This game isn't as bad as most people think. Read my review for my opinion.
MLB2K9 provides a "difficulty slider" system that allows you to make the game more realistic. There are plenty of downloadable sliders that have been improved to make this a more realistic simulation. If you own an xbox360 and can't play MLB 09 The Show get MLB2K9 and download realistic sliders. All of a sudden most of the problems with MLB2K9 are gone.
Anyway, it's not as bad as people are making it out to be.
I mostly just play these games for the online experience and opportunity to face off against human opponents. The nice thing about this is that the "custom difficulty sliders" can be applied for online games as well.