His contact probably shouldn’t be in the 70s to 80s like they are in the game after a drastic four-year decline in average that saw him fall roughly 30 points every season from a .333 average in 2021 to a .220 average last year. His OBP has taken a similar beating in recent years and has also been down over 100 points over the last four years.

Judge is a beast; there is not much else I can say about him. Look at his power, 99s across the board; he’s the only player in the game with that combination. He also has excellent under-the-radar contact attributes. He’s known more as a power guy, but his .322 average last year has made him one of the league’s best “line-movers.” He led the AL in OBP and walks last year with .458 and 133, respectively.

Seager is consistent in his great performance at the plate, outside of a monstrous 2023 in which he doubled his usual home run count and hit nearly 250 OBP points better than his previous season. His numbers came back down to reality in 2024, but he is still riding that 2023 high when it comes to his Show attributes.

It’s not surprising that San Diego Studios wants this game to be offense-focused. After all, most of the new gameplay features (like ambush hitting) were on the offensive side of the game. Of course, they want the game to be exciting for players and to highlight some of the great batters in the game today, but in doing so, they’ve created a somewhat unrealistic dynamic that doesn’t exist in the current MLB. His MLB The Show performances are always better than his actual MLB performances, in which he hits an incredible, but not absurd, .298 career average and around 35 home runs a season. What’s most impressive — and what likely leads to his overperformance in the game — is his impressive OPS, which sits at .973 over his career, which is better than every active player except for Aaron Judge.

Aaron Judge

• 89 Con R
• 87 Con L
• 99 Pow R
• 99 Pow L
• 40 Vision
• 99 Discipline
• 90 Clutch

In order for the game to be exciting, MLB The Show had to inflate offensive numbers while deflating pitching and defense, making hitting the most important feature.

With how vital hitting is in this game, I wanted to find who the most valuable hitters in the game were. Whether it’s to target them in a Franchise Mode trade, work towards their card in Diamond Dynasty, or simply pick their team when playing friends to give you an edge offensively, these stud batters will help win your game in MLB The Show 25.

Shohei Ohtani

• 99 Con R
• 79 Con L
• 99 Pow R
• 86 Pow L
• 57 Vision
• 83 Discipline 
• 85 Clutch

Kyle Tucker is always an MLB The Show darling, and this year is no different. He has a high floor to his hitting attributes, with none of them falling below 75 (Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker are the only players in the game for whom this is true). Tucker only has one of the four main attributes, over 90, but it’s an important one in Pow R, which should make him a reliable 30+ home run guy at least per season in franchise mode. MLB The Show 25 is now out, and we’ve had some time to get acquainted with the new rosters and ratings. One thing has clearly stood out to me: this is an offense-heavy game. Something I noticed after the initial top overall rating release was that batters vastly overpowered pitchers across the board. In general, pitchers were almost always underrated, while batters were usually overrated.

Yordan Alvarez

• 82 Con R
• 99 Con L
• 99 Pow R
• 75 Pow L
• 81 Vision
• 84 Discipline
• 97 Clutch

You can never go wrong with Mookie Betts. He’s just such a great player all around despite his power numbers being lower than usual, thanks to a weirdly low home run-producing year for him last season (19 homers, which is 20 less than the year prior). But he’s still a top hitter in the league. Betts’ underwhelming slugging brought his OPS down last year, but it was still over .850, and it hasn’t fallen below .800 in his entire 11-year career. With right-handers making up the majority of the pitchers in the league (matching the makeup of the population at large), the Con R and the Pow R are the most important attributes for hitters in the game. With Ramirez at a respectable but not fantastic 78 and 70 rating, respectively, for each rating, his overall batting value takes a bit of a tumble despite his impressive lefty numbers, elite plate discipline, and 90-clutch rating.

Corey Seager

• 93 Con R
• 76 Con L
• 99 Pow R
• 70 Pow L
• 76 Vision
• 72 Discipline
• 99 Clutch

He’s got similar splits to Yordan Alvarez, albeit with lower ratings than Yordan. They both have high contact against lefties and high power against righties. They are very similar players in a lot of ways. I would say they are probably DH1 (Alvarez) and DH2 (Ozuna) in the game. I suggest getting one of them on your Franchise mode team.  I think Jose Ramirez is a beast. He’s one of my favorite players in the league. He is so unassuming in stature, but as soon as he steps into the batter’s box, you can feel his confidence and expertise at the plate. Ramirez has an impressive four attributes at 90 or above, yet his two righty numbers bring him down to seventh on our list.

Yordan is a pure hitter. He’s not going to give you any value defensively and should likely be exclusively used at DH, but he’s going to make up for it with elite hitting skills. He is almost always a +.320 average and +45 HR player in every season of the Show that I’ve ever simmed. I can’t tell you how many MVP trophies this guy has won; it is absolutely ridiculous.

