MLB The Show 24: Fresh Start Pack and Free Mookie Betts Diamond Available Now

The latest Headliners Pack just dropped yesterday, but that hasn’t stopped SDS from bringing the noise.

Specifically, a free Diamond player item was made available in the Show Shop for a limited time. The player this time around is fan-favorite Mookie Betts, highlighting his Rookie season with the Boston Red Sox. It appears we might get a steady dose of free Diamonds in the Show Shop all year which is good for everyone. These cards probably won’t be top-tier on their own, but given the strength of Captains this year we could see some sneaky good cards handed out for free.

In addition, a new premium pack was released dubbed the Fresh Start Pack. This Choice Pack features a handful of well known players and superstars that switched teams in the off-season.

There’s a lot to get to so let’s get to it.

Rookie CF Mookie Betts (Boston Red Sox) – Meta Overall: 72.19; #72 CF

We won’t over analyze a free 85 overall card, as it’s probably not surprising that it doesn’t rank anywhere near the top of anything. It is worth pointing out that the card has decent Contact with pretty good Fielding and Speed. Unfortunately, there aren’t any Quirks that might add some hidden value as this card represents Mookie’s rookie season.

Perhaps more relevant for most of us, this is a Season 1 card that can be used in the Season 1 collection. These freebies will add up over time, so make sure you’re claiming your free packs from the Show Shop as they get released!

We talked about Jason Bay yesterday as he was the featured Headliner in Pack 4. The Boston Red Sox Captain boosts made that card quite a bit better, so what about this Betts?

With Johnny Damon and Nathan Eovaldi activated as tandem Captains, Rookie Mookie Betts looks like this:

92 CON R, 118 CON L, 69 POW R, 42 POW L, 78 Clutch.

Rookie Mookie Betts is available in a free pack in the Show Shop for the next four days from this writing.

Fresh Start Choice Pack

The Fresh Start Pack features myriad players that swapped teams in the off-season, all wrapped up in the stellar Hyper Series art. This is a pretty interesting crop of players across both rounds.

Base Round

Hyper Series RF Tyler O’Neill (Boston Red Sox) – Meta Overall: #22 RF

Tyler O’Neill joined the Boston Red Sox in the off-season and you’d be doing well to have him join your Diamond Dynasty squad. O’Neill is solid enough for an 89 overall. You can do better, but you can do a lot worse as well. The most tantalizing thing about O’Neill is that he fits on the Cornerstone Byron Buxton theme team. With the boost, he’d look like this:

76 CON L, 73 CON R, 106 POW L, 97 POW R, 70 Clutch, 93 Fielding and 99 Speed.

Those attributes will certainly play right now and O’Neill’s blend of Power and elite Fielding and Speed makes him interesting indeed.

Hyper Series SP Chris Sale (Atlanta Braves) – Meta Overall: 73.49; #35 SP

This is one of those occasions where I think a card has a really good chance to massively outplay its respective Meta Overall rating. Obviously, Meta Overall is a gauge and not necessarily gospel when it comes to how good a card might perform online. Hyper Series Chris Sale won’t top the list in that metric, but I think he might end up being really good online.

For starters, Chris Sale notoriously has a funky delivery that makes him tough to pick up for many. That alone gives him some street cred in terms of online playability. He might not have an Outlier on the 4-Seam, but he does throw the Slider at 79 MPH and the Circle Change at 86 MPH, giving him three unique speeds to create a great differential. Combined with the funky delivery and we’re already off to a good start. We do see Break Outlier in play on this card which is very relevant and we’ll discuss more below.

Attribute wise, Sale isn’t top-tier but certainly playable. That’s probably not even being completely honest. The rate of 99 overalls dropping last year has probably skewed my view on attributes this early into 2024. It’s probably safe to say that these attributes are good. With 83 H/9, 86 K/9, 81 BB/9 and 80 Clutch; Sale is about as balanced as you can get.

The most interesting aspect to this card is the fact that Hyper Series Chris Sale has 99 Break on all of his pitches. Yes, you read that correctly. Hyper Series Chris Sales has 99 Break on all four of his pitches.

That’s insane. This isn’t a soft-tossing lefty, folks. This is a funky, lanky dude throwing gas with a disgusting Slider and gross Circle Change to boot. Oh yeah, he has a proper Sinker as well. Remember Break Outlier? That means he loses Break on his pitches at a lower rate as he gets tired. Combined with 99 Break on his pitches and you’ll be nasty with it for pretty much the entire game.

Hyper Series 2B Jorge Polanco (Seattle Mariners) – Meta Overall: 85.59; #9 2B

The switch-hitting Polanco is a perennial favorite in Diamond Dynasty. Polanco has a nasty swing that always feels and plays great. The attributes here are fine and firmly places him as a Top-10 2B in Meta Overall right now. As he’s only eligible for Mariners’ theme team builds right now, Polanco could see a ton of added value if a decent switch-hitting Captain gets released at some point.

