MLB The Show 23 gets round two of the Monthly Awards Programs. May’s Monthly Awards Program has hit Diamond Dynasty and just might be the best Monthly Awards Program we’ve ever gotten. At the very least, May’s program features several big names that get quality cards fairly early season. Not to mention that the 99 overall Lightning Guy is Aaron Judge.

Let’s dig in.

MLB The Show 23: May Monthly Awards Program

Unsurprisingly, the program grind for May is identical to April. In order to acquire Lightning Aaron Judge, you must accrue 150 program stars in the program. This includes Event wins online, Moments, various stat grinding missions and tasks as well as an optional collection and exchange.

The Event again rewards 1 program star per win which gives you incremental progress if you’re grinding the Event for rewards anyway. Truthfully, Event rewards have been incredibly lackluster so far this year and that continues again for the May Monthly Awards Event. With how poor the rewards are, it doesn’t really seem worth it to me to even grind the Event at all. To each their own, but I’d rather spend my time doing the offline grind in this program than play the Event with the boring rewards. Per usual, below is my recommended order of operations for completing the Monthly Awards Program.

If you kept up with the weekly Topps Now content throughout May, then you’ll have all the cards required for the optional collection. This includes the 95 overall weekly “boss” cards and the free 99 overalls (Kenley Jansen and Craig Kimbrel). This collection will net you 15 program stars which will give you the May Monthly Captains (Blake Treinen and Eddie Rosario) as well as two-95 overall choices packs to get your grind started. This is “optional” but I consider it required as it erases a chunk of time needed to finish the program. Even if you didn’t keep up enough to finish this collection immediately, it’s worth going back and completing in order to get the 15 program stars.

Once you have your collection complete, moving onto the Moments is the next move. This month there’s 20 Moments that will net you a total of 40 program stars. You’ll earn some more choice packs along the way that you can toss into your squad alongside the Captains and start your PXP and stat grinds. That’s basically it. Get some games in with the May Monthly Awards squad and start earning PXP and knocking out those stat missions.

Completing all the 97 overall PXP missions will net you another 36 program stars. The 98 overall group earns you 25 program stars and the tasks will earn you 24 program stars. There’s also a sizable 20 program stars for the taking that you’ll almost certainly complete as you accumulate PXP with all the May Monthly Awards cards. Ultimately, if you do the grind exclusively offline there’s a total of 160 program stars possible and you only need 150. That means you can avoid some Moments or a couple of the stat/PXP grinds and still unlock Judge.

As an aside, I highly discourage you from completing the exchange. Not only because of the vast amount of cards it takes to complete the exchange, but keep in mind that Aaron Judge is a Set 2 card. That means he will rotate out in a couple months and those cards could be sold for Stubs and be put to better use.

Before we get to Aaron Judge and looking at his impact on the meta, let’s take a look at some of the other cards in the program.

1B Freddie Freeman (Los Angeles Dodgers)

Los Angeles Dodgers 1B Freddie Freeman could have very easily been the Lightning Guy this month. Freeman had a monster May of his own but has to settle for a 98 overall. This card is actually quite good with a Meta Overall rating of 102.75 and is one of Freeman’s better cards in Diamond Dynasty history. Freeman often gets shafted on his Power vs LHP but gets a respectable 91 here with 80 Power against RHP. The max Contact against both sides and max Clutch is fitting for the elite hitting Freeman as well. Freddie also has a really nice swing in game which all adds up to a very solid 1B that can easily contribute on your squad.

CP Felix Bautista (Baltimore Orioles)

To quote prominent content creator OhChev, Felix Bautista is a “gargantuan psycho” that is extremely difficult to hit. Every ounce of his 6’8”, 285 pound frame makes him a tough pitcher to face for players regardless of skill level. This dude has 125 H/9, 125 K/9 and 125 Clutch which are a recipe for any RP to dominate. Factor in the Outlier Fastball with a disgusting Splitter with max 99 Break and solid Control and a respectable Slider and you get an elite RP. How elite? Monthly Awards Felix Bautista is the 4th best RP in the entire game. You will face this card for a long time. He is inevitable.

CP Evan Phillips (Los Angeles Dodgers)

Joining his Dodgers teammate Freeman, Evan Phillips makes a showing in the 98 overall choice pack. Phillips is becoming somewhat of a DD-community darling and this card should see a respectable amount of play. Featuring 125 H/9 and 125 Clutch, Phillips also has really good Control for a lockdown RP. Phillips’ arsenal includes a primary Slider with 98 Control and 99 Break, a hard Cutter, a 4-Seamer that will touch 100 MPH and a Sinker. Phillips is a solid bullpen option and is currently the 15th best RP in the game.

C Will Smith (Los Angeles Dodgers)

Apparently the Dodgers are pretty good at baseball. Another Dodger gets a Monthly Awards card as Will Smith gets a 97 overall. The Meta Overall rating of 98.58 might not seem too sexy, but it’s good enough to make him the 9th best Catcher in the game. Smith crushes LHP and holds his own against RHP and features Gold Fielding with a strong Arm. On paper, this is a solid card that would probably fit into the “budget” category if it was available on the marketplace. The thing about Will Smith, however, is that his swing is absolutely insane. I’m talking S+ tier and no matter what those attributes say, Will Smith is one of the best hitting Catchers in the entire game. He’s so good that I might actually bench WBC J.T. Realmuto, the best Catcher in the game according to Meta Overall, just to run this absolute unit behind the dish.

May Player of the Month – Aaron Judge

New York Yankees’ RF Aaron Judge had a phenomenal May and seemed like an obvious choice for Lightning Guy. There was some doubt that he’d actually get the honor, considering prior history tells us that SDS typically waits to give elite players 99 overall cards. We’ve seen players like Byron Buxton get watered down cards that were good, but not great, and typically didn’t reflect how great their performance really was.

This is another benefit of the Sets and Seasons model in Diamond Dynasty and I love it. I have a blast using Aaron Judge cards each year, giant strike zone be damned, and we get a free 99 overall Judge before the All-Star break. This isn’t a mediocre card with trash attributes that somehow add up to a 99 overall either.

Judge features 112 Con R and 101 Con L with 125 Power against both sides. He also gets 125 Clutch which makes him 125/125 against both sides with runners in scoring position. I repeat. Aaron Judge’s attributes with runners in scoring position is 125/125. That’s Ruthian levels of awesome and this card is free.

He also gets Diamond Fielding with a stock 92 rating, which means he maintains a Diamond shield in anywhere in the outfield once he reaches Parallel 3. His freakish arm is well represented with 99 Arm strength and 99 Accuracy and the 81 Reaction should be solid enough. This card is disgustingly good.

Lightning Aaron Judge’s Meta Overall rating of 110.17 makes him the 6th best card in the entire game. It’s also good enough to make him the 4th best OF in the game.

These monthly program grinds can sometimes feel monotonous and lengthy. I’m actually looking forward to the offline grind because of how many cool cards we got in this program. We didn’t even touch on Luis Robert, Wander Franco or Mitch Keller. We didn’t even really talk about how Blake Treinen and Eddie Rosario’s respective Captain Boosts can make these cards actually really good. There’s a slew of cool, interesting cards in here that all lead to Aaron Judge’s nasty card.

I’m actually so excited to use these cards that I’m not going to do the classic “demolish the CPU on Rookie” grind to get it done faster. I’m going to use these cards in CPU games on Legend difficulty in my custom stadium and just enjoy the game.

I think SDS absolutely nailed it with this program.

What are your thoughts? Is this your favorite Monthly Awards program ever? Will Aaron Judge or any of the other cards make your starting squad?