2026 All-Star Content, 5th Inning Swing Into Diamond Dynasty

All-Star Content Returns to Dominate Diamond Dynasty

It is rare that a new Inning Program — the tentpole content in Diamond Dynasty, as structured and scheduled — is overshadowed. But the flood of All-Star content tends to do so, and the 2026 iteration of the stuff San Diego Studio has done in conjunction with baseball's Midsummer Classic is no exception in that regard. With multiple new Programs, a Collection, and nearly a full suite of content in the major modes within DD, this is about as big as content drops in the card-collecting mode can get.

The headline here will be the Collection, which is teeming with top players: 43 Red Diamond-level All-Stars are necessary to fully complete it and acquire a 99 OVR Yordan Alvarez that is a completely terrifying left-handed hitter, with his mere 105 Contact against lefties being the lone one of his five major hitting stats under 115. (His Vision is 80. Tough. We'll deal with it.) Excellent All-Star versions of Mason Miller (15 lock-ins), Cam Schlittler (25), and Bobby Witt Jr. (35) are fine stepping-stones to the Astros slugger, too.

But getting all those players won't be that hard. Players can acquire 20 All-Star Series players — 10 from each of two XP reward paths — in exchange for sweat equity in the AL and NL All-Star Programs, which should mostly not require conscious grinding, much less conscientious team-building. (Nick Kurtz and Juan Soto top those XP reward paths, respectively.)

The All-Star Event is home to another exclusive All-Star Series card — a 97 OVR Yandy Diaz — and has both a Deluxe Pack prior to Yandy and a Premier Pack from the Program at its endpoint. But it's also far from a difficult one to max out, as it's a Moonshot-branded jamboree. With good luck, just the two Programs and the Event should have most players at or just beyond being able to lock in enough cards to unlock Schlittler.

The All-Star versions of Diamond Quest (with Deluxe Packs as its Epic-tier rewards), Mini Seasons (a Deluxe Pack for 40 total bases and then a repeatable goal for a Deluxe Pack at 9,000 Parallel XP from All-Star players), and Conquest (full completion awards a repeatable Deluxe Pack) may all register as a bit of a letdown, especially for grinders, but there's certainly ample opportunity to earn All-Star Series cards throughout them. And if you want to make significant Program progress early, there's a Showdown that will ultimately pit your team larded with All-Stars against a pretty touchable Cristopher Sanchez and awards 20 Stars in each program — a nice chunk of progress that is more swiftly obtained than the 30 Stars completing the Conquest map also rewards.

With all this in game and a bunch more coming over the next few days — 2026 MLB Draft, 2026 Home Run Derby, and 2026 All-Star Game Programs are all arriving before the end of July 14th — there is definitely a feast set at the table for Diamond Dynasty diehards to dig into.

Ohtani, Trout, Judge Lead 5th Inning Program

Of course, there is also the fact that the new 5th Inning Program may have the best All-Star Series cards in all of Diamond Dynasty.

That's thanks to a really savvy decision by SDS: Installing Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, and Mike Trout as the Boss-level players on the 5th Inning XP reward path. Judge is the first of the three and clocks in at a 98 OVR, while Ohtani and Trout share the Boss pack and boast 99 OVRs, but all three are obviously auto-includes on nearly any DD lineup. Judge possesses titanic power and has a fantastic arm for use in right — or center, his secondary position — and Ohtani and Trout are superb versions of their 2026 selves, with the former coming as a starting pitcher with a right field secondary position and the latter combining strengths in most of his five-tool arsenal for a player a lot more like vintage versions of Trout than the one who is maybe more great than godlike as he enters the twilight of his career.

You can count on all three to be among the most coveted and expensive cards in DD for most of the 5th Inning, and having to choose between Ohtani and Trout as a free card is a tinge diabolical. But the cost will likely be worth it, especially toward the end of the Inning.