Hyper Series 1B Rhys Hoskins (Milwaukee Brewers) – Meta Overall: 86.25; #22 1B

Rhys Hoskins checks in next with a decent little card. If you’re looking to upgrade 1B, Hoskins has a nice swing and comes with some outfield secondaries; though you’d probably be nuts to play him there. With 86 CON L, 71 CON R, 100 POW L, 90 POW R and 84 Clutch, Hoskins is probably best served as a DH as there’s some better options that play better defense at 1B currently.

Hyper Series SP Michael King (San Diego Padres) – Meta Overall: 74.21; #29

Similar to Chris Sale, Michael King might play better than his Meta Overall rating implies. King throws a nasty Sinker that’s fast, backed up by a disgustingly good Slurve. His overall pitch mix isn’t the best as his other two pitches are a 4-Seamer and Circle Change. He’ll touch 100 MPH with the heat and the Circle Change has an amazing 97 Break. and solid 81 Control. King throws hard enough and with enough movement that I think he can be good on All-Star. A card this nasty is worth a couple starts at the very least.

Rare Round

Wrapping up the Choice Pack is the rare round featuring Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Juan Soto and Corbin Burnes. Each of these three cards are pretty good and anyone lucky enough to pull the rare round has a tough choice.

Yamamoto’s Live Series debut was as a 79 overall Silver, perhaps surprising many since he was so hyped entering MLB. I feel like this card might be really effective in the hands of a skilled pitcher, though may pose problems for everyone else.

Yamamoto’s nastiness is represented here as his three top pitches all have 93+ Break. Overall, he has solid Control across all his pitches and the 84 BB/9 is pretty good. That means the PAR sizes should be tolerable and help you locate. However, Yamamoto doesn’t exactly have the most competitive pitch mix. He throws the 4-Seamer very hard, though it lacks Outlier. He possesses a Cutter that should be slow enough compared to the 4-Seamer to get swings and misses. The lack of a true Changeup and Slider hurt the card a bit, though the Splitter and Slurve are obviously similar in shape.

Year after year, Juan Soto is one of the most popular Diamond Dynasty hitters. He has one of the better swings in the game and any card with any amount of juice typically bangs. Soto has pretty good offensive attributes across the board and gets better Fielding than he probably deserves. His 52 stock Speed will make him a bit of a liability in the outfield, though.

You’re not using this card for the defense no matter what. With those offensive attributes, you’re also getting a ton of Quirks including Dead Red and Breaking Ball Hitter. Needless to say, Hyper Series Juan Soto is a beast.

Finally, Corbin Burnes casually enters the chat as the 5th best SP in the game. Burnes is a known commodity in the Diamond Dynasty community at this point. With a hard Cutter, Circle Change, Slider and Sinker all complemented with a Curveball; Burnes nearly has a perfect pitch mix for online play.

The Slider’s speed differential from the Cutter is good enough on its own, but the Circle Change having similar speed with a completely different plane of break always helps the stellar velocity play up. Burnes also gets Break Outlier which obviously helps maintain the nastiness for longer.

The card can be knocked a bit as the Sinker isn’t very strong. In fact, with the new Pinpoint Pitching gesture for Sinkers, dare I say Burnes’ Sinker almost becomes an afterthought. It’ll still come in pretty hot, but with 67 Control and 68 Break, you’re probably better off sticking to his four main pitches. Burnes features 102 H/9, which is one of the best ratings in the entire game for a SP, but he also features 76 BB/9 so locating overall will be a bit trickier.

The Fresh Start Choice Pack is available in the Show Shop for 40,000 Stubs per pack with a maximum purchase amount of three packs per user.

The Closer

I don’t usually recommend buying packs, but I almost feel like the Fresh Start Pack might be worth it. The rare round cards are hovering around 100k Stubs at the moment, so you stand to make a pretty penny if you pull rare round and flip immediately. These cards will come down within the next week or so if the Vault Pack gets updated and features these cards. If not, they’ll probably maintain around 100k Stubs value until and unless the pack starts hitting Conquest maps or other reward trees.

Even the base round cards are 25-28k Stubs each as of this writing. So if you have Stubs and more than one of these cards would be a tangible upgrade for your squad, it might be a decent gamble. Then again, packs pretty much never return value so as usual you’re probably better off just buying the cards you want.

For me, I think the best base round cards are Sale and O’Neill. Sale having 99 Break on all his pitches combined with his traditional success online in DD makes him a solid value; that’s before any future Captain boosts. O’Neill fitting the Buxton theme team adds even more value. For the rare round, despite the fact that I think all these cards are good in their own rights; I feel like I’d still sell them all. Soto is great, but I’m more than happy with my Buxton team at the moment and he wouldn’t even DH until perhaps the Hall of Fame levels of Ranked. Yamamoto feels like he can be solid, but the pitch mix does leave quite a bit lacking. Burnes is literally one of the best SP in the game, but I think I’d rather take the 100k Stub sale, buy Chris Sale and then bank the rest.

What about you? Are you ripping any Fresh Start Packs? Who are you hoping to pull and why? Let us know in the comments!