Diamond Dynasty Season 2 Captains Breakdown: New 95 OVR Cards, Theme Teams

The All-Star Break may be over, but that doesn’t mean that MLB The Show’s midsummer content surge is done. Last Friday’s content in Diamond Dynasty included a roster update and new Ranked and Battle Royale rewards that shook up the middle tier and top end of the metagame – but it is, of course, the release of several Captains cards with the potential to create new theme teams that will set that meta that may be most important of all.

These five Captains cards are all 95 OVR items – a bit behind the power curve individually – and are available from a new Season 2 Captains pack in the store that is available for 30,000 Stubs and can be purchased twice. All of these Captains are also sellable, so players who want all five or to bypass buying the pack can do so through the marketplace.

Let’s break down what each Season 2 Captain does, and how potent they might be.

Jackie Robinson: Cover Athletes Captain

Jackie Robinson Captain Eligible Players

Jackie Robinson occupies an interesting spot in Diamond Dynasty: His cards are always good, but rarely great in a way that defines the metagame or makes them must-have, because Jackie Robinson the Hall of Famer from reality was the sort of singles-and-doubles machine that does not translate nearly as well to the modern game of baseball that puts a premium on power, much less a video game in which home runs are the best way to score.

So at first blush, this card also being a contact specialist that boosts contact is reinforcing Robinson’s strengths without shoring up any weaknesses.

• Tier 1 Boost: Five cover athletes, +5 Contact Right and Left

• Tier 2 Boost: Eight cover athletes, +7 Contact Right and Left, +5 Batting Clutch

• Tier 3 Boost: 10 cover athletes, +10 Contact Right and Left, +8 Batting Clutch, +8 H/9

Robinson gets all 28 points of that Tier 3 boost – and it gets none of those three stats higher than a 115, which he has in Batting Clutch.

But consider the player pool of cover athletes. It skews strongly toward sluggers like Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge, who have better Power than Contact stats, and as the power curve advances in Season 2 and beyond, those players will already come with maxed-out Power or very close, meaning that a Captain that can shore up their weaknesses has a lot of value.

Putting together a lineup of 10 cover athletes is kind of tricky without sacrificing here or there, especially given that the only pitcher who qualifies is Marcus Stroman, thanks to a Canadian variant cover of MLB The Show 18; you really will probably need to have Javier Baez or Jazz Chisholm among your batters to maximize the boost.Still, if having truly endgame-level versions of Judge or Ohtani is one of your goals, this Robinson is an effective tool in that regard.

Joe Nathan: Texans Captain

Joe Nathan Captain Eligible Players

By some margin, Joe Nathan being the Texans Captain has to be the weirdest Captain pick of this game cycle. Did you know that Joe Nathan was even from Texas? DId you remember the two years he played for the Rangers? I can’t say I did.

But even though Nathan as a Captain for the Lone Star State is odd when Nolan Ryan is right there, it’s hard to argue with the boosts he provides.

• Tier 1 Boost: Five Texan players, +5 H/9, Contact Right 

• Tier 2 Boost: Eight Texan players, +10 H/9, Contact Right, +8 Batting/Pitching Clutch

• Tier 3 Boost: 11 Texan players, +15 H/9, Contact Right, Batting/Pitching Clutch

There are obviously plenty of players eligible for this boost, too, from 99 OVR versions of Jackson Holliday and Bobby Witt Jr. to Kerry Wood, Hagen Smith, and the aforementioned Ryan. Not having arguable endgame versions of Ryan or Clayton Kershaw – or Joe Morgan, secret Texan! – hurts the top end of this team a bit, and Nathan and Hoby Milner are its only two 90+ OVR relievers, but it is hard to argue against 60 points of boost spread over four key stats.

Still, the complexity of building a Texans theme team is considerable: Either you’re using our helpful listing or checking in-game cards to see whether that guy you remember as a Southerner is from Texas or Alabama or Georgia or some other state with an SEC school. And if the Nathan itself were a better card, maybe this is a more compelling theme team.

Mostly, it seems like a fun build not meant to be meta-defining.

