Season 3 of Ranked has officially launched and brings a new trio of World Series rewards. Gerrit Cole, Andre Dawson and Carlos Correa are the featured rewards this time around. Let’s take a closer look and see how Meta Overall feels about these new cards.

MLB The Show 23: Ranked Season 3 Program Breakdown

SP Incognito Chef G! [Gerrit Cole] (New York Yankees)

Meta Overall rating: 92.78

New York Yankees’ Ace Gerrit Cole cooks up a 99 overall Incognito card. Cole’s baseline stats are pretty solid with 116 H/9, 107 K/9, 88 BB/9 and 114 Clutch. Cole’s known as a flamethrower which is represented here as he’ll easily touch 100 MPH, though he does not possess Outlier. Cole also features a hard Slider, Knuckle Curve, Circle-Change and Cutter.

Cole cards typically get hit pretty hard but at least over the last two years, I feel like he’s performed better than he traditionally has. I’m intrigued by the Cutter/Slider combination playing off the 100 MPH heater. The Cutter coming in harder than the Slider is great, but the speed differential is minimal and might reduce the effectiveness of that combination. The Knuckle Curve has a ton of Break at 97 and comes in slower than the other off-speed pitches, but we’ve discussed the poor performance of Curveballs in The Show many times. The Circle-Change might be the weakest pitch in the arsenal with 79 Control and 76 Break and might present a challenge getting tough lefties out.

Incognito Gerrit Cole currently ranks as the 27th best SP in the game. It’ll be a theme we discuss later, but that’s not the most exciting card to see featured in a long grind for the Ranked ladder.

CF Incognito The Hawk! [Andre Dawson] (Washington Nationals)

Meta Overall rating: 103.26; LF: 105.02, RF 105.66

The Hawk flies into the World Series Choice Pack as a primary CF. Dawson’s baseline hitting stats are fairly underwhelming to me for a World Series reward. He features 125 CON L, 109 CON R, 90 POW L, 101 POW R and 99 Clutch. In years past, this might be a solid early Ranked reward to add to your squad after a torturous grind. With the advent of Sets and Seasons this year and the deluge of 99 overall cards, however, this card just feels “meh.” Dawson is a Diamond fielder everywhere in the OF thanks to his 95 stock Fielding and possesses 98 Arm Strength and 90 Reaction. Combined with 88 Speed, Dawson’s nickname is fitting as he’ll be flying around the OF making plays for you on the regular. It’s just very difficult for me to get past the mediocre offensive profile for a reward featured in the third Ranked season. This card will be a huge add for Nationals theme teams, as it should be, and might find a solid place on Captain squads that feature Legends or players from older eras. Dawson does have Dead Red and Breaking Ball Hitter, two of the better offensive Quirks. Outside of that, this card isn’t exciting at all.

Incognito Andre Dawson is the 20th best OF overall according to Meta Overall. He actually rates out better as a corner OF despite the CF primary.

 SS Kaiju Carlos Correa (Houston Astros)

Meta Overall rating: 99.06; 3B: 104.38

Rounding out the World Series Choice Pack for Season 3 is Kaiju Carlos Correa. I typically enjoy Correa cards as I think he has a pretty sweet swing and he’s typically a defensive stud. That’s still the case as this Correa gets 93 Fielding with 97 Arm Strength, 92 Accuracy and 90 Reaction. Combined with a pretty generous 73 Speed, Correa should be a reliable fielder up the middle and get to plenty of balls that other SS might not get to. Offensively, Correa features 125 CON L, 108 CON R, 99 POW L, 102 POW R and 125 Clutch.

Again, pretty solid attributes for an early season Ranked reward that just seems to fall flat after all the content we’ve gotten. I don’t even really have any complaints about this card. He isn’t the best SS when purely looking at attributes but he’s plenty good. I think he’s probably the best card in this pack and who I’d most likely take.

Kaiju Carlos Correa is the 23rd best SS according to Meta Overall. Like Dawson, Correa actually rates out better at his secondary position with a Meta Overall rating at 3B of 104.38.

papadell’s Picks

This is such an underwhelming pack to me that I almost don’t care who the best pick is. None of these cards feel like they fit on my squad outside of a bench role, if that. I don’t think Cole will have long-term success online, though he might be a bit of a dark horse ace on All-Star difficulties since he throws exceptionally hard. Dawson isn’t exciting to me at all.

So for me, my pick is probably Carlos Correa. As said above, I think he has a great swing in the game that typically helps him play above his attributes which are pretty solid. I value up-the-middle defense in The Show immensely so I would happily start Correa at SS.

Closing Thoughts

As much as I’m underwhelmed by these rewards, I think it’s worth pointing out that the respective Meta Overall ratings are influenced by all the cards that have been out since Set 1. Once Set 1 rotates out, these cards stand a pretty solid chance of floating to the top of the Meta Overall board until Set 3 gets deeper in its content cycle. I don’t want to call these cards “investments” but I do think that they’ll end up rating out better once the first rotation happens.

Still, none of these cards scream “Wild Card” caliber to me. With the program cards becoming No-Sell recently, I’d almost expect the attributes to be a bit juicier. Instead, we get three very bland cards that might get some helium next month but ultimately just exist. Considering the lengthy grind of Ranked, I’m not sure why these are grindable cards online while we’re getting much better cards from offline programs and from packs.