The Show Curse

The Show Curse???

By Tate

There is a very popular MLB video game called MLB The Show. I sometimes play it. Every year, a new player is featured on the cover of the video game. For example, this year was Vladimir Guerrero Jr, and last year was Jazz Chisolm Jr. I believe that a player gets cursed by doing bad or getting injured when they get on the cover, so let me show you the players and their stats for the last ten years of The Show.

2014: Miguel Cabrera

This guy wasn’t affected much by being on the cover of the show, for his stats were a .313 average and 25 homers with 109 RBI’s. But this was a decently big drop from 2013 when he hit .348 with 44 homers and 137 RBI’s. So he wasn’t cursed

2015: Yasiel Puig

When I saw that this guy was on the cover of the show, I thought “Who is this dude?” I hadn’t heard of him because his career was short, spanning from 2013 to 2019. He never had more than 30 homers or 85 rbi’s in a season. I don’t even know why they put him on the cover, because entering the 2015 season, he only hit 11 home runs, 69 Rbi’s, and a .296 average when they could have put someone like Mookie Betts on the cover. In 2015, he hit 11 home runs, drove in 38 runs, and had a .255 average. This guy got cursed by The Show.

2016: Josh Donaldson

This guy did pretty well in 2016, hitting .284, with 37 homers and 99 rbi’s. But not quite the MVP season he had the previous season. He did get cursed in his career though, for he did kinda bad after his MVP season. He also is said to be the angriest player in baseball. After 2016, he wasn’t so great. 2016 was probably his last good season. His career was cursed.

2017: Ken Griffey Jr

This Mariners great was not currently playing during the 2017 season, so he was not cursed or not cursed. 

2018: Aaron Judge

Aaron Judge was cursed by The Show. In his rookie 2017 season, he had 52 home runs (the most ever by a rookie at the time), 114 RBIs, and a .284 average. The year he was on the cover of The Show, he hit 27 long balls, only 67 RBI’s, and .278 batting average. Oh, and remember how he had the most homers by a rookie? Pete Alonso broke that record of 52 homers by hitting 53 home runs in 2019.

2019: Bryce Harper

Bryce Harper actually did better in the season he was on the show than the season he was picked to be on the show. In 2018, he had 34 homers, 100 rbi’s, and a .249 average. Not bad! In 2019 though, he had 35 long shots, 114 RBI’s, and a .260 average. This guy may be one of the only people on this list to do better than the season he was picked.

2020: Javier Baez

2020 was a COVID-19 shortened season, so, of course, everyone’s stats got a little messed up. But Javier Baez’s stats? They got really messed up. He went from a .281 average in 2019 to a .203 average in 2020.  He also only hit 8 home runs with 24 RBI’s in 2020 in 59 games. He was cursed by the show.

2021: Fernando Tatis Jr

Fernando Tatis Jr was not affected by the show stats wise. He did pretty well in fact. He hit 42 homers, had 94 RBI’s, and had a .284 average. But he was cursed body wise. He got injured, and then he got suspended for using PED, a type of steroid, and missed the entire ‘22 season.

2022: Shohei Ohtani

Is it possible for Shohei Ohtani to get cursed? I don’t think so. Pitching wise, he had a 2.33 ERA, 15 wins, and 219 strikeouts in 166 innings. Hitting wise, he hit .273, 95 rbi’s, and 34 homers. Once again, is it even possible for Shohei Ohtani to get cursed?

2023: Jazz Chisolm Jr

Injuries stop this young star from being great. He did get cursed by the show though. In 2023, he only had a .250 average, 19 homers, and 51 RBI’s. As for his team, they made the playoffs, only to get badly beaten in the first round.

2024: Vladimir Guerrero Jr

Vladdy hasn’t been doing too great this season. He only has 6 home runs, 27 RBI’s, and a .295 average. Usually he always hits homers, but I guess he’s not doing that this season. I think he was cursed.

I hope you agree that the MLB The Show curse is real. Only 3/9 players on my list didn’t get cursed (2017 doesn’t count because the player on the cover wasn’t playing at the time). That means 66.7 percent of the time, the players get cursed. Next post, I’ll be talking more about curses and I’ll tell you about the weirdest curse in all of sports, but it’s a surprise.