Jackson Chourio: Young Guns Captain

Jackson Chourio Captain Eligible Players

Now, if you want a fun build that might actually be meta-defining, the charge of the Jacksons – and the rest of baseball’s scintillating bunch of 23-and-under players – may be worth assembling. Brewers superprospect Chourio is a fitting frontman for this build, and if his card is a bit underwhelming on its own – it’s not remotely as good as the 99 OVR Pipeline card that Chourio got late in Season 1, and really only has speed and a decent bat against righties – the boost and the broad base of players it can be applied to are both killer. 

• Tier 1 Boost: Eight players aged 23 and under, +5 Power Right, Pitching Clutch

• Tier 2 Boost: 13 players aged 23 and under, +10 Pitching Clutch; +8 Power Right, Contact Left

• Tier 3 Boost: 18 players aged 23 and under, +15 Pitching Clutch, +12 Power Right, Contact Left; +10 K/9

If you were designing a boost that helped batters through two stats alone, it might be one with bonuses to Power against righties and Contact against lefties. If you wanted one boost to non-velocity stats for pitchers – because there hasn’t (yet) been a pitcher who ups his rotation mates’ velo – it might be in Pitching Clutch. Adding K/9 at Tier 3 isn’t as great as the other three, but as boosts that aren’t targeted to a specific kind of player’s specific strengths and weaknesses, this is a fine mix.

What makes the theme team way better than fine is the absurd number of players aged 23 and under that can constitute this theme team. It isn’t just the Jacksons – Chourio, Holliday, Merrill, Jermaine, TIto – or breakout stars of recent years like Paul Skenes, Elly De La Cruz, and Gunnar Henderson that contribute to and benefit from this boost, but also younger versions of established stars – like the All-Star Game Mike Trout from 2015, his age-23 season, or the Home Run Derby Julio Rodriguez tied to his thrilling show at the 2022 version of the event, which happened when he was 23.

Oh, and essentially every Pipeline card is eligible here. Oh, and essentially every Draft card is eligible here. Oh, and this player pool promises to only get deeper if players like Skenes and Henderson continue their torrid paces.

I don’t think there’s a question that this is the standout Captain card of this release; the real question is whether it approaches what the Byron Buxton Cornerstone Captain was in the first weeks of Diamond Dynasty this year or the Carlos Santana Switch Hitters Captain has been since its release. My gut says the Santana is slightly better because of how powerful switch hitting is and how the roster of switch hitters fills out over time, but this Young Guns build doesn’t currently require allocating a Wild Card slot to a Captain, which is a significant point in its favor.

Cedric Mullins: 30/30 Club Captain

Cedric Mullins Captain Eligible Players

Then there’s the most baffling card in this batch, applying modest, confusing – and, in one case, worthless – boosts to a shallow pool of players.

• Tier 1 Boost: Five hitters with 30-30 seasons, +5 Contact Right/Left

• Tier 2 Boost: Eight hitters with 30-30 seasons, +7 Contact Right/Left; +5 Batting Clutch

• Tier 3 Boost: 11 hitters with 30-30 seasons, +10 Contact Right/Left; +8 Batting Clutch, H/9

To have a 30/30 season and join the 30/30 Club, a player must record 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases. There are attributes on cards that help players accomplish the feats of home runs and stolen bases in MLB The Show. Those attributes are not part of this card that is the face of the 30/30 Club in Diamond Dynasty. Curious! Or maybe dumb!

Mullins is also just kind of fine, though his swing has long been quite good for your humble author; with 85 Speed, he’s not going to be the best at swiping bags, though, and with Power that will remain under 100 until or unless you Parallel V him – which, uh, sure, is a thing you can do with your finite existence on Earth – he will also not be the primary slugger in your lineup.

The pool of 30/30 Club members in Diamond Dynasty also isn’t particularly deep, with a surprising number of the most notable ones – Carlos Beltran, Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonds, Jose Canseco, Alex Rodriguez, and Darryl Strawberry among them – not in DD, and the surprisingly large crop of active players who have membership skewing strongly toward fleet-footed outfielders, as you’d expect. Jeff Bagwell is the rare first baseman who made it in, and Jose Ramirez and Bobby Witt Jr. are good choices at third, but they are not the first names most think of when conceiving of the 30/30 Club.

