Major Diamond Dynasty Season 1 Content Drop Features 60+ New Cards, Led By 97 OVR Jacob DeGrom

This Friday, April 12 brings the most substantial release of content in MLB The Show’s team-building Diamond Dynasty mode since the game’s initial release in March. Headlined by a sweeping Team Affinity Season 1 Chapter 2 release that should reset the power curve in the game and bolstered by a refresh of rewards for DD’s online play, the content drop contains more than 60 new player items — the majority coming in at 90 OVR or above, and most free in the sense that they are obtainable via gameplay rather than purchase.

Team Affinity Season 1 Chapter 2

The biggest part of this content drop is Chapter 2 of Team Affinity for Season 1, which will run through early June. And with new 93 OVR cards for each of the 30 MLB teams, it promises to provide the core of a boost to the power curve in game.

Most of these TA cards are likely to ultimately be more solid than meta-defining, with only a few huge names among the players available.

The AL East’s crop includes touted young outfielders in the form of the Orioles’ Heston Kjerstad, Red Sox’s Ceddanne Rafaela and Yankees’ Jasson Dominguez. Justin Verlander is the Tigers’ representative in the AL Central pack. Sweet-swinging Mitch Garver shows up in the AL West pack as a Ranger — and one of the game’s best-hitting catchers.

In the NL East, players can nab both Eddie Mathews and an Acuña — Luisangel, specifically, the Mets shortstop prospect and younger brother of the Braves’ Ronald. The NL Central is heavy on sluggers, with Cubs prospect Michael Busch, Brewers outfielder Greg Vaughn, and Pirates first baseman Josh Bell all bringing their big bats. And the NL West has maybe the most variety of any division, with a starter (Rockies righty prospect Chase Dollander), reliever (Dodgers-era Kenley Jansen), first baseman (Padres’ Wil Myers), and two outfielders (Druw Jones of the Diamondbacks and Chili Davis of the Giants) all available.

For more on Team Affinity Season 1 Chapter 2, check out our full list of the players included, the Team Affinity S1:CH1 program page and a breakdown of those players.

Online Modes Refresh Includes DeGrom, Cameron, Braun, Valenzuela, Painter

While Team Affinity provides the largest portion of this DD content drop, the refreshes of rewards available in the Ranked, Battle Royale, and Events modes might be more appealing to online players.

Ranked refreshing means that players can tackle a new Ranked 2 program that will be available for the next four weeks before an expiration on Friday, May 10. The program’s rewards are highlighted by three new players exclusive to the reward path: A 95 OVR Alejandro Kirk available at 75 Stars and the World Series rewards of a 97 OVR Jacob DeGrom and Mike Cameron. As always, players can get one of DeGrom or Cameron by just completing the reward path; the other will have to be claimed by battling to the 900 rating that is the threshold for the World Series tier of competition.

Cameron’s card is great at everything if not the best at anything, with superb hitting, defense, and speed, and he’ll hold down the title of best Mariners center fielder in Diamond Dynasty until whichever gross Ken Griffey Jr. supplants him.

But it’s the DeGrom that might have a case for best card in DD, and certainly for best pitcher available at present. His ever-fantastic fastball checks in at 99 MPH with Outlier, and his combination of command and pure stuff — his only pitching stat under 90 is HR/9 … which is 89 — should once again make him a dream to use and a nightmare to hit.

One saving grace of a DeGrom this good arriving this early in the game cycle? Having to grind out Ranked to acquire him limits how many times he will devastate mere mortals, even if the obvious play for elite online players is obtaining a first copy of him as quickly as possible, using that copy to pursue the other World Series reward, and then selling a surplus DeGrom for hundreds of thousands of Stubs.

Battle Royale’s new program is also now available, with players able to obtain four new 87 OVR cards, four new 90 OVR cards, and new Flawless rewards — a 95 OVR Ryan Braun and Fernando Valenzuela —for reaching 100 BR points in the BR 2 Program reward path or going on a Flawless 10-0 run in the mode.

The 87 OVR and 90 OVR player pools are surprisingly star-studded, with the 87 OVR pack containing versions of Todd Helton, Chipper Jones, J.D. Martinez, and Tommy Pham, and the 90 OVR cards including Brandon Drury, Bryce Harper, Danny Jansen, and Ryan McMahon. Players can get all four of each of those by grinding the BR 2 program’s reward path, which requires all sorts of statistical achievements both in Battle Royale and with those featured players — also including the four Gold players, all 84 OVR pitchers (Jesse Chavez, Michael Fulmer, German Marquez, and A.J. Minter) that are also new Battle Royale Exclusive player items — during BR runs.

All of these cards, even the Golds, have uses, with Braun and Valenzuela obviously having the potential to be lineup mainstays for the rest of Season 1. Braun’s 125/105 Contact/Power split against lefties is especially juicy, and Valenzuela’s unique pitch mix led by an 82 MPH screwball and aided by a curveball and circle change in the mid to low 70s can be utterly confounding.

And finally, the new Past, Present, and Future Event brings two new Diamonds and a way to get Rewind packs. The event, which requires rosters built from Legends, Live Series, Prospects (Pipeline and Spring Breakout), Season Awards, Topps Now, The Show Classics, and TA S1:C2 players, is around for two weeks, expiring April 26th at 11 a.m. Pacific/2 p.m. Eastern, and provides Rewind packs that contain rewards from earlier Events for eight and 18 cumulative wins, an 89 OVR Barry Larkin at 10 cumulative wins, and a 94 OVR Andrew Painter — with 99 Velocity and Break, a 99 MPH fastball to go with a sinker, slider, and circle change, and a towering 6’7” frame — at 20 total wins.

If you’re interested in casting a line into the online waters, this release certainly has some whopping rewards to reel in.

