MLB The Show 23

Honestly, doesn't matter who you sign as long as you improve the positions in your team drastically. I did the Reds and their pitching was horrible signed all the SP I could and improved it to 1st overall same with the bullpen. For position players I just signed whomever was left to improve all the positions as best I could. Also, you do have one forced sign to use but that potential signee has to be atleast 50% interest. I think best bet is to use one of the longshot teams that have a bad roster, it's still easy enough to make the playoffs with them on rookie.

This one it tougher than it seems. I brought pitching for 21st to 1st, first base from 28th to 9th and short stop from 29th to 6th along with some other lesser improvements and only got 4 and 1/2 stars. The worst part is I had Cron, a 91 overall in my season, to 87% interested and he signed with the Reds instead. I bet that would have put me over the top.

Did you have remaining contracts to offer when the off-season ended? I had the same amount of stars and got frustrated, Quit the game before progressing into the season and loaded up MTO again. Signed 2 players that were waiting for offers and then tried again, 5 stars.

How do you offer contracts at that point? I also got 4 1/2 stars, and backed out. Im on week 12 of the off-season and not seeing an option to sign with my remaining budget.
Thanks

i got 4 1/2 stars on my first attempt now i got to play the whole season over again

I'm updating my solution, I wonder if we trade or release our team before end of season if it'd be easier to get 5 stars??? Sorry all who got 4 1/2 )))):

I just got this achievement it's very possible without signing ohtani I think I signed Nola, Blake snell as my top guys the rest were still top 100
I did it with blue jays and signed like 8 players I didn't think I was getting 5 stars 😭

Is there anyway to backup the save before the off season starts?

winning the world series helps you sign the top players. so don't tank like I did.

I won the World Series with the Cubs, signed a bunch of players, and got a 4-star offseason. I then tanked a season with the Pirates, signed a bunch of players, and got a 4-star offseason. Very frustrating. I might sit this one out until the unlocking mechanism is more well known.

4.5 stars with the Reds. Won the World Series, $140 million in cap space. Offered everyone max contracts. I truly hate whoever designed this awful free agency system.

Just got 5 stars and wanted to share what I did to (unintentionally) get all 5. Played as Yankees on Beginner. Swept the ALDS, ALCS and the World Series. Placed an offer to Ohtani that was rejected, then used my $45 million to offer to 3 random players, that came in right at the $45 mill mark total.Then skipped to the end and it popped 5 stars. Random af, but it popped all 5.

Do you need to play the entire season again if you get less than 5 stars?

Not my solution (stolen from reddit), but this looked like helpful info: "I looked at my positional and team needs like if I had a 30th ranked pitcher I upgraded to the number 1 pitcher and did the same for the other positions. I also played as a bad team ( the pirates) because then a lot of my positions were bad so I had a lot to upgrade meaning I had a pretty good chance at a good offseason because of all the upgrades the team needed. I think I signed like 2 pitchers and then positional needs"

tip for anyone still struggling with getting this:
I used the Clevland Gurdians because they had a lot of money.
won the world series with them.
I than signed Ohtani, Aaron Nola, Julio Urias, and teoscar Hernadez all on max contracts and I got 5 stars. it seems like if you sign Ohtani, you're most likely to get the 5 stars.

^I mentioned I signed Nola, he seems like a key guy. Ohtani is the goal but can be tough to sign! Thanks for the tips @peyton and everyone. Will keep my guide dynamic and reflective of all comments

Winning the WS and not tanking seems key as well. Thanks for the tips, i will target Nola and Ohtani to start

^ editing my solution now. was just a theory. For what it's worth I improved my Pirates team quite about and was still able to hit 5 stars, mostly due to signing good pitching and position players that had skill in defense / fielding as well as batting

^ I'm just throwing out ideas. I'm 138 games in & have clinched the NL Central. I've improved most of my team rankings a small to moderate amount & 2 of them quite a lot. Unfortunately, with the trade section locked, I no longer see a place to know what my specific position ratings are right now.

I've heard a suggestion of loading your game up on a second console when the offseason starts & if things don't go well, loading up that console, forcing a cloud save, and then going back to your main & loading the new cloud save. Any idea if that would work? Has anyone tried going into Manage Game & Add-ons if they didn't hit 5 stars, deleting the local save, and starting the game back up with the cloud save to see if they can do the offseason again?

I tried deleting my local save after only getting 4.5 stars and it took me back to just after my Ohtani signing. Didn't matter because I used the Rockies and even after signing Ohtani, Nola, Carpenter, etc I could not find a RF to improve on my lineup.

