Bobby Witt Jr. Earns First Lightning Card of Diamond Dynasty in MLB The Show 24

Friday’s advertised first Lightning player of Diamond Dynasty comes in the form of Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., who has helped Kansas City get off to a strong start in 2024. And he’s the most exciting card of Friday’s loaded content release — though perhaps not quite as exciting as other Lightning selections could have been.

Witt Is Lit

Witt’s 95 OVR card — which has the red Season Awards design plus a dynamic image of crackling lightning that used to be reserved for the top players of the Monthly Awards program in past years of Diamond Dynasty, leading them to be dubbed “Lightning Players” — brings an elite blend of power and speed, with 113/90 Contact Against Righties and Lefties and 84/96 Power R/L and a 99/97/99 in the basepath stats that will make him just about ideal for swiping bags. He has Diamond defense at the premium position of shortstop, too, with low-80s numbers in Fielding, Arm Strength, and Arm Accuracy and a 77 in Reactions, and can probably play a serviceable third base — his lone secondary position — if you want to use the 93 Jackie Robinson or a Team Affinity Season 1 Chapter 2 player at short.

What’s disappointing about this Witt is sort of a double-edged sword, with one side cutting sharper: His 65 Vision means that he’s just out of range to be eligible to have his Power boosted by the Byron Buxton Cornerstone Captain, but those boosts wouldn’t help his middling 84 Clutch anyway — and he also can’t get boosted by the Greg Maddux Cornerstone Captain that would pump his Clutch or the other two Cornerstone Captains, either. At 60 Vision, close to a negligible difference in that stat, this Witt would paradoxically be a much better card as a boost-eligible one.

Still, this is clearly an excellent card, and probably the best one available without spending a single Stub, as players need only collect the four players at the end of each of the four Season 1 Awards Drop program reward paths — Garrett Crochet, Michael Conforto, Ronel Blanco, and the newly-released Spencer Steer — in the Season 1 Awards Lightning Collection that is available both from the Special Collections tab in the Collections menu and via the tabs in the tasks of each Season Awards Drop program.

Choosing Witt as the first Lightning player of these new Season Awards is also an interesting decision that reflects how difficult striking a balance between reflecting the real MLB season and producing compelling content for Diamond Dynasty players to enjoy. There’s no great argument against the succinct argument for Witt presented by The Show in a Friday tweet — “This guy is locked in right now and just crushing the ball” — with Witt the real-life player batting .321 with four homers and another nine extra-base hits (XBH) thus far in the 2024 season. He’s clearly qualified to be honored with a card like this.

But is he the most qualified player to be so exalted? Mookie Betts is batting .369 entering Friday and has six homers to Witt’s four, 18 RBI to Witt’s eight, and 12 XBH to Witt’s 13 — plus he made one of the finest defensive plays of the young year. Shohei Ohtani has as many hits as his Dodgers teammate Betts — 31, which leads the league — and 16 XBH. Marcell Ozuna is tied for the MLB lead with eight home runs and alone in first with 23 RBI.

And maybe most compellingly, Mike Trout is the guy tied with Ozuna at eight home runs — but he’s also got five stolen bases, three fewer than in his last four seasons combined, and appears headed for a monster power/speed year reminiscent of what he put together a decade ago at the beginning of his career.

But Betts, Ohtani, and Trout all have multiple Diamond cards already in Season 1, and the Live Series version of Betts is Supercharged to a 97 at the moment after his five-for-five performance earlier this week. And Ozuna getting prominently promoted cards in Diamond Dynasty after his documented off-the-field failings feels equally unwise and unlikely.

So it seems simply unavoidable that when the true superstars of the game are white-hot, the player base will sometimes have to settle for Lightning players in the form of slightly “lesser” names. And with Lightning cards seemingly coming on a slightly swifter cadence of every four weeks instead of for each month, that might mean a bit more disappointment from players hoping one of Diamond Dynasty’s most prestigious honors and coolest art treatments is bestowed on their favorite or the most meta-relevant player.