Duran, Bieber, Blanco Lead Season 1 Awards Drop 3

As if all the above wasn’t enough, Season 1 Awards Drop 3 is also new to DD this Friday, with an OVR escalation netting players four reward path cards at 90 OVR and one at 93 OVR after two weeks of four 88 OVRs and one 93 OVR and pack-exclusive cards at 94 and 91 OVR after previously coming in at 92 and 89 OVR.

The names in this drop are once again lower-profile — especially compared to the first drop’s inclusion of both Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani — but the 90 OVR tier includes Topps Now versions of Orioles second baseman Jordan Westburg, Diamondbacks shortstop Blaze Alexander, Braves catcher Travis D’Arnaud, and Rangers second baseman Justin Foscue, whose 95/105 Contact numbers against righties and lefties, respectively, makes him perhaps the most interesting card in that tier.

But the 93 OVR Ronel Blanco at the end of the reward path is both a deserved tribute to one of the young 2024 MLB season’s breakout performers and an almost insulting card: Its 93 OVR rating must have much more to do with the 108 Stamina, 107 H/9, 99 HR/9, and 113 Pitching Clutch it was given than the dire 68 Velocity, unshowy 91 Break, and uninspiring four-pitch mix (four-seamer, circle change, slider, slurve) it got.

Blanco’s no-hitter and subsequent one-hit appearance in the tiny sample size of two starts and 15 innings after an itinerant and unspectacular minor league career are feats as unlikely as they are impressive, in fairness — his Live Series card is a Bronze for good reason. But THAT card has a 76 Velocity, 95 Break, and a 95 MPH fastball — so a card of the same player with a +26 OVR has, incredibly, an inferior pitch mix.

While there is every chance that Blanco’s success in the majors is a blip and his excellence is unsustainable, a card that does not fully capture that moment is a disappointment.

And, of course, it will continue to rankle players that the “better” and higher-OVR Season 1 Awards players are only obtainable through packs and the market rather than a reward path. The 94 OVR Bieber is a soft-tossing king with five pitches ranging from 92 to 82 MPH and all of his K/9, BB/9, HR/9, and Pitching Clutch somewhere from 96 to 103, and the 94 OVR Duran is a fantastic lefty bat with 98/97 Contact/Power against righties, an even better 112 Contact against lefties, 106 Clutch, and great basepath stats (91 Speed, 99 Stealing and Baserunning Aggression), but both of them are clearly better than the Blanco — and players have to pay 40,000 Stubs for a pack with 1-in-5 listed odds of the Rare round containing them.

The Base round items in that pack — 91 OVR James McCann, Max Meyer, and Thairo Estrada cards — also smoke the 90 OVR reward path players. McCann is one of just a few catchers in Diamond Dynasty with Diamond hitting and fielding, and is better than budding Orioles superstar Adley Rutschman’s Live Series card in every major hitting stat except Vision and Discipline; Meyer has a 101 H/9, 103 Pitching Clutch, and the vaunted four-seam/slider/sinker trio in his pitch mix; and Estrada, whose card celebrates a walk-off double that is one of his four — four! — hits in 2024 as of this card’s release, has an absurd 119 Clutch, better than 99 OVR Jimmy Rollins and Larry Walker, to name just two cards. 

That these cards have obvious weaknesses — Estrada’s Silver Defense for a second baseman reflects a 94 Fielding rating that is somewhat undercut by a hilarious 43 Arm Strength — does not mean they are not elite situational options, and that they ARE elite situationally makes them a lot better than the more well-rounded but less exciting reward path players.

And with the Season 1 Awards Drop 3 pack still not included in that reward path, the weird and frustrating divide between earned and purchased players in a program similar to ones that had been pure grind for years and years will stay a thorn in players’ sides.

Chase Pack 3 Features Happ, Headiners Pack 9 Holds Harrison

Outside all of the modes, there are still other new things available in the Diamond Dynasty store.

Chase Pack 3 brings back a fan favorite in the form of a 95 OVR The Show Classics Ian Happ from his postseason explosion with the Cubs. Happ’s card boasts switch hitting and a mauler’s profile against righties, with 108 Contact and 115 Power and a host of quirks that include Breaking Ball Hitter and Bad Ball Hitter.

Headliners Pack 9, meanwhile, brings another Pipeline pitcher, Giants prospect-turned-Opening Day starter Kyle Harrison. Harrison’s MLB stat line to date includes 17 innings, 17 hits, and 17 strikeouts, so he naturally gets a card with 100 H/9, 107 K/9, and 99 Break applied to a lively 96 MPH/99 Break four-seamer and a slurve, circle change, and slider.

Chase packs can appear in any Show packs, but are only guaranteed in the 75,000-Stub 50-pack bundle in the store, while Headliners and Headiners Choice packs are 7,500 and 35,000 Stubs, respectively.

95 OVR Al Leiter Joins Collection Rewards

Last but possibly not least — and definitely not so aesthetically — is the latest addition to the Season 1 Collection Rewards, a 95 OVR Hyper Series Al Leiter from his time with the Marlins.

Obtainable for locking in 200 of the Season 1 Legends and Flashbacks that comprise the Season 1 Collection, Leiter’s card reflects his workhorse reputation and movement-heavy repertoire, with 103 Stamina, 108 H/9, 102 K/9, 116 Pitching Clutch, and 99 Break that translates to four of his five pitches having 95 or better Break. Harnessing all that will be tricky, given his 58 BB/9 and 77 Control, but a gap of 18 MPH between his four-seamer and curveball can make him maddening to time up.

And special commendation must be given to the art of Leiter’s card, which features his teal Marlins cap prominently and pops beautifully thanks to the Hyper Series treatment.