I wonder if Dylan Covey plays 'The Show’ on ps4 while he is rehabbing.

MLB the Show 17. The only game in town. If you want to play a baseball video game with real players, teams, hall of famers and Dan Plesac, you can only get it on a play station 4. Because of this limited demographic, this amazing portrayal of White Sox RHP Dylan Covey hasn't been properly addressed. Until Now!

Covey is currently rehabbing in the Arizona rookie league, he's struck out 3 in 3 innings of work, allowing a hit with no walks or runs. Selected from Oakland in the Rule V draft, Dylan made the Sox opening day roster then got knocked around pretty bad in 37.2 innings of work compiling a 8.12 ERA before a strained oblique sent him to the DL. This is how SDS chose to portray him and what he looks like for real:

The first time I faced him and blasted a frozen rope back up the middle, I was disappointed that his hat and shoes didn't fly off with stars circling his head. I mean that's friggin’ Charlie Brown, right? Caillou's older brother, maybe? I don't know but it's a hilarious portrayal of the former first and then fourth round pick. I imagine he'll get an updated character model if/when he makes it back to the big league team.

As for the game itself, I can't say that I recommend it if you want to do battle with other baseball fans online, the game play is just bad. First of all, they bill this as a baseball simulation, but in their online game of baseball, the pitcher hits like it's the 1930's. Even if you are playing an AL team, as the visitor, in their park, against the computer, there's not a DH. This is the first of so many branches that are just flat absent from the programming tree.

Catchers drop the ball constantly, allowing runners into scoring position on the regular. Fast guys can steal second and third at will, pop ups get dropped, the programmers didn't know basic assignments as far as covering bases defensively, it's a mess. Clunky animation sequences and non existent collision detection lead to some odd plays and situations, like bracing to crash the wall that's 8 feet away, jogging over there, touching the wall, turning around, all before you can throw the ball back in allowing runners to advance or tag up or whatever they want to do.

Hitting in the game is wonky. It used to be you could swing late and pull an outside pitch for a home run. To fix that, San Diego Studios nerfed power to all fields. It's like SDS was putting make up on a pig. The preferred feedback on your timing and location was so bad they took it away completely, leaving a more basic system that was also an option.

Foul balls are out of control. You can be early and miss your location, but somehow foul the ball off. I've had 18 pitch at bats vs the computer where the count was 1-2. They just foul away everything, timing and location be damned. I don't see how they can fix this either because their bread and butter is microtransactions and they want you paying for better results, and have to have this lifeline to keep at bats alive for the guys who get beat by fastballs in so they spend $100 on top of the game price to buy Kris Bryant or whatever.

The way you make your roster, you collect baseball cards that you earn from playing, or, you can give playstation money and just get stubs (the in game currency) to buy the baseball cards, which then unlocks players for your team. I hate that this is what video games have become. For example, they had an event the last week, 6 inning games, and if you won 40 of them, you would get a maxed out Jake Arrieta. That's a lot of innings, especially for someone like me with a .500 record. Well why grind it out, when you can just spend $100 and buy that one player for 90k stubs and have 60k left for a Corey Seager or whatever. Just straight garbage. At least make it a fantasy draft format ffs. The game at its most basic level is $60 without the extra $40 razzle dazzle edition, its $60 a year or so just to be online on the ps4, I'll be damned if I'm shelling out another $100 to get the Condor, who is currently priced around 120k stubs.

I mean it's great that you can make your own uniforms and create a good team, but whats the use if you can't play without the game being decided by some bullshit 75% of the time? Anyway, rant over, thats all just for online play anyway.

The single player variants of this game are quite good.

The road to the show has been fun, I created a starting pitching and was drafted by the Mariners, in this mode you only control your player. The dialogue gets tedious, as your pitching coach says the same thing to you basically after every start, and you can get snubbed for the All-Star game despite leading the league in WAR, or get sent to the bullpen after a CG SHO, but its still pretty good.

The franchise mode is good too. You can even download rosters that some maniac went through and changed every single generic minor league player, assigning their real world names and numbers. Or if you dont want to wait for the prospects to develop, you can sign HoF legends or just create your own guys and beef them up. My current White Sox franchise has an outfield of Bo Jackson and Harold Baines flanking yours truly in centerfield. Frank Thomas and Moncada, Joe Crede and a beefed up TA. You get the idea. You can take full control of the rosters too if you want. Hiring scouts, scouting internationally or in the US, what sponsors you want to use, there's a lot to it, and the DH is back as long as you are off line.

Anyway, the main point to this whole deal was to show you guys that big headed #68. If you need a baseball game in your life, this is it. Take it or leave it, suckers.

e-gus is mediocre MLB the Show player, at best, his longest win streak stands at 3.