Just curious, did you look for any CF or LF that had RF in their secondary positions? I have a success story on my stars bumping up, but it'll take some time to type it out, so it'll have to wait, for now.

Okay, so, like many others, I had a monster season (136-26), won the World Series (not quite a complete playoff sweep, lost 1 game in the NLCS), made moderate improvements during the season to my team's rankings (Cubs) & position rankings.

With the Cubs, quite a few of my position ratings dropped once the off season started. Some were obvious, like Happ entering FA so my LF rating plummeted. Some were head scratchers. By the end of the season, I had a CF & RF that were young, not going into FA, and had ratings in the low to mid 80's, but those positions also dropped off a cliff. This highlights a major issue with this hybrid management system this mode has. Anyway, I was absolute crap in RF, CF, C, SP, RP, CP, and mid-low in 3B & 1B. So yes, pretty much the whole team. Only 2B & SS were in the top 10.

Not sure if anyone else used the Cubs, but I started FA time with less than $100M to work with. I think it was somewhere between 92-97M. Not sure if the couple of trades I agreed to ended up lowering how much I had to work with here. Maybe reject all trade offers that aren't getting rid of large contracts during the season just to be safe (I didn't really NEED any of the improved players I got on the trades, playing on Beginner).

I started by adding Ohtani, Urías, and.... Hader? to my board. Got a "last chance to sign" on Ohtani almost immediately, and failed. He resigned with the Angels. Now, this could be important in whether or not you even have a shot of signing Ohtani... I played against the Angels in the World Series, so it's possible that he is highly likely to re-sign with them if they at least make it to the WS. Maybe picking an AL team, making it to the WS yourself thus stopping the Angels from doing so would be a good way to possibly get him. So after that I managed to get Urías, Happ, & Hader (going to list my full signings below), and then just kept trying to play whack-a-mole with who was available, which of my position ratings were the lowest, and what I could afford (I was basically f*d on C's). I ended up getting 2 x SP, 2 x CP, RP, LF, CF, 1B, & a C.

Julio Urías SP - 7 yrs - $30.2M/yr
Ken Giles CP - 6 yrs - $1.5M/yr
Josh Hader CP - 7 yrs - $17.5M/yr
Ian Happ LF - 7 yrs - $14.9M/yr
C.J. Cron 1B - 6 yrs - $9.7M/yr
Mike Zunino C - 6 yrs - $4.0M/yr
James Paxton SP - 4 yrs - $4.5M/yr
Randal Grichuk CF - 7 yrs - $4.1M/yr
Brent Suter RP - 6 yrs - $1.5M/yr

Now, I thought I had 1 or 2 guys signed at less than $1M/yr, but this is what was displayed for my team on the League Signings screen. Now on to the big question, did all of this score me the coveted 5-star rating? No. Not at first anyway. On the end screen that showed my rating, it listed Urías, Hader, Happ (Re-signed), Cron, & Zunino as my Key Additions on the left, Overall Ranking(s) of Batting-1st, Pitching-1st, & Fielding-20th on the right, and 4.5 stars under Offseason in the middle.

Obviously my stomach dropped, but I had some options before being forced to start over. The quickest & easiest was to stay on that screen, dashboard/quit the game (don't delete anything), and load it back up to see what's what. March to October loaded up right after I had signed my last player & was out of money (speaking of which, after I initially ran out of money, I stuck to pressing A to advance 1 day at a time & was given $1M added to my budget, twice - I don't think I bothered the 2nd time, which might be why I didn't have those 2 cheap players?), so I advanced through again. This time my ratings were 1st in batting & pitching, and 24th in fielding, but my stars had changed to 5. Achievement popped.

I had also loaded the game up on a different console right before my final win in the WS, in the hopes that I could fall back on that to go back in time & try again without wasting my life on another full season run through. While it didn't come to that, I did notice something important to know for anyone considering that option. This game does NOT ask you which save you'd like to use if there's a conflict between local & cloud saves. If you are going to attempt to time travel with this method, you'll have to keep the backup on your Home console and load the game up without a network connection & then connect the network & hope it works as intended from there. Since I never actually got to that, I have no idea if that method will work, or if it will have crazy things happen or break your game or season. Use at your own risk.

Told you it would take a while to write. Hope it's useful to someone.

This game mode is a joke.