Earlier on the path, there's also yet another great catcher in the form of reigning NL Rookie of the Year Drake Baldwin, who gets a 97 OVR card that will, in fact, rake despite its real-life counterpart struggling mightily since returning from a stint on the injured list. As merely a left-handed batter, Baldwin lacks the switch-hitting trait many other great catchers in DD have, but his fielding — especially his 87 Pop Time — helps make up for that.

There are no real surprises for the 5th Inning Program, structurally, but it's significantly shorter than the 4th Inning. Baldwin is attainable at 47,500 XP, 10,000 sooner than Mike Piazza was an Inning ago; Judge, likewise, comes earlier (170,000 XP) than Steve Carlton did (220,000 XP), and Ohtani/Trout take just 300,000 XP, 100,000 fewer than Roger Clemens and Rafael Devers were available. This reflects a roughly three-week Inning, much shorter than the 4th Inning's more than 30 days of availability, but the truncation is more dramatic for XP needed than time available, and that's a welcome sign as DD reaches its middle Innings.

July Spotlight Drop 1 Headlined By Eury Pérez

Rising star Eury Pérez may not have been able to complete a perfect game for the Marlins last week, but he's in July's first Spotlight Drop in DD, which is basically just as prestigious an honor.

No?

Well, anyway, Pérez is the biggest name of the three 97 OVR players headlining July Spotlight Drop 1, sharing the place of pride in the Spotlight Pack with Brewers center fielder Garrett Mitchell, a great lefty bat with 99 Speed, and Guardians shortstop Brayan Rocchio, a stellar hitter who is a superlative defender at short and should be almost as good at his secondary position of second base. Pérez has a good five-pitch mix but lacks Outlier on his otherwise live fastball, which may limit his effectiveness.

The Topps Now cards that complement the Spotlight ones may once again contain the stealth best card of the Drop: Rangers second baseman Cameron Cauley follows Cole Carrigg in being both alliterative and alluring, with secondary positions everywhere but first base and catcher and some great defensive attributes. Carrigg being a potential catcher or center fielder likely gives him the edge in terms of usability, but the copious green on Cauley's card back is nothing to sneeze at.

A's second baseman Joshua Kuroda-Grauer may also see some play as a Contact-only hitter who can run a bit, but many better options exist.

Other News and Notes

• A new game update went live in the early hours of this Thursday, and it tweaks — but does not overhaul — the vaunted PCI shrinkage that is the bane of many MLB The Show players' existence, specifically making the PCI larger on down-and-away breaking pitches in same-handed matchups. While these pitches remain hard to hit, as intended and as reflects the reality of hitting a baseball traveling at 96 MPH and breaking low and away, this is a bone thrown to the MLB The Show player base that has been barking about shrinkage for years now.
• Chase Pack 18's featured player is a 99 OVR All-Star Series Byron Buxton. He's really, really good, especially as a five-tool type, but his Contact could use some buffing with Parallel mods.
• The Cornerstone Program player for the 5th Inning is, fittingly for Philadelphia hosting the All-Star Game, a 97 OVR Ryan Howard. Ryan Howard's son Darian, an avid DD player, is unimpressed.
• Two of this week's Supercharged players are worth calling out: Royals utility man Tyler Tolbert, whose hits in 12 consecutive at-bats tied an MLB record this week, is temporarily up an astounding 34 points of OVR rating, his 64 OVR Common performing as a 98 OVR Red Diamond-tier player for the next couple of days, and he should be a contact machine as a result; the other one is some guy named Shohei Ohtani, whose 94 OVR Topps Now Series card — notable, you may recall, as a designated hitter with no pitching ability but a right field secondary position — is up to 99 OVR to commemorate his 300th MLB home run and now has triple-digit Power attributes. While Supercharged players are always generally worth deploying — or parting with, if you'd rather have the Stubs — these two are better-suited for cameos than most. (And playing with this Ohtani is obviously good practice for having the All-Star one in your lineup.)
• While this enormous content drop will be followed by subsequent ones on July 11, 13, and 14, the resumption of the normal cadence of content should happen not next Friday — when there is a roster update focused on attributes — but July 23, when SDS has better recovered from sending employees to All-Star Weekend and having the live services team churn out content that reflects live events.