Tuesday content drops usually feature Headliner packs and not much else, but the Houston Astros decided to throw a no-hitter so we get some unexpected Spotlight cards to celebrate the feat.
The market also got treated to another flash sale, so let's cover all the good stuff.
MLB The Show 26 Headliners 10 Featuring 94 OVR Awards OF Adam Jones (Baltimore Orioles)
New legend Adam Jones gets his first "true" Diamond of the year, following his debut card in the Jolt series for Team Affinity. True in the sense that it's now easier to get versus grinding out a team-specific program.
Anyway, Jones is about as balanced of a 94 overall you're going to get. Keeping in mind this is an Awards series card, Jones' 90 Fielding rating gives him a Diamond shield in center field with elite range in every direction.
Offensively, Jones projects more as a bottom of the order hitter that will definitely rack up some extra base hits while playing stellar defense.
Overall balance at a premium position makes Awards Adam Jones the #5 Meta Overall CF upon release.
Spotlight Showdown: Houston Astros No-Hitter
In a very cool celebration of the Houston Astros' recent combined no-hitter, a new Showdown featuring the pitchers involved has landed. This Showdown features the trio responsible for the no-hitter, with two mini-bosses and 94 OVR Spotlight Tatsuya Imai as the final boss.
This Showdown follows the trend this year of rewarding a card of the pitcher defeated in each mini-boss or final showdown. You can still defeat the final boss and earn that card if you fail one of the mini-bosses, but each run only costs 100 Stubs and you'll knock it out eventually.
93 OVR Alimber Santa and 93 OVR Steven Okert are the mini bosses leading to Imai.
Imai doesn't look terrible, though the Control makes it likely you'll run into trouble very quickly against the current crop of lefty hitters readily available.
These are super interesting relievers to me. The face-value attributes are great on both cards. The cards pass the attribute-check.
Pitch mix is where it gets interesting. These are both top-5 Meta Overall relievers. There's been a lot of chatter lately about Meta Overall and how it's rating pitchers this year with the attribute changes. I don't always agree with Meta Overall either, and on the surface it's cards like Steven Okert that I'd cite as an example.
Attributes are elite across the board, but the stuff isn't very stuffy. SDS' attribute changes this year don't necessarily correlate to "stuff" being nasty break and elite velocity. The attributes here are bonkers, meaning the real world equivalent is when a pitcher has exceptional metrics but not overpowering stuff. These guys exist! It feels like they're actually being valued in Diamond Dynasty for the first time.
So where you or I might disagree with Meta Overall at times, it's exactly the same vibe as when "Moneyball" analytics first became mainstream.
I still think Okert gets rocked online, but holy hell am I excited by the idea of giving it a try. And lest we pass up the opportunity to do this:
Santa, on the other hand, delivers the goods with a prototypical big-arm that will play fine in any bullpen.
Flash Sale Stonks
A flash sale landed earlier today. Blink and you missed it, but the market looks to still be settling. A ton of expensive live series cards came down, though the hugely expensive Judge and Ohtani are still unobtainable. Those that have been stockpiling Stubs probably made out well today. I missed out as I'm very low on Stubs and haven't been able to play much lately. I still the handful of top Diamonds to complete the collection, so I'm not falling over myself to buy live series cards anytime soon. Packs still feel sorta fun to open since there's plenty of rare cards to find, and I'm not doing horrible with the legends and flashbacks vouchers.
I'll be curious to see where the market settles by the weekend.
Did you make out during the flash sale? Rip packs or clean up on the market?
Let us know in the comments!
