MLB The Show 24: Season 2 Cornerstone Captains Revealed

At long last, Season 2 of Diamond Dynasty is upon us. Kicking off with a livestream at 2PM EST, SDS will unveil everything we want to know about Season 2.

Leading into said content stream, we already learned about the newest batch of Cornerstone Captains for Season 2.

What are Cornerstone Captains in MLB The Show 24?

Cornerstone Captains were introduced this year. At the beginning of each Season, four new Cornerstone Captains will be available in a free choice pack. These Captains all have unique Captain Boosts, which promotes early lineup diversity while giving players some “core” theme teams to build.

Season 1 saw Byron Buxton, Nolan Arenado, Greg Maddux and Kodai Senga as the initial Cornerstone Captains.

For Season 2, SDS has already revealed the Captains we’ll have. Every Captain looks intriguing to build around and it appears that SDS made some strides in striking an overall power balance. If that works, then lineup diversity will get even better as Byron Buxton was easily the most used Cornerstone in Season 1.

Let’s dive in and look at the new Cornerstones.

SP Cornerstone Captain Luis Castillo (Seattle Mariners)

 

Mariners’ SP Luis Castillo was the first Cornerstone Captain revealed. In my eyes, he also just might be the Cornerstone I select to begin the season. Castillo will boost all Live Series players, which makes a Live Series build extremely viable. This has the potential to be one of the most fun builds we can work with.

For starters, it creates a reason to use Live Series cards to begin with. For years now, Live Series cards typically fall out of favor with the power creep. This is mitigated by having a legitimate boost for the entire series. Secondly, Live Series cards get Inside Edge boosts that can radically shift a card’s power level on a given day. The caveat there is that inactive players do not receive boosts. For example, Mike Trout and Ronald Acuna Jr. both still have solid Live Series cards. Neither player receives boosts, however, since they’re out injured. If and when Mike Trout returns, then his card will again receive IE boosts.

This is a big deal because hitters can see double-digit boosts to Contact and Power against a particular-handed pitcher. Pitchers can get the same kind of boost to their H/9. Assuming your starting lineup is getting positive boosts, those will stack with Castillo’s Captain boost.

Don’t forget about Supercharged players, too. Live Series cards get Supercharged depending on real life performances by the players. You’ll have plenty of chances to use Supercharged players, which itself can help keep this Captain build refreshed on a fairly regular basis.

You also have great potential for a hybrid build. A hybrid build features cards that receive boosts from both the Pitching Captain and Hitting Captain. Say I use Braves Captain Dansby Swanson as my Hitting Captain. He’s not a Live Series card, but he boosts all Braves cards. I could then stack my squad with Live Series Braves cards to achieve both Captain boosts. From there, I can experiment with balance in deciding which tier of each Captain I want to use. The card pool is obviously reset with the new season, so this Captain card can provide a ton of experimental hybrid builds.

RF Cornerstone Captain Corbin Carroll (Arizona Diamondbacks)

Corbin Carroll is also a Cornerstone Captain this season. Carroll has a bit of a niche build potential that promotes Speed and Contact. You’ll need Hitters with 84+ Speed to build this squad, but the Tier 3 requirement of 12 Hitters will net you +15 Contact against both sides and +5 Reaction in the field.

This Captain kind of feels like an inverse Buxton Cornerstone. Instead of boosting Power and Fielding, Carroll boosts Contact and Reaction. The increased Plate Vision isn’t really that sexy, as increasing the size of the Outer PCI only creates more foul balls – as if we need more. Ultimately, this Captain isn’t incredibly interesting to me as I don’t feel like the boosts provide max value. On the other hand, who knows what cards we’ll get in Season 2 that fit this team that could end up making this incredibly fun.

3B Cornerstone Captain Rafael Devers (Boston Red Sox)

Next up is Cornerstone Captain Rafael Devers. Devers wants you to use bat-first cards, as you’ll need Fielding under 75 to build. That’s a fairly interesting threshold that can be affected by attribute updates, so it’ll be interesting to see where Live Series cards potentially fit here. With the massive boost to Power at Tier 3, Devers looks like another interesting hybrid captain. Again, I’m already brainstorming on what a hybrid Braves build would look like by using Tyler Matzek as my Pitching Captain.

I suspect Devers will be fairly popular since he’s a pure hitting boost. The Tier 2 Boost itself is pretty solid depending on what cards you’re using, but that Tier 3 boost looks absolutely tasty.

As someone that used a Buxton team for the duration of Season 1, Devers looks like a fun challenge since there won’t be a boost to Fielding and Speed to make certain cards more viable.

RF Cornerstone Captain Giancarlo Stanton (New York Yankees)

The final Season 2 Cornerstone Captain is Giancarlo Stanton. Stanton is a very niche Captain that won’t have flexibility to pair with your Pitching Captain, but his boosts are plenty good.

Stanton will only boost hitters from 2010-2019. That doesn’t mean hitters that actually played during that decade, but the cards themselves have to be from those years. At least that’s how boosts have worked to this point. If SDS changed course and made any card eligible as long as the respective player played in that decade, then this Captain gets considerably better. Either way, if you do achieve a Tier 3 boost with this Captain – you’ll be hitting bombs left and right. The +15 Power against both sides is obviously fantastic, but getting that +10 Clutch in addition will make your hitters deadly with runners in scoring position.

I suspect that by the end of Season 2, Yankees fans will be able to build a nasty hybrid build with this card.

Papadell’s Pick

I’m absolutely going to experiment with Devers and Castillo first. I’ll be digging deep into what kind of hybrid builds I can run with each Captain. Assuming we can swap between Cornerstones again like in Season 1, I can see myself using these Captains on a rotating basis to try new builds.

Which Season 2 Cornerstone Captain interests you the most? Any specific team builds you’re excited to try when Season 2 launches later today? Let us know in the comments!