If anyone is playing on PlayStation (I know this is an Xbox site, but they’re don’t seem to be any PS guides out there), make a cloud save after you win the World Series, *before* you proceed to the offseason. While getting Ohtani isn’t required for 5 stars, it makes it that much easier. Before the first week is over, you'll have a last chance, offer max money (you should already be at this). If he accepts, keep going. If not, load the last cloud save to the console, and try again. He went with me on the second try. Use the Pirates, gorgeous ballpark and you get $140mm in free agency. I signed Ohtani, Nola, and Kershaw as starts, Teoscar in RF, and a bunch of mid 70’s RP. Glad to be done

EDIT: I was able to dashboard and delete my local save when it gave me the ratings. When I restarted the game, it put me back to week 4. After changing my approach to target more position players with my remaining budget, I was able to raise my rating to 5 star from 4.5 with my changes. For reference, I was the A's and signed Ohtani, Nola, Teoscar Hernandez, Amed Rosario, and Cody Bellinger. Adding Ahmed Rosario was what I needed and my overall ranking was 1st in batting, 1st in pitching, and 5th in fielding (* fielding was 7th in my previous attempt).

Finally won on my 3rd attempt. I had gotten 4 stars with the Cubs (won WS) and Pirates (tanked the season). I got 5 stars with the Guardians (won WS). They were really deficient in SS and C. They also needed Power and Defense. I upgraded SS from 28th to 10th, C from 30th to 20th, Power from 30th to 18th, and Defense from 22nd to 6th. I also signed a couple SPs including Kershaw, and my SP went from 7th to 1st. I recommend paying close attention to the position needs and team needs. Glad I don't have to play this mode a 4th time.

Can confirm @Hashmap I went to dashboard and deleted my save, took me back to the final game of the world series. I'm just going to keep dashboards until I get Ohtani to start the off-season

This may be common sense to others but when doing the Dashboard -> delete local save method, don’t Quit the game! Quitting seems to automatically create a cloud save right when doing so. I made this mistake and unfortunately now need to replay the entire mode

I was able to get it first try. Played with the Blue Jays on Veteran and won the World Series. In off season my priorities were 2B, CF and 3B. I resigned Chapman and Kiermaier. I went max on Shohei and he signed, then I picked up Kolten Wong for second and Kike Hernandez to strength CF. A couple of other minor signings such as Kimbrel and finished with a 5 star off season.

Tried this four times without getting the achievement. Once with the Colorado Rockies winning the world series and got 4 1/2 stars. Tried three separate times with the Pirates, again winning the world series each time, tried the going offline and delete local save, reloading, using the players listed in the guide here....and still got 4 1/2 stars. Now trying yet ANOTHER season, now making it 5 attempts, with the Red Sox......we'll see.

Followed Fischs3 Blue Jays recommendations and got 5 stars

To add in, I just completed it with the Guardians. I missed out on Ohtani and Urias so I started to panic.

However, I managed a 5 star rating signing

SP Aaron Nola 7 years, $28.8M per
SP Luis Severino 7 years, $14.5M per
CP Josh Hader 7 years, $15.M per
CF Kevin Kiermaier 6 years, $5.2M per
1B CJ Caron 6 years, $5.7M per
SP Clayton Kershaw has 4 years, $26.7M per

Re-signed C Mike Zunino 6 years, $5.2M per

I did the one where you sign Ohtani. I was Astros. Won the World Series, beating the Dodgers. :) Signed Ohtani, Hader, and Jack Flaherty. Had cap penalty, which I was worried about, but didn't keep me from getting. Thought I also signed some 19 year old OF but am not seeing him right now. Looks like somehow I also got Yasmani Grandal, Anthony Bass, and Hanser Alberto. Not sure how the latter three happened. I didn't think I simmed anything and *I* wouldn't have signed any of them. Oh, I see they were "Staff Auto Signing." Anyway, I got the chievo! First try!

Just signed a ton of guys and spent my entire 90 million budget (as Blue Jays). Changed positional needs according to who I wanted to sign. Got Urias and Nola, two of the bigger free agents. Adjusted the sliders for each signing of guys I targeted, but whenever a player reached out to me, I took whatever they asked for. Ran out of money by week 10 but got 5 stars.

I got this with Yankees, and just $48.2MM budget, plus you get hit with luxury tax.

1. Take stock of lowest ranked positions
2. Ignore anyone that costs more than single digits millions
3. Focus on position players, bump up offers 0.5M above asking

I got 5 Stars after signing:
Matt Chapman
Tom Murphy
Amed Rosario
JD Martinez
Daniel Hudson

Bumped all double digit ranked positions to single digits. Had $11M left.

Thank you @peytonthegreat. First time!

I tried this multiple times after one season with the Detroit Tigers. I could get 4.5 stars and 1st in batting and pitching, but never higher than 12th in fielding. I tried going for defense guys first, but there didn't seem to be enough in the market. I also need a 2B, where I was ranked 29th, but there were only two available that were in the mid 70s. Never found a combination to get 5 stars.

