

[Perfect Zero]

Hmm... Seems like the ratings were based off of last year. I can't see the Angles being so high and the Mariners being so low in the AL West. I also don't see how Texas' batting is 4th when it should be lower.

The good thing about The Show though is that any team can win on any given day.

[Rob_NYY]

The world champs are right where they belong, #1!!

[xNobleEaglex]

Haha I've always been disappointed in the Braves rankings feeling they were underrated. Nice to feel a bit overrated for once. Definitely hope the ranking is right on point for the real season!