MLB The Show 25: Expansion Era Content, Headliners 27 Live Now

A fun themed drop lands in Diamond Dynasty today highlighting the Expansion Era teams in Major League Baseball. There's no overall program or pack, but a couple new offline maps and card rewards.

Diamond Quest

A new Diamond Quest map lands with a twist. Roster restrictions are in place for this map, requiring you to build a team strictly from Expansion teams. This is a fun wrinkle that results in some variation versus grinding with your usual squad, and brings a bit of freshness to a content drop that we don't always see.

Eligible Teams

Only players from these Expansion Era franchises can be used:

• Arizona Diamondbacks
• Colorado Rockies
• Houston Astros
• Kansas City Royals
• Los Angeles Angels
• Miami Marlins
• Milwaukee Brewers
• New York Mets
• San Diego Padres
• Seattle Mariners
• Tampa Bay Rays
• Texas Rangers
• Toronto Blue Jays
• Washington Nationals

When you initially load into this map, you will most likely see an error about your squad being incompatible. You'll just have to go around the roster map and start selecting players that fit the criteria before setting your lineup and confirming.

Epic Rewards

Milestone J.R. Richard and Hall of Fame Paul Molitor are the Epic tier rewards earnable from the potential drops for defeating the stadium strongholds.

These cards won't land anywhere near the top of the "competitive meta" standings from a community standpoint. Despite Richard landing as top-10 in both True and Meta Overall, and despite the overpowering dominance he showed in his career, these types of pitcher cards don't typically translate well to online play. He does feature an Outlier 4-Seamer and Outlier Slider, and we've seen that be absolutely devastating with John Donaldson. But Donaldson also featured a ridiculous Forkball with a huge speed differential, whereas J.R. Richard just throws everything so damn hard. The attributes are pretty good across the board, though he does fall into the "throw and pray" category with 83 BB/9 and sub-90 Control on every pitch.

Molitor is high-Contact and Clutch, middling Power, with 90 Speed and eligibility at 3B, 1B, and 2B. As far as position players go, this is a pretty generic card that will most likely best serve Brewers theme teams or Molitor fans. Again, simply a player that often gets 99 overalls that don't quite reach the tier of the usual "competitive" group, though it's also worth noting Molitor has Dead Red and Breaking Ball Hitters which are two of the more desirable hitter Quirks.

Expansion Era Conquest Map

Alongside the Diamond Quest, there’s also a standalone Expansion Era Conquest map:

• Rewards include:
• • XP
  • Standard & Themed Packs
  • Deluxe Choice Pack for full map completion

Headliners 27 - Awards SP Gerrit Cole (New York Yankees) - #10 SP True Overall/#39 Meta Overall

Fitting into today's theme of "great players that don't translate to DD" is Yankees' ace Gerrit Cole. Cole has been one of the best pitchers of his era, yet his Diamond Dynasty cards simply don't match that level of dominance.

The attributes aren't even that bad, but the pitch mix leaves enough to be desired along with (what I consider to be) a pretty easy windup to time. This doesn't mean he's entirely unusable, but I feel like I see him get shellacked (on both sides of my play) more than I see him succeed.

He'll touch 100 but doesn't have Outlier on the 4-Seamer, and features a Slider, Knuckle-Curve, Circle Change, Cutter off-speed mix. The Change is almost unusable with 65 Control and 70 Break, though it does act as the middle speed within his overall mix. Knuckle-Curve might be the worst pitch any pitcher can have online, despite the 99 Break, but the Cutter/Slider combo can be useful.

Overall, there's a reason Cole is a Headliner versus a more premium release. Yankees' fans rejoice, everyone else probably passes.

Pack Info

• Price: 7,500 Stubs per pack in the Show Shop
• Limit: 5 packs per account