Best teams to rebuild in MLB The Show 21 franchise mode

One of the best parts of MLB The Show 21 is taking an underdog and building them up to be a World Series contender. Here are the top teams to rebuild in Franchise mode.

MLB The Show 21, the first entry of the PlayStation-exclusive baseball game on Xbox consoles, is almost here. While Xbox gamers are surely excited to finally play MLB The Show 21, there’s nothing quite as enjoyable as taking a bottom-five team or an underdog and making them a World Series contender through the draft, player development, trades and free agency. It’s for all of us normal, armchair General Managers can live out our Moneyball fantasy or bring our favorite team a championship.

Now, it’d be easy to take a team like the Dodgers, Padres, Braves, Yankees, and even more recently, the Mets, and win a World Series. Those teams are already contenders, with few holes on those rosters. So this list is solely for the top teams to rebuild — that can mean they’re heavy on prospects to shape your roster, or they’re a struggling team with some pieces to get creative.

Now, we don’t have player ratings for MLB The Show 21 yet, so this article is taking last years ratings and 2021 projections into account.

Seattle Mariners

According to Fangraphs, the Seattle Mariners only have a 1.7% chance to make the postseason. But the future is very bright for the Mariners. They are full of talent in the minors, and some of that talent has already made its way to the big league roster.

If you’re going full rebuild, you have some decisions to make with veterans like SP James Paxton and 3B Kyle Seager. It really depends on how quickly you intend to compete. Paxton, if he stays healthy for you, has flashes of brilliance, but he can also net some quality position players or prospects. Meanwhile, Seager is a mid-low average hitter that has enough power to hit 20-30 home runs. But he’s 33 and declining, so it might be good to trade him before he loses value.

The young players you can either build around or trade (if you want to trade your top prospects for some big time, win-now players) are headlined by OF Jarred Kelenic. Kelenic is a consensus top 5 prospect in the league. There’s some debate whether his future is in CF or one of the corner OF positions, but his hitting is ready. He’ll be able to help net you whatever player you want, or you can build him up and build your team around him while he’s under team control.

Other young players to build around include:

• SP Marco Gonzales
• SP Justus Sheffield
• SP Justin Dunn
• SS J.P. Crawford
• CF Kyle Lewis
• OF Julio Rodriguez
• SP Logan Gilbert
• OF Taylor Trammell