MLB The Show 26 releases this month, and to celebrate, their YouTube livestream revealed the top 100 players for those with Diamond Dynasty status. Naturally, it's hard to rate 100-plus professional athletes for a video game without generating at least a little bit of controversy.
Let's dive into a few rankings that feel right — and a few that feel woefully off-target, as we know the game weighs certain attributes unevenly and cannot account for all the nuances of what makes a player great. This is literally the only game I play, so this is a deeply personal exercise. That is not an exaggeration.
Feels right: Mason Miller (89), Aroldis Chapman (88), Josh Hader (86)
The top-ranked relievers in The Show 26 will be San Diego's Mason Miller (89), Boston's Aroldis Chapman (88) and Houston's Josh Hader (86), in that order. Los Angeles' Edwin Díaz (85), Seattle's Andrés Muñoz (84) and Cleveland's Cade Smith (83) are next in line.
Really, across the board, this feels right. If asked to rank the six best relievers in baseball, regardless of video-game metrics, you could do a lot worse than the names listed above. It's hard to "rate" the value of one- or two-inning relievers in comparison to starters or everyday position players, but there is always value is being unhittable for three outs every day or two.
The only limiting factor for Miller is himself. The velocity on his fastball, combined with a sweeping slider that just vanishes out of the same arm slot, is unhittable when he's commanding pitches. There is not better pure stuff in the sport.
Chapman's age and history inconsistency warrants a bit of scrutiny, but he pitched to a 1.17 ERA with 85 strikeouts in 61.1 innings last season. He started to actually try and aim where his pitches were going — a novel concept — and the results are self-evident. Hader is in a similar boat: He struggled a bit in 2024, but was able to right the ship in year two with Houston. We've known Hader to be uniformly excellent for years; his expected 2.00 ERA (relative to an already-great 2.05 ERA) ranked in MLB's 100th percentile.
Feels wrong: Eugenio Suárez (82)
Eugenio Suárez hit 49 home runs and drove in a career-high 118 runs last season, but he also posted a .682 OPS with Seattle after the trade deadline. He's reuniting with Cincinnati, where he spent seven largely great seasons. He knows the ballpark and he's an easy fan favorite. But he's also 34 years old, one of the worst defensive third basemen in MLB and a three-time league leader in strikeouts.
Suárez's archetype is especially hard to value accurately in a video game. He should probably have 35-grade contact and 95-grade power, if we were generating him from scratch in Create-A-Player. There's just no way to account for how often Suárez goes M.I.A. and is a legitimate negative, while also programming in a few red-hot spells where he feels like an MVP candidate.
This rating isn't necessarily unfair given all Suárez has accomplished, but he feels destined to hit a wall sooner than later and it's hard to trust him into his mid-30s.
Feels right: Nico Hoerner (84)
One of my goals in life is to spread the gospel of Nico Hoerner. My gut tells me a lot of folks will look at some of the names below Hoerner — Jazz Chisholm Jr. (81), Jose Altuve (82), Geraldo Perdomo (82) — and be puzzled. Hoerner hit seven home runs last season, after all. And it's not necessarily a direct value judgement to pit Hoerner against the likes of Chisholm or Perdomo, both of whom should probably be rated higher. But Hoerner at 84 is not a stretch, nor is it Cubs bias. It's just an accurate reflection of one of MLB's most valuable infielders.
Hoerner is an acquired taste, to be sure. And there is less space in baseball today for stars of his ilk than there once was: the soft-contact machine who wins with speed and IQ, rather than slug. But Hoerner's strengths are so extreme that he's able to transcend the sport's more modern sensibilities. He gets on base so often, he creates such pressure on the opponent as a base-runner, he's so spectacular in the field; he does not need to crank home runs to help his team win games.
With his future in Chicago still uncertain, this would be an opportune season for Hoerner to hit .300 and steal 30 bases — a feat he's bound to accomplish eventually.
