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For me, it basically boils down to this:
1. More advanced stats. I'm not necessarily talking Statcast level, although that would be nice. But a top-of-the-line baseball sim should be tracking and displaying anything I can see at a glance on a player's Fangraphs or Baseball References page. xFIP/SIERA. Batted ball profiles. Plate discipline. Pitch values, etc.
2. Actual player development/training programs. I should be able to tinker with a pitcher's pitch mix. Tell them to scrap a junky change. Tell them to work on a splitter in the offseason. Tell a young hitter to try and adopt a more patient approach ... or sell out for power. Right now, the options for developing a prospect are 1. what level to put them at 2. what position to force them at 3. which staff to have work with them. But I want to be able to take the lumbering 1B prospect and tell my coaches to have him split time at 3B/RF this year while working on his arm and drawing more walks. I want to take that busted SP prospect and tell him to throw his fastball and slider only while adjusting his arm slot.
(In general, there should be more fluidity between bullpen and starting roles—stamina should be more flexible and you should be able to stretch guys out. The limiting factor for most bullpen guys isn't physical "stamina"; it's the shallowness of their arsenal. And that's already represented in the game.)
Also, it'd be great to see the velo/movement for individual pitches and have those vary more significantly with injury, aging, mechanical tweaks, etc. Changes in velo should be early indicators of changes in performance, just as they are in real life.
The defining "gameplay" of sports sims is finding a bunch of slight edges that add up to a championship. There should be more ways to identify those edges and more ways to exploit them.
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