Juan Soto

• 83 Con R
• 75 Con L
• 92 Pow R
• 88 Pow L
• 70 Vision
• 99 Discipline
• 99 Clutch

Ohtani might be the best hitter in the game if you were just facing right-handed pitching, but alas, his lefty numbers bring him down below Judge in our rankings. While 79 contact and 86 power are incredible for most batters in the league, they are somewhat underwhelming for Ohtani, who has mastered seemingly every aspect of the game and taken his skills to levels never thought possible.

I mean, he hit 10 home runs in 109 at-bats last year. Clearly, he still is an elite power hitter, but with a .220 average and just 14 RBIs during that stretch, I can’t say with any confidence that Trout is even close to the same hitter that he was during his last full season way back in 2019. 

Mike Trout 

• 75 Con R
• 83 Con L
• 99 Pow R
• 86 Pow L
• 50 Vision
• 88 Discipline
• 74 Clutch

I wanted to add Ronald Acuna Jr. at the end because I think he was absolutely shafted by the rating team at San Diego Studios and because he’s got a good variety of above-average stats that make him a valuable asset. I think his numbers should be a lot higher, but I do agree that he has a ton of above-average hitting traits and that there isn’t a huge weakness in his game. Ramirez is still a great batter despite his lower-than-expected righty numbers. He has not had a season where he has hit under .800 OPS since 2015. I expect him to continue that trend in both the Show and the real MLB.

Rooker is a great story — well, not for Twins fans like me, but that’s to be expected. We were the team that gave up David Ortiz when he was just Little Papi. Now, the Twins are in a very similar situation with Rooker. After just a few seasons of decent play by a young potential power threat, the Twins let a 26-year-old future star leave the team, only for the player to immediately put up eye-watering numbers for their new team. 

Jose Ramirez

• 78 Con R
• 95 Con L
• 70 Pow R
• 92 Pow L
• 92 Vision
• 66 Discipline
• 90 Clutch

All in all, Trout seems to have transformed from one of the best hitters ever to play in the league into a Joey Gallo like power specialist. Although I will say that he is still better than Joey Gallo by a factor of 10, don’t get me wrong, Trout is still a very valuable hitter. Tucker has been a .800+ OPS guy since he’s been in the league, and last year, he put up an impressive .993 OPS in a season that was cut short due to injuries. He’s great in big situations and doesn’t chase on bad pitches.

His OBP nearly touched .400 last season, which likely caused his plate vision and discipline to be so great. But when you consider his .323 average, you realize that his walk rate wasn’t actually that great. He doesn’t strike out as much as other sluggers, which makes him valuable in the game, but he doesn’t offer much value as a base runner or as a plus defender. He is serviceable as a first baseman, but that’s the one position I would trust him at.

Brent Rooker

• 80 Con R
• 83 Con L
• 90 Pow R
• 99 Pow L
• 43 Vision
• 67 Discipline
• 84 Clutch

I swear, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was a pure power hitter just the other day; now MLB The Show has got him as a contact first batter with numbers that look closer to Luis Arraez than Joey Gallo. What’s up with his power numbers? He hit 30 homers last season and 136 over the last 4 years (an average of 34 HRs a season). His contact numbers make sense for a guy who hit a .323 average last year and was one hit shy of 200 on the year, but that doesn’t mean they need to lower his power numbers. 

While we do see huge power numbers from some players in the league, and you will occasionally see some high-scoring games, it should be mentioned that the league-wide OPS has been trending downward since 1990. Last year, batters put up the third-worst combined OPS since 1992 (2014 and 2022 were the worst and second worst, respectively). Given those numbers, you would expect MLB The Show to highlight the dominant pitchers in the league that are quieting offenses, but we have to face the fact that pitchers don’t sell copies quite as well as batters. People love offense, and San Diego Studios is giving it to people.

Regardless of whether it’s a fair rating, he does provide incredible value at the plate in MLB The Show 25. With no hitting attribute under 70 and three 90+ hitting ratings, he sits right around the top five best hitters in the game.

Ketel Marte

• 69 Con R
• 99 Con L
• 77 Pow R
• 90 Pow L
• 70 Vision
• 75 Discipline
• 87 Clutch

Despite only 21 home runs last year, the game decided to max out his power against right-handers and his clutch. His other attributes seem fair and balanced, but it’s clear that he had his numbers inflated above his actual real-life performance. He also got a 99 in batting clutch and a 92 in power against righties. Still, his other power/contact numbers are slightly lower than anticipated, especially considering he’s a 99 overall. Either way, he’s still a top batter in the league, with an elite ability to draw walks and some legit power (putting up his first +40 home run season last year in hitter-friendly Yankee Stadium.)