Spencer Steer Leads Season 1 Awards Drop 4

Those players needing meta-dominant cards might actually be more interested in the top line of Season 1 Awards Drop 4’s reward path, a 93 OVR Spencer Steer that has 110 Contact Against Righties, 108 Clutch, 85-88 numbers in the other Contact/Power stats, and the ability to play anywhere in the infield.

Steer’s Live Series card played well for many when it was Supercharged earlier in April, with an exceptionally good swing, and this one keeps his Quirks of First-Pitch Hitter and Unfazed, a helpfully divergent pairing that gives him a little extra when ambushing first pitches and hitting with two strikes.

Mere Bronze defense on this Steer makes it a bit of a risk to play him outside his primary position of left field, but the reward for that risk is putting him at second or short, where he is one of the most potent bats at the position and should see at least a game or two online for adventurous players.

It’s harder to forecast a lot of online use for the four 90 OVR Topps Now players — Blue Jays righty starter Yariel Rodriguez, Athletics right fielder Lawrence Butler, Mets lefty reliever Tyler Jay, and Orioles left fielder Colton Cowser — that are the stepping stones to Steer, especially with DD players chugging through Team Affinity programs and filling out their rosters with 93 OVR players. But they have niches, for the most part.

Rodriguez is a strikeout artist with 98 K/9 and 96/96 Velocity/Break, and his five pitches are a four-seamer and the tantalizing arsenal of a slider, splitter, slurve, and sinker that should provide a bunch of angles of attack even if his control (73 BB/9, 68 Control) will be mediocre. Butler is simply a thunderous lefty bat with 112/108 Contact/Power Against Righties and 117 Clutch, and is Buxton boost-eligible at a convenient 59 Vision; just don’t expect him to do much against lefties or in the field.

Jay is a lefty reliever and a precious commodity because of it, but while he has gaudy per nine numbers — 102 H/9, 104 BB/9 — they will have to make up for no pitches hitting more than 91 MPH if his card is to be useful. Cowser might be the least exciting of these Topps Now 90 OVRs despite being fourth in the reward path: His 103 Contact Against Righties and 91 Clutch are fine, but his profile is that of a doubles-hitting outfielder, and there are plenty of those already in players’ lineups.

And, of course, the Season Awards Drop 4 players that must be acquired from the store pack or marketplace are once again FAR more interesting than the reward path players.

In fact, this Drop 4 pack might have two of the most exciting players in baseball right now in its Rare Round in the form of 94 OVR versions of Elly De La Cruz and Mason Miller.

The 94 OVR Elly is, as players of last year’s Diamond Dynasty might expect, an absolute problem from the left side of the plate, checking in with 98/103 Contact/Power Against Righties and his buttery swing. He’s much less fearsome against lefties despite being a switch-hitter, his 74 Clutch makes him almost a liability in those situations, and his 65 Vision keeps him out of Buxton boost range, but the astounding speed has translated for every Elly card that has existed in DD, and Gold Defense means that getting away with him at the secondary positions of second or third base is more possible than for Steer, his Reds teammate.

And if Elly’s speed is known as one of THE coolest things to experience in Diamond Dynasty, Mason Miller’s gas might soon be, too. The 94 OVR version of the A’s closer has a staggering 120 K/, a superb 105 Pitching Clutch, 99s in H/9 and HR/9, and the 99/99 Velo/Break duo that he deserves — and, of course, he’s got a 99 MPH fastball that also has 97 Break and Outlier. Whether or not that fastball touches 104 MPH in DD like it has in real life or simply sits at 102, it is going to be one of the single most difficult pitches to hit in the game — which makes having a slider and circle change that BOTH sit at 88 MPH to mix in almost evil.

It’s worth noting that while picking Elly out of the Rare Round is the obvious move if a player opens the pack and gets lucky, as he’s going for six figures compared to Miller’s downright reasonably 35K or so, nabbing Miller while he is in packs is probably a good long-term play, as his uniquely blazing fastball is unlikely to be duplicated.

