Okay, so I finally got around to updating the rosters in MLB The Show 23 the other night. Things felt a bit stale, you know? Seeing players on teams they got traded from months ago kinda takes you out of it. It just bugs me when I’m trying to play a realistic game.
Getting Started
First thing, I fired up the game on my console. Waited through the usual startup screens, saw the cover athlete flash by. Once I got to the main menu – the one with all the flashy boxes for Diamond Dynasty, Franchise, and all that stuff – I started looking around. Honestly, it’s not always super obvious where they tuck these options away each year.
I remember poking around the settings menu first. You know, the little gear icon, usually up in the top corner? Went into something like ‘File Management’ or ‘Data Utility’, thinking maybe it’s like managing save game files. That wasn’t quite right, mostly just for saving and deleting actual game modes. So, I backed out of there.
Finding the Roster Control
Then I spotted it. I think it was under the main ‘Settings’ menu again, but deeper in, or maybe it was under a ‘Create’ option? It can be a bit confusing. Anyway, I eventually found an option clearly labeled ‘Roster Control’. That sounded exactly like what I needed.
Clicked into that. Inside, there were a bunch of options like ‘Save Rosters’, ‘Load Rosters’, ‘Player Movement’, ‘Vaults’… and the one I was looking for, something along the lines of ‘Download Live Rosters’. It might just say ‘Live Rosters’. You absolutely gotta be connected to the internet for this part, obviously. My console was already online, so that was sorted.
Downloading and Saving the Update
So I selected the option to download the live rosters. It popped up a little message saying it was connecting to the servers and fetching the latest update from SDS (San Diego Studio). This usually takes just a few seconds, maybe half a minute, depending on their servers and my internet speed at the time. Pretty painless.
Now, here’s a crucial step that sometimes messes people up: Once it finished downloading, it doesn’t always automatically save this new roster as your default. You often need to explicitly save it yourself. So, still within that ‘Roster Control’ menu, I navigated over to ‘Save Rosters’. I usually just pick the first available slot or overwrite an old roster file I don’t need anymore. Sometimes I name it something specific like ‘Official Oct Update’ but this time I just saved it as the main roster file. Clicked save, confirmed the name, done.
Making Sure You Use the New Rosters
Okay, downloaded and saved. But how do you actually make the game use these shiny new rosters? It depends on what you’re playing.
- If you’re just jumping into a quick ‘Play Now’ or exhibition game, right before the game starts (when you’re picking teams and uniforms), it usually asks if you want to use the current live rosters. Just make sure you say yes to that prompt.
- For the bigger modes like Franchise or March to October, you need to load the correct roster file when you start a new game in that mode. During the setup process, it’ll give you an option to choose which roster file to use. Make sure you select the one you just saved!
- Important note for existing saves: If you’re already deep into a Franchise or Road to the Show season, bad news – those modes typically lock in the roster they started with. You can’t just inject the new roster mid-season. You’d have to start a whole new Franchise or RTTS playthrough to use the updated player list. Kind of a bummer, but makes sense I guess.
And that was pretty much my process. Find ‘Roster Control’, hit ‘Download Live Rosters’, make sure to ‘Save Rosters’ afterwards, and then remember to select that saved file when starting new modes or confirm ‘yes’ for quick play. It’s not too complex once you know where that ‘Roster Control’ menu is hidden. Definitely worth doing regularly to keep the game feeling current, especially with all the trades and call-ups that happen. Makes a big difference to the immersion, for me at least.