Feels wrong: Shohei Ohtani (92), Mookie Betts (87)
The Dodgers continue to stack star upon star to create baseball's great modern juggernaut. There isn't a better team in MLB, and L.A. absolutely deserves to have nine players in the 85-plus tier. Will Smith (85), Edwin Díaz (85), Tyler Glasnow (86), Blake Snell (87) and Yoshinobu Yamamoto (87) all join the four names listed above.
That said, the specific ratings of L.A.'s top stars deserve pushback. Shohei Ohtani is the top-ranked player in MLB The Show at 92. He should be No. 1, no doubt, but only 92? Ohtani basically sets the rubric; every other rating stands in comparison. Ohtani is probably the most well-rounded hitter in the sport, up there with Aaron Judge (91). His power tool is immense, but he also sees the zone well and generates elite contact. He could be 92 on the strength of his bat alone. But Ohtani also happens to be a top-10ish pitcher when he's on.
If he's a 92, there's simply no other player (besides maybe Judge) who belongs within three or four points. This is ultimately a meaningless video game, but it would feel like a more accurate encapsulation of Ohtani's value if he were in the mid-to-high 90s while everyone else's rating remained as is.
On the other hand, Mookie Betts was straight up not an 87-overall performer last season. He's one of the most accomplished hitters of his generation and a uniquely versatile piece on defense, but Betts produced a .732 OPS with a career-worst 35.8 hard-hit percentage (19th percentile) in 2025. At 33 years old, it feels like Betts has probably aged beyond his prime. There are still productive years ahead, and he was typically brilliant in October. But Betts could probably sit closer to the bottom of L.A.'s star ratings, if we're being objective and not falling victim to sentiment.
Feels right: Kyle Schwarber (86), Bryce Harper (86), Trea Turner (86)
All three of Philadelphia's core hitters land at 86 overall. While we can split hairs and diagnose value added last season (Turner and Schwarber were much "better" than Harper), this feels like an accurate encapsulation of the Phillies' offensive setup.
Harper is due for a bounce-back year, but he's also 33 with a mounting injury history. Schwarber's progression as a power and contact weapon, despite the high strikeout rate, put him in the MVP conversation last season. Turner probably should've been more prominent in those discussions, as he hit .304 with an .812 OPS and 36 stolen bases while playing Gold Glove-caliber defense at shortstop.
Still, the Phillies' stars just don't quite stack up with the best of the best, at least on the confidence scale. Turner doesn't hit for much power and last season's defense was an aberration in the broader context of his career. Schwarber is an aging DH. Harper is an aging first baseman. There are real concerns baked in here, and you'll notice that no other Phillies hitters crack the top 100. That is emblematic of where this team is at.
Feels wrong: Zack Wheeler (89), Cristopher Sánchez (84), Jesús Luzardo (81)
On the flip side of the Phillies coin we have the aces. Zack Wheeler at 89; if he were coming off a fully healthy campaign, that might even feel a smidge low. He's tied with Boston's Garrett Crochet for the third highest-rated pitcher in The Show, behind only Detroit's Tarik Skubal (91) and Pittsburgh's Paul Skenes (90). But Wheeler is 35 years old and coming off of shoulder surgery. He's also openly contemplating retirement. We should probably temper expectations accordingly.
That stands in contrast to Cristopher Sánchez, who begins the season at 84 overall despite a second-place finish in NL Cy Young voting. Sánchez has less of a track record than other top-ranked pitchers, but last season was no fluke. The southpaw is equipped with the best changeup in baseball and he gets tons of ground-ball contact with his sinker, in addition to healthy swing-and-miss numbers.
Based on the recent evidence, there's no reason Sánchez should rank below Max Fried (85), Tyler Glasnow (86) and some of the other names ahead of him.
A similar point can be made for Jesús Luzardo at 81 overall. The surface-level numbers were nothing too special last season (3.92 ERA and 1.22 WHIP), but Luzardo was a handful of fluky-bad starts away from challenging Sánchez in the Cy Young hierarchy. He was sixth in pitching fWAR in 2025, behind only Skubal, Skenes, Sánchez and Giants ironman Logan Webb. Folks don't seem to fully realize how dominant the left-hander is. That should change sooner than later with another dominant campaign, if he has one in him.