Analyzing the Minnesota Twins using MLB 13: The Show

I buy MLB the Show every single year.  I always think that I won't and then I do.  I buy it, play it a lot, then completely forget about it.  In fact, here is an easy to use monthly breakdown of my MLB the Show usage:

•          March - Buy the game, play it often
•          April - Continue to play the game, less often, tell myself "I'll just play this one for the next two years and buy the newer version every other year"
•          May-February - Completely forget about MLB the Show, place disk under a couch, in a cereal bowl or on a shelf
•          Late February - See a commercial or read a review for the next MLB the Show, tell myself "eh, I don't really need to buy this"
•          Early March - See some extremely minor change in the new game that makes me want to buy it
•          March - Buy the game, play it often

Using this information, you can logically conclude that I am in the "play it often" stage of my MLB the Show development cycle.  In fact, I did buy the game.  I stopped on my way home from work Wednesday and I bought it.  I played it for a little bit that night, then really got into it on Friday, when I didn't have to work. 

It's fun.  It always is.  The minor change that convinced me to buy the game this year is about as minor as it gets.  They finally decided to give players numerical ratings instead of vague bar graph ratings!  Yeah!  This is nice because it is now much easier to see which players are better than others.  This is important to me for some reason.  I'm 30.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to see what Sony thinks of the Twins.  In looking at the player ratings, there are some questionable ratings, along with some downright comical ratings.  All of the ratings are out of 99. 

Joe Mauer leads the way with an overall 93.  He also has a clutch rating of 99, so take that, haterz1!  Mauer also leads the way with a 90 contact rating, an 82 arm strength rating, a 90 fielding rating, and a 99 handsome rating.  In short:

Sony  ♥ Joe Mauer

The Twins best pitcher, according to Sony, is Glen Perkins, with an overall rating of 90.  He has the best control on the team, at 90, and the highest K/9 rating with an 81.  He also has a fielding rating of 6.  Interestingly, whenever a ball is hit to Perkins in the game, he falls down and splits his pants.  Nobody's perfect. 

The Twins best starter is Vance Worley, with his 84 rating.  Their top Canadian player is Justin Morneau at an 86.  The best bad player on the team is Esmerling Vasquez at a baffling 74 overall rating, the same overall rating as Trevor Plouffe, Brian Duensing and Kevin Correia.    

Are you still with me?  Let's look some of the Twins' best ratings:

•          Stamina - Scott Diamond - 90
•          Velocity - Mike Pelfrey - 82
•          Break - Casey Fien - 90
•          BB/9 - Scott Diamond - 87
•          Power - Josh Willingham - 78 ?
•          Durability - 88-year-old Jamey Carroll - 84
•          Speed - Darin Mastroianni - 77
•          Horseplay - Anthony Swarzak - 99 (see below)

This opens itself to a debate.  Is Anthony Swarzak good or bad at horseplay?  He did crack ribs as a result of horseplay, but what is the true goal of horseplay?  Perhaps we can come back to this, at another time.

A few other things I learned from the game:

•         Pedro Florimon and Brian Dozier are equally good fielders - 59
•          Kevin Correia is a better strikeout pitcher than Mike Pelfrey - 46 to 43
•          Jamey Carroll has "A" potential, and stands to get better as he gets older

Now, not all Twins players are in the game.  If a player wasn't in the MLB last season, they do not appear.  So, Aaron Hicks, Joe Benson, Rich Harden, Kyle Gibson, and so forth, are all MIA.  But, you can make players, which is a tedious chore.  I made Aaron Hicks, based on his current Spring Training performance.  Here is the result:

Not sure I captured his eyes perfectly, but everything else seems about right.

If Sony has anything to say about it, here is the Opening Day lineup:

Mastroianni	CF
Carroll	2B
Mauer	C
Willingham	LF
Morneau	1B
Doumit	DH
Parmelee	RF
Plouffe	3B
Florimon	SS

Apparently, Ron Gardenhire works for Sony.  Here is the rotation:

Worley

Diamond

Correia

Hendriks

Pelfrey

Looks to be fairly accurate actually.  I might flip a few around, but those five seem pretty likely.  Of course, if you take the five best starters by rating, it would look like this:

Worley - 84

Pelfrey - 78

Diamond - 77

De Vries - 76

Correia - 74

Prior to a roster update, De Vries was an embarrassing 81 overall, and was the Twins' best starter.  They addressed that issue within the first 24 hours of the game launch.  His rating is still much too high.  Apparently Sony loves players from Minnesota as much as we all do.

You like former Twins?  Here are some of the more notable ratings I found when looking around:

•          Danny Valencia - Clutch - 71 - lol
•          Tsuyoshi Nishioka - Fielding - 81 !!!!   Yep, Nishi's in the game; get excited!
•          Delmon Young - Speed - 36 - HA!
•          Delmon Young - Clutch - 92 - Come on
•          Delmon Young - Fielding - 58 - *spit-take, fall-over-in-chair, choke-on-gum, pants-fall-down, head explodes*
•          Denard Span - Fielding - 53, worse than Delmon, but wait
•          Carlos Gomez - Fielding - 46, so yeah
•          Luke Hughes - Spring Training - 99 (see below) 

I want that hat.  The worst former Twin I could find is Eric Komatsu, at an emasculating 55 overall.  Most of the computer generated minor leaguers are better than Eric Komatsu.  Jeff Gray is nowhere to be found, but I am sure we can all agree that he would be a -84.

But, my favorite part of this whole exercise was finding Nick Blackburn, pitching as the Ace of the New Britain Rock Cats.  In fact, Sony didn't even put his picture in the game, opting to computer generate him.

Not terrible, but Blackburn's real face isn't that fat.  His K/9 is worst on the team, but you already knew that.