Signing Ohtani is a big help

I recommend reading brent1221 up there. The only thing I have to add to his post I went online while on the page that showed 5 stars and my achievement popped. I didn’t have to redo anything.

^^ I also got my 5 star rating offline, but I went online when the game was on the next page after the one that showed my 5 star rating and it popped, so that works too.

BTW I got no idea how I got 5 stars, I was yankees and wasn’t able to sign any good players. Ohtani? LMAO he’s like my whole budget. I just signed a bunch of high 70’s and a couple low 80’s and barely improved my weak positions and some I didn’t improve at all.

I did use auto-advance to end of offseason after week 4 because I was sure I was screwed at that point and also sure I wouldn’t be able to redo it because I was seeing the save icon spin after each week, so I guess the game did a good job of picking for me. Maybe simulating is the way to go? Surprised no one seems to have suggested that.

Solution updated!

Damn I think I might have saved on my failed attempt I'll have to check it's been a while since I attempted this, but If I have a save right before great solution.

Came back to this after getting 4.5 stars and giving up. It loaded me on the final day on free agency. I got 4.5 again. Closed the game. Loaded back up to final day of free agency. Added 2B to my team needs, simmed to offseason and it gave me 5 stars.

Won the World Series as the Blue Jays.

Missed out on signing Ohtani but signed Nola, Snell, Urias, Bellinger, Kike Hernandez and a few relievers and got the 5 star. Just my two cents that Ohtani isn’t absolutely necessary for a Blue Jays run.

I went with the Rockies, won the WS, and with their free agents ended up with about $130m for free agency. Once their free agents are gone, their rankings at their positions overall are near the bottom of the league.

Followed Brent's advice about turning the game offline. Also, I used AceBlueJuice's advice and turned the xbox back online at the 5-star page. Did not get a popup notification for the achievement, but it worked.

Free agents signed: Ohtani, Cron, Urias, Chapman, Hader, Kiermaier, Bellinger, Hernandez, T. Murphy, M. Perez, Wisler, Bass, B. Hamilton.

How does the game stay offline? Mine keeps kicking me out saying For this game, you need to be online.

.....you have to be playing on your Home console. If you're game sharing with someone that isn't close enough for you to use that console, you're s.o.l. Though I suppose you both could burn 2 of your yearly Home transfers to switch so you to try it & then switch back...

Damn. Thank you for info! Guess I have to start another season. More practice for 24, lol.

This cheevo SUCKS

Yup, it sure does. I’ve tried it four times in a row with the Nationals (following the walkthrough) and can’t get higher than a 3.5*. I didn’t see it in previous comments, but should I accept any trade during the regular season? Should I draft any players when it’s time for the draft?

I didn't accept any trades and only got the achievement for the draft. It took a couple times but I finally got Ohtani and some pitchers that sealed the deal. You can see what your position ranks are and if they are low (i.e the 20s) try to find free agents that will improve the ranking

This cheevo SUCKS

I'm having issues where the game keeps stopping me from playing because of being offline. I have to keep turning it on and off for it to play. It unfortunately saved on Final day and I have to restart mode. I used Wash. Nationals and was able to get 1st in batting, 1st in pitching, but 26th in fielding. 3.5 stars is the best I could get.
Probably would have achievement if fielding was higher?
Though I don't think the Nationals is a good team for this achievement like the walk-through says.

Just came to add my feelings about how this achievement sucks. Got 4.5 a few times with my 135 win Rockies. But then I got sloppy and overwrote my cloud save, so now I've got to decide whether or not to spend hours doing this mode again for my last achievement in this game.

I played another season, this time with the Blue Jays. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Beefed up my 3B, CF, and SP (and then 4-5 random players) and boom, achievement unlocked. Everyone I've seen in the comments mention the Blue Jays has not had issues it seems.

Good to know. That was one of the teams Ohtani kept going to so I thought it might be a good option.

Finally got it my second go around. The Blue Jay's is definitely the way to go! I second it in HIGHLY RECOMMENDED this just like Lonsta DaMonsta above. Just try your best to get the top 100 players and focus on positional needs. I had a few at 13th and 14th but everything else was below 7th. This achievement just about ruined the game for me lol.

+1 for Blue Jays. Got the achievement first try with them. I didn’t get Ohtani but got a lot of good pieces. Was Top 7 at 8 positions and 13/17 at the other two. Finished ranked 1st in all three categories.
Hate that I had to spend another 6 hours rushing through this mode, but glad to have the completion now.

