MLB The Show 23: Battle Royale 6 Program Breakdown

Battle Royale gets its content refresh for the 6th iteration of the year. This program follows the same trend from Ranked which saw three very popular players get new cards. Those cards ended up being very good and worthy rewards which leads us to BR. How do these latest rewards fare?

MLB The Show 23 Battle Royale 6 Program Breakdown

CF Awards Andrew McCutchen (Pittsburgh Pirates)

Meta Overall ranking: 101.95 – #17 CF

Cutch is a perennial favorite in Diamond Dynasty. He typically blends Contact, Power, Speed and Fielding together for a true 5-tool threat that can wreak havoc on the virtual diamond. Just last year, Cutch was one of the fabled Legends and Flashbacks collection rewards and proved to be one of the best cards in the game for much of the cycle. When McCutchen was revealed as one of the BR rewards, it was a safe assumption that we’d get another beefy version of the sweet-swinging CF.

Not even close. This is such an underwhelming card that I can’t even devote enough time coming up with annoying, witty quips to point it out. This is just an absolute bummer of a card, especially for a 99 overall Battle Royale Reward. This would be underwhelming as an Event reward, let alone as one of the rewards for the most difficult mode in the game.

Truth be told, the card is perfectly crafted based off the statistics Cutch put up in 2013, the year featured on his MVP card. But this card pales in comparison to that Retro Finest from last year that at least had the courtesy to feature 100+ Power against both sides. Again, this makes sense considering Cutch hit more HRs in 2012, but it doesn’t make this card any less disappointing. I’m not saying we should have expected a repeat of that card here, but this is Battle Royale. These rewards should be some of the very best in the game to reward the work that has to go into earning these. The fact that this card can’t even crack the top-10 at its position makes this a lukewarm reward to say the least.

C Prime J.T. Realmuto (Philadelphia Phillies)

Meta Overall ranking: 108.41 – #3 Catcher

Now this is more like it. Prime Realmuto lands as the third best Catcher in the game which, to me, is exactly where BR rewards should be. You can easily look at this card and scoff at the face-value attributes. Contact against both sides at 107 with POW L at 105 and POW R at 93 don’t necessarily scream at you, but compare these attributes to the World Baseball Classic Realmuto from earlier in the content cycle. Contact is virtually the same but slightly better on the Prime version. The Power split is reversed and better against both sides on the Prime version. Even the Fielding is better on the Prime version. The only real advantage the WBC version had was Speed, but you’ll take 78 Speed on a Catcher all day.

Prime Realmuto is deservedly a top catcher in the game and I think a worthy upgrade over the WBC version. Yes, Adley Rutschman and Joe Mauer exist with advantages of their own. Truthfully, there’s a pretty big drop-off from those two cards to Prime Realmuto. But Realmuto rates out better than the Extreme Mike Piazza reward so there’s real value here. I thought the WBC Realmuto was fantastic, so getting any kind of upgraded attributes is simply a plus to me.

SP Incognito Big Red! [Dustin May] (Los Angeles Dodgers)

Meta Overall ranking: 103.84 – #8 SP

Rounding out the Battle Royale 6 Flawless Choice Pack is Dustin May. The flame-throwing, flame-haired righty clocks in with an Incognito card that definitely makes an impact in the SP pool. Featuring 113 H/9, 104 K/9, 98 BB/9 and 107 Clutch, May gets some pretty good attributes to go along with his elite pitch-mix.

May features an Outlier Sinker as his primary pitch with a Slurve, 4-Seamer, Cutter and Circle-Change to boot. May’s a bit weird in that his primary Sinker actually has the second-worst Control on any of his pitches, sitting at 75 Control. That combined with the 98 BB/9 should end up being a tricky combination to master at times because the size of the PAR circle (the zone in which perfect input pitches will land). It will certainly make those upper-zone Sinkers tougher to locate. The Slurve has max Control and max Break which will play off the Sinker very well. The addition of the hard Cutter that sits at 93 MPH is a great weapon as well. That pitch, however, features 77 Break which rates out as the worst Break on any of the featured pitches.

You’d be wise to avoid the Circle-Change as it sits with a paltry 55 Control. That’s definitely a bury-pitch when you need to go out of the zone low to entice swings. If you try to locate this pitch anywhere in the strike zone, you’re taking a very big risk of tossing a floating cookie into the zone that’s going to get absolutely hammered.

Regardless, the four-main pitches from May make him a worthy addition to any starting rotation. You should be able to tunnel pretty well with those pitches and find great success as May features excellent stuff (velocity+break).

What should make May even more appealing to a lot of players is the fact that this is the kind of SP that can excel on All-Star difficulty. We talk a lot about cards that perform better on Hall of Fame and Legend if they have great Control/Break but maybe less impressive attributes or stuff. May is probably the opposite, where he’ll do well against All-Star hitters and be a potential struggle on higher difficulties when the Control and BB/9 combination will play more of an effect.

Papadell’s Picks

I think Cutch is an easy pass for all the previously mentioned reasons. Even if I was a diehard Pirates fan or if Cutch was my favorite player, it’d be a stretch to take this card.

I think it’s actually a tough choice between May and Realmuto. I love the Realmuto card, but when thinking of my actual squad construction I’m very happy with 2023 All-Star Game Will Smith. That card rates out much better offensively and really only lacks in comparison with defense. May is probably an elite All-Star SP but a bit of a wild card on Hall of Fame and above, though still a ton of upside because of the pitch-mix, attributes and stuff.

For that reason, I’m taking Big Red. Dustin May would slot nicely into my rotation and help absorb the loss of Greg Maddux rotating out soon. The nasty Sinker/Cutter/Slurve trio should be an absolute blast to experiment with and will undoubtedly cause plenty of opposing hitters to look foolish.

What are your thoughts on the newest Battle Royale rewards? Which card are you taking and why? Let us know in the comment section below!