But I think the real missed opportunity here is probably less on Sony San Diego and more on Ronald Acuna Jr.’s disappointing injury-shortened season and some recalcitrant veterans. Last year, Acuna famously joined the incredibly small 40/40 Club – whose VIPs are Bonds, Canseco, A-Rod, Alfonso Soriano, and now Acuna – and also inaugurated the 40/50, 40/60, and 40/70 Clubs in his MVP campaign. A 40/40 Captain boosting just Acuna and Soriano would be silly, though it would also allow for huge boosts that don’t really affect the metagame in a significant way.

If the folks in charge of securing rights for MLB The Show could somehow score the coup of getting all of Bonds, Canseco, and A-Rod into Diamond Dynasty – arguably the two best players in baseball history to not be part of it, and surely three of the top 10 figures in baseball missing from it – then a 40/40 Club Captain with unbelievable Tier 3 boosts that only kick in with all five of the members in a lineup would be one of the cooler small details about that game.

Until – or unless, given Bonds’s legendary resistance to being part of video games – that day comes, though, I guess we will have this Mullins and the boost to H/9 that it gives to exactly zero pitchers in MLB who have recorded 30/30 seasons.

(Well, until or unless Shohei Ohtani records just four more stolen bases this season. Then there will be one such member of that club. Because he’s Shohei Ohtani.)

Justin Verlander: No Hitter Captain

Justin Verlander Captain Eligible Players

In contrast in the 30/30 Club, the No Hitter House is rather expansive: Just 46 players have 30/30 Club membership, but hundreds of pitchers have thrown or contributed to the 324 no-hitters thrown in MLB history, and many of them are in Diamond Dynasty.

Which makes two aspects of this Captain a bit puzzling: Did we really need a Captain giving boosts to pitchers who contributed to combined no-hitters so that Bryan Abreu and Chris Devenski got a little help, or one giving boosts to catchers who were behind the plate for no-nos such that great Gary Carter and Mike Piazza cards get even better? 

• Tier 1 Boost: Five players involved in no-hitters, +5 Contact Right, H/9

• Tier 2 Boost: Seven players involved in no-hitters, +10 Contact Right; +8 H/9; +5 K/9

• Tier 3 Boost: 10 players involved in no-hitters, +15 Contact Right; +10 Power Right;, +8 H/9, K/9

The result of this design choice is that catcher who did the significantly easier work of being part of a no-hitter get bigger boosts from this Verlander than the pitchers who had to throw all those pitches – illogical, if helpful in a big way for those cards in game – and that the Tier 3 of this boost stalls out on the stat theoretically most connected to no-hitters and instead gives batting stats that most pitchers won’t make use of. (There should be an exception here – naturally, it is Babe Ruth, who infamously started a game that saw him ejected after walking the first batter and which turned into a no-hitter all but entirely authored by Ernie Shore – and, of course, one Shohei no-no or Noh-tani performance expands that list to two, but Ruth doesn’t seem to qualify in Diamond Dynasty, so we can consider the batting boosts here almost exclusive to catchers.)

Verlander, meanwhile, has the nasty stuff necessary to miss bats and induce weak contact, but lacks control on basically anything other than his outrageously good fastball, meaning that actually gunning for a no-hitter with the No Hitter Captain is surely a fool’s errand. That continues a theme for these Captains, of course, as they are unimpressive relative to the vanguard of DD cards – but while Robinson is a known quantity as an underwhelming Hall of Fame-level DD card and Chourio, Mullins, and Nathan are varying levels from unproven to very good, Verlander is a first-ballot Hall of Famer who gets legitimate discussion as a unanimous Hall of Famer, and his no-hitters have been historically outstanding ones for a variety of reasons.

It would have been okay for Sony San Diego to make a different player the No Hitter Captain – cough, Nolan Ryan, cough – and make a Milestone card tied to Verlander’s no-hitters an utterly filthy pitcher. Choosing this path enables a weird theme team that probably won’t be all that popular instead, and I don’t think that’s a better one for Diamond Dynasty.