Kyle Tucker

• 81 Con R
• 79 Con L
• 90 Pow R
• 77 Pow L
• 75 Vision
• 90 Discipline
• 99 Clutch

He hasn’t hit less than a .285 average since 2020, but since then, he’s only averaged 26 homers a season, compared to an average of 32.8 between 2015 and 2019. His plate discipline and clutch are similar to Kyle Tucker’s, but his plate vision has always been a bit of a problem, with his strikeout rate consistently above 20%.

Soto was a bit of a surprise addition to the 99 club this year, but it’s not surprising that his batting numbers are as high as they are. He had another +.900 OBP season last year (his sixth in seven seasons in the big leagues) and led the AL in runs. Of course, he gets a 99 in plate discipline—I don’t remember the last time he didn’t have a 99 in that attribute. He consistently has one of the highest walk rates in the league. 

Bryce Harper

• 82 Con R
• 87 Con L
• 83 Pow R
• 73 Pow L
• 61 Vision
• 91 Discipline 
• 99 Clutch

Rooker didn’t quite put up the 88 homers that Ortiz hit in his first two seasons with the Red Sox, but he did hit 69 homers over the last two seasons in Oakland’s far bigger stadium. Use OPS+ — which considers different ballpark conditions like altitude and field size — and you can see that Rooker actually had a better first two seasons on the Athletics at the plate (a combined 292 OPS+) compared to David Ortiz’s first two seasons in Boston (a combined 289 OPS+). His plate vision is only at a 40 because he tends to chase pitchers, but his long arms and bat control allow him to make solid contact on balls way out of the strike zone. 

Mookie Betts

• 86 Con R
• 88 Con L
• 73 Pow R
• 75 Pow L
• 80 Vision
• 87 Discipline
• 99 Clutch

Marte had a 1.080 OPS against left-handed pitchers, which accounts for the great Con L and Pow L numbers. However, his righty numbers were also good, with a .841 OPS and a .261 average. I don’t see why he has a sub-70 contact against RHP rating; it’s too low of a grade. Either way, he’s still a great hitter.

An “outstanding” hitter, as the game commentators love to say about Ketel Marte, his righty contact actually makes him much less “outstanding” than he should be. He had arguably the best year of his career last season, putting up career highs in homers, RBIs, OPS+, and MVP votes. 

Marcell Ozuna

• 82 Con R
• 89 Con L
• 94 Pow R
• 73 Pow L
• 56 Vision
• 72 Discipline
• 65 Clutch

You can see those fantastic numbers reflected in his MLB The Show attributes, in which he gets 352 attribute points out of 396 in contact/power. His vision, discipline, and clutch might not be as great as those of other players on this list, but those numbers aren’t as important as the main four contact/power numbers.

Don’t try putting Ozuna in the field. He is 100% a designated hitter with very little value outside of the batter’s box. The mental side of his game is not great in MLB The Show, likely reflecting his numerous off-the-field incidents that, much like Tiger Woods, could cause his focus to drift and affect his game. His physical gifts are clearly apparent in the game, though. His .302 average and .925 OPS last season helped him get fourth place in the NL MVP race.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

• 93 Con R
• 90 Con L
• 71 Pow R
• 69 Pow L
• 85 Vision
• 73 Discipline
• 82 Clutch

He drew more walks than strikeouts for the first time in his career, really helping his vision, discipline, and clutch numbers rise as he has been focusing on his approach at the plate and becoming a more methodical and meaningful hitter. If you emphasize OBP and like guys who can get on base multiple times a game and get a significant amount of extra-base hits, Betts is the guy for you.

Ohtani, like Judge, also has a low plate vision attribute, although Ohtani’s is much higher than Judge’s, which reflects Shohei’s better SO% (struck out on 25.4% of at-bats in career) than Judge’s (struck out on 28% of at-bats in career).

Ronald Acuna Jr.

• 85 Con R
• 81 Con L
• 70 Pow R
• 75 Pow L
• 64 Vision
• 78 Discipline 
• 80 Clutch

Harper may not be my ideal first baseman of choice, but you can’t ignore the pure dominance at the plate that he has displayed for over a decade now. He has turned into more of a bat for average guys than a power guy in recent years, as reflected by his 169 combined contact rating and 156 combined power rating in The Show 25.

He hit a .337 average and 41 home runs in his last healthy season in 2023, a .900 or above OPS in four of his seven active seasons, and a ridiculous 25.3 WAR over his short career (2818 AB). Ronald Acuna deserves to be on this list, even though his ratings may technically trail guys like Trea Turner and Jose Altuve. I think Acuna Jr., especially in Franchise mode, will be a lot more valuable as a hitter than Turner, Altuve, or anybody else who may have been considered for this list but wasn’t added. I believe in Acuna.