The 91 OVRs from the Base Round of the Drop 4 pack also have their places and uses.

Tyler Glasnow’s 91 OVR has the stuff to rack up Ks like he has in the early goings of his Dodgers tenure, though four pitches and a curveball instead of a changeup should hamper him a bit for online play. (That said, Glasnow’s quick release makes him a dream for grinding offline play.)

Austin Martin joins a crowded Twins lineup as a live bat with 104 Contact Against Righties, though it’s utilizing his utility man skillset — secondaries everywhere but first and catcher — that will make him most valuable, as he’s simply not dislodging that Buxton Captain as a fellow Twins center fielder unless players have fully moved on from low-Vision sluggers.

And Shea Langeliers having 116 Power Against Righties, 96 Clutch, and a 97 Arm makes him a catcher very good at two things, which is two more than many catchers are at anything. And A’s fans deserve at least some good things to happen to them, right?

Pipeline Series Pack 2 Holds De Lauter, Jobe, Mayo

The only major piece of content outside of Season Awards in Diamond Dynasty for this Friday is the return of the Pipeline Choice Pack, now headlined by Guardians right fielder Chase De Lauter, Tigers hurler Jackson Jobe, and Orioles third baseman Colby Mayo as 94 OVR Rare Round cards.

Of the three, the most exciting is likely Jobe, who has a killer five-pitch mix with a slurve, circle change, and cutter to go with a four-seamer with Outlier and a two-seamer that is listed at 97 MPH. None of his stats are over 100, but parallels and Tigers boosts could get him there.

De Lauter is much closer to a grown-up version of the previously mentioned Cowser than he probably should be as a card that will cost five figures of Stubs, as a slightly better lefty hitter and a significantly better defender.

Mayo is a hot corner holder-downer with pop in his bat, and fits nicely into the well-represented Orioles youth movement, as the Friday releases of both Cowser and Mayo bring the total number of O’s cards aged 26 or younger and at an 87 OVR or better in Diamond Dynasty to seven — or eight, if the currently Supercharged Live Series version of Cedric Mullins counts for the weekend. (For perspective, the Yankees have seven such players — if we count a Miguel Andujar card that dates to the 2018 season and Alfonso Soriano and Mickey Mantle cards from decades ago.)

There is also a quintet of 91 OVR Base Round players available in this Pipeline pack — Rockies right fielder Yanquiel Fernandez, Cubs right fielder Kevin Alcantara, Brewers second baseman Joseph Ortiz, Rangers shortstop Sebastian Walcott, and Padres starter Dylan Lesko — but apart from both Ortiz and Walcott being tremendous defenders, there isn’t a ton to get truly excited about at that level, with zero triple-digit stats distributed to those cards. 

Of the five, Alcántara might be the best pick: At 6’6” and with very good defense, fielding, and 90/96 Contact/Power Against Lefties, he could edge Sammy Sosa as the best Cubs right fielder in the game until whatever terrifying Sosa drops next.

Free Team Captains Choice Pack In Store

Finally, in what is at least a very minimal effort to address the limited supply of Team Captains in Diamond Dynasty, Sony San Diego has added a single free Team Captains Choice Pack to the store for the next week.

This addresses the pain point of players having only had the ability to snag two Team Captains to date and not being able to try out or build multiple theme teams as a result … but it’s also just one pack forcing players to choose from either the pool of team-specific Hitting or Pitching Captains, and thus only enables players to switch up either their Hitting Captain or Pitching Captain, not both.

There would seem to be a very simple solution to this problem of SDS’s own design: Replace some of the Team Affinity rewards with these same packs, enabling players who want to try out theme teams to do so. There is no inherent power creep in players being able to build both a Marlins and Mariners theme team at the same time, as players can only ever activate one Captain at a time, and punishing players who might have wanted to try out their favorite team at the beginning of the year and want now to, say, not represent the Oakland A’s seems unduly harsh.

Here’s hoping more of these packs are in our future, and soon.