Relative to mlb 09 the show its bad because it has a far inferior feature set (I love road to the show), some bad animations/transitions and worse player likenesses among other things.

But ignoring that there is a really good game on another system… its still pretty fun and on the right difficulty level plays pretty realisticly.. at least if they patch a glitch that causes the AI to swing at more pitches than they should.

My favorite part about it is the online mode. 2k7/2k8 at least for me had horrible lag and disconect problems online, but Ive played a dozen online games in 2k9 and while there is slowdown (i think intentionally to allow players to react) after the ball is hit during batting/pitching there is barely any lag. I think ill end up playing it a lot more than I did 2k7 or 2k8 because of that.

Although you have to pitch with a good mix of balls/strikes to be successful online.. i played a game with someone who asked to only throw strikes and the final score was 18-17. Though Ive kept someone to 1 run and been shutout myself when pitching realisticly.