Will update the solution when I get home ty all

Winning as Yankees with 129 wins and World Series and then signing ohtani and one 69 rated left fielder and simming to end of off season did it. Used to go offline trick on my home console to be safe then reconnected on the five star screen.

Blue Jays worked perfectly for me, even though I had no clue what I was doing :)
Signed a bunch of players, didn't get Ohtani though.

this actually was easier then I expected couldn't go offline need online for gamepass but I used Houston Astros signed couple a b rating boom

Did Pirates, beat my beloved Blue Jays in the WS, went offline, signed Ohtani, Urias, and a bunch of guys, 1st batting 1st pitching 19th fielding, 5 star offseason, advanced to next season, then quit, went online and the achievement popped.

There also seems to be a guaranteed sign option when offering a contract, 1 per offseason, so use that on Ohtani for big boost

You can put players up on the trade block, but can't initiate trades as far as I can see. Also, that gets locked around mid-season. I didn't get a single offer for any of the players I had up for trade. I don't see anywhere where you can just release a player. Do these things become available after the world series?

Through players improving throughout the season, accepting minor league call-ups of 3 good players, and accepting a couple of trades (that didn't involve the players I wanted to move) I actually improved my ballclub fairly well (Cubs). Is that going to end up hurting me because all of the improvement has to be during the offseason? Are we sure it's position rating improvement and not just getting a lot of the highest rated players available to sign?

Technically it doesn't mention anything about doing this via free agency. Couldn't it be how much your overall rating numbers have improved between the beginnings of the 2 seasons?

Bare with me on this its long and thought it would be more useful here as this thread kind of helped me rather than write a 3rd solution.

I really thought doing my March to October with the Yankees would screw me with this with only $38 million for free agents. I rejected every trade request during the season and every minor call up apart from one, a 93 rated SP. Calling up and trading for players adds more games as you have to get boosts with them. Went 131-31 and swept the playoffs, once I was into the off season I started to worry as I was solid in every area. 3 areas I improved on were the ones with the lowest rank, it was Catcher, Short Stop and Center Field.

I mark them 3 positions for my needs and speed and defense for my team needs. I then pick the best available for the positions I needed. I failed on getting every big free agent as I had no money to offer. But it seems upgrading the positions you are "weak" in does the job. I signed 6 players total, 1 of each position need and then 3 of the "recommended free agents" one of which was a high rated CP, finished with $254k left then simmed the remaining weeks and I somehow got the 5 stars achievement.

I really don't think it is who you sign in terms of rating but who you need to make your team better, even if it is only a few ratings above what you have. Doing this with a lower rated team with more $$ is definitely harder to screw up.

Thank god I don't have to do another March to October season cause that was soul destroying. Until next year!!

I wonder if Dashboard > delete local save got 'fixed' with the most recent update? I went through a new MtO session yesterday and ended up with a 4.5* offseason, but dashboarding brought me back to the last day of signings and I couldn't grab anyone else.

I'm going to try one more time - will disconnect from the internet prior to the offseason so there's no chance for an updated cloud save to interfere.

I just got it using the Reds, but more importantly I used "Go offline" to give myself endless attempts. I first won the World Series as that seems to help based on the comments on this thread. I then got to the first week of the big board and then went to Xbox Settings > Network Settings > Go Offline. Then I would go through the free agency period (I typically signed 16-18 players) and focused on Ratings on the Depth Chart screen. Once you are ready to see your rating, go to Advance to Offseason. If its less than 5 stars, then just Manage, delete Console save, go online and restart from the week 1 big board. If its 5 star, great! Good job! Now quit the game, go online and load it back up. It should load right to the big board before you “Advance to Offseason”. Do it again and Pop Pop!

Honestly the run I got it I thought for sure was a bust and I felt I had better offseason prior.

5 stars first time go

Played as the Braves, won the world series, signed a ton of guys with B potential at positions I wasn't already top 3 at.

Followed Brent's offline guide above and after 3 tries I finally got 5 stars. Signed Ohtani, Nola, and other positions that were ranked in the 20s on my team (played as the Reds). I would recommend doing it offline to save you the heartache of missing out on 5 stars. After I got the 5 star offseason I left the game running and went to settings and back online and the achievement popped immediately after entering back into the game

I was really stressed about this cheevo after reading all the comments. I used the Pirates and lost in the finals, so didn’t even make it to the World Series. I didn’t even sign any high players, as they kept signing to other teams. I just focused on signing players, no matter their level, to my lowest ranking positions. I signed a whole lot of players, improved most positions, and got 5 stars first try.