Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on which rating you weight. By True Overall (skill ceiling), Finest Jake Arrieta ranks as the best starting pitcher in MLB The Show 26. By Meta Overall (how the card plays in the current meta), Milestone Pedro Martinez takes the top spot. The tabs above the list let you sort by either rating — full top 25 visible in both views.
Behind the #1 card, The Show Classics Logan Webb ranks second by True Overall and The Negro Leagues John Donaldson ranks second by Meta Overall. The two ratings can diverge for runner-up spots more often than at #1 — flip the tabs above to see how each ranking shakes out the rest of the top 25.
Across every MLB The Show year ShowZone tracks, Milestone John Donaldson ranks as the best starting pitcher of all time by ShowZone's True Overall and Meta Overall ratings. Flip the All-Time toggle on the list above to see the full cross-year top 25.
You can find Finest Jake Arrieta in the Marketplace, the 8th Inning XP Path program reward path. See Finest Jake Arrieta's detail page on ShowZone (showzone.gg/players/26-99-finest-jake-arrieta) for current marketplace price, recent sales history, and the full attribute breakdown.
Every card in MLB The Show 26 is scored using ShowZone's True Overall (the player's underlying skill ceiling) and Meta Overall (how the community ranks the card in practice). The list shows the 25 highest-rated cards eligible for this category. We re-score every card whenever player data changes — typically with each roster update.
For the single top 25 aggregate across every position — ranked by both True Overall and Meta Overall — see ShowZone's Top 25 Overall list. For a specific position, pitch type, batting style, or situational ranking (best-catchers, best-sliders, best-switch-power-hitters, most-versatile-players, best-baserunners, etc.), the Top 25 Rankings hub lists every variant. Each applies the same True Overall + Meta Overall scoring but filters to that variant's eligible cards.
True Overall measures a card's actual skill ceiling by weighting attributes by their real gameplay impact, ignoring SDS's 99 cap. Meta Overall reflects how the community ranks cards in practice — factoring in build viability, position scarcity, and meta archetypes. True Overall answers "how good is this card?" Meta Overall answers "how good is this card right now in the meta?"
The ranking refreshes automatically whenever player data changes — most often after a roster update. Roster updates in MLB The Show 26 happen roughly every three weeks during the MLB season. New card releases, attribute changes, and parallel updates can all reshuffle the order.
SDS's in-game overall is capped at 99 and uses a different weighting than ShowZone. Many elite cards are tied at 99 in-game but have meaningful differences in real gameplay impact. ShowZone's True Overall removes the cap and weights attributes by what actually matters during play, so it can surface gaps that the in-game number hides.
