MLB The Show 25: Brice Turang, Gary Sanchez Named August Lightning Rewards

The August Spotlight Program 5 has dropped in Diamond Dynasty, and it’s stacked with the usual tasks and reward structure. We get our final August Spotlight Program reward, which unlocks the August Spotlight Lightning card - 99 overall Brice Turang. We also look at the new pack and collection for Retro Lightning Gary Sanchez.

August Spotlight Program 5

You’ll need 100 Stars to complete the program. Stars can be earned through Moments, Missions, Collections, and an optional Extreme Moment.

Moments

• Seven total, worth 4 Stars each.

Drop 5 Missions

• 750 PXP with August Drop 5 Topps Now & Spotlight players – 10 Stars
• 5 Stars each for the following:
• • 3 IP with Taylor Rashi (Topps Now)
  • 2 HR with Jimmy Crooks (Topps Now)
  • 3 IP with Jason Alexander (Spotlight)
  • 5 K with Kyle Finnegan (Spotlight)
  • 5 AB with Jared Triolo (Spotlight)
  • 8 TB with Noelvi Marte (Spotlight)
  • 3 XBH with Mark Vientos (Spotlight)

General Missions

• Repeatable: 500 PXP with Topps Now & Spotlight – 5 Stars
• 12 HR with Spotlight players – 8 Stars
• 11 SB with Spotlight players – 8 Stars
• 42 Hits (any players) – 12 Stars
• 33 RBI (any players) – 12 Stars
• 24 K (any players) – 12 Stars

Optional

Collect cards from August Spotlight Pack 5 (detailed below) or tackle a new Extreme Moment.

• Collection:
• • Collect all four 97 OVR Topps Now cards – 15 Stars
  • Collect all five 99 OVR Spotlight cards – 45 Stars
• Extreme Moment:
• • Hit 4 HR in one game with Kyle Schwarber (All-Star difficulty) – 50 Stars

Rewards

Grinding through earns you:

• Green Lightning Bat skin
• 1x each August Spotlight Packs (1–5)
• 1x August Spotlight Any pack
• 2x May Spotlight Any packs
• Program player rewards:
• • 97 Taylor Rashi
  • 97 Jimmy Crooks
  • 97 Jason Alexander
  • 98 Kyle Finnegan
  • 98 Jared Triolo
  • 99 Noelvi Marte
  • 99 Mark Vientos
  • 99 Jakob Marsee - #10 LF Meta Overall; #6 CF

• 35,000 XP total

August Lightning Player

Collect all five August Spotlight Program rewards to unlock 99 OVR Brice Turang - #1 2B Meta Overall; #3 Shortstop.

Brewers 2B Brice Turang is the August Lightning Player, and gets a mighty fine card for his troubles. Debuting as the top 2B in Diamond Dynasty, Lightning Turang pretty much does it all. Nearly max Contact/Clutch against both sides, with max 125 Power against RHP and 96 vs LHP; Turang is a killer. Lower Vision for a top card will hurt on higher difficulties, but everywhere else it'll play just fine.

In addition to the superb offensive attributes, Turang is a Diamond fielder with 95 stock Fielding and 94 Reaction. That means he'll maintain the Diamond shield at his secondary SS position. If that isn't enough, Turang also comes with 96 Speed and 99 Stealing.

This is a great card, befitting of the lengthier final Spotlight Program that has more of a grind than the other weekly programs.

August Spotlight Pack 5

• Costs 25,000 Stubs per pack
• Purchase limit: 5 packs per user

The featured players include:

• Jurickson Profar, LF, Atlanta Braves (99 OVR)
• Rafael Devers, 1B, San Francisco Giants (99 OVR)
• Brenton Doyle, CF, Colorado Rockies (99 OVR)
• Cade Horton, SP, Chicago Cubs (99 OVR)
• Gabe Speier, RP, Seattle Mariners (99 OVR)
• Jonah Tong, SP, New York Mets (97 OVR)
• Jhostynxon Garcia, LF, Boston Red Sox (97 OVR)
• Parker Messick, SP, Cleveland Guardians (97 OVR)
• Payton Tolle, SP, Boston Red Sox (97 OVR)

A fun collection of names here in the final August Spotlight Pack. Devers gets his first Giants 99 overall, while Jurickson Profar sneaks in another expensive Braves card for me to fawn over. We're getting to the point where it feels like these Spotlight cards should be capable of starting on most teams with how expensive the collection ends up being. I'd say this group fits the bill, even if they don't jump off the page to everyone.

August Retro Lightning Collection

• Collect 4 August Spotlight Any packs
• Collect 7 for 99 OVR Roman Anthony

• Collect 10 for 99 OVR Retro Lightning Gary Sanchez

Only Spotlight Series cards from packs count — no program rewards.

Budding superstar Roman Anthony gets a nice surprise Spotlight card as a sub-collection reward. Elite offensive attributes across the board supplement his 99 Fielding and 95 Reaction, which is buoyed by 78 Speed to make him an all-around stud.

The Retro Lightning player for August is Gary Sanchez, and oh boy is this card good.

Retro Lightning Gary Sanchez features 115 Contact vs LHP, which is the only major offensive attribute that isn't the max 125. Sanchez also has an amazing swing, which makes it pretty hard to hate on this card. You can settle for offensive attributes like this on a bad defender, but Sanchez is a Diamond Fielder with 90 Fielding and 91 Reaction. He also has an absolute cannon with 99 Arm Strength, though interestingly doesn't have the Catcher Pop Time Quirk.

That isn't going to diminish this card at all. Sanchez not only debuts as the top Catcher in Diamond Dynasty according to Meta Overall, but he's easily ahead of Biz Mackey, Josh Gibson, and Jorge Posada who all respectively hover around 115 with their Meta Overall score - Retro Lightning Gary Sanchez sits atop the mountain at 120.16.

Peeking at ShowZone's Collection Tracker shows us that finishing this collection costs a minimum of around 230,000 Stubs. This is actually incredible value for a card like Retro Lightning Sanchez. Earlier Retro Lightning collections costed more, and Chase cards are usually sitting at 300,000 Stubs or more when released.

There's been a lot of very good Catchers released this year, and we'll certainly get more over the next couple months. Early hello to Finest Cal Raleigh. Yet, this Sanchez card is insane and more than worth the grind and spending to unlock him.

That’s the full breakdown! Are you going all-in for Brice Turang or saving Stubs for the Retro Lightning Collection chase? Let us know which card you’re most hyped for in the comments!