Diamond Dynasty - Postseason Luis Gonzalez and New Future Stars

It’s a light day for Diamond Dynasty content today with just a couple small additions to the Future of the Franchise Program, and then a new event and Headliners player. Headliners Set 24 is Postseason Luis Gonzalez, and we get Future Stars Eury Perez and M.J. Melendez in the Future Ain’t Far Event. Let’s run through all the goodies below.

The Future Ain’t Far Event

• Future Stars & Prospects
• Program Flashbacks & Legends
• Live Series
• Max team overall of 92
• 3-inning games
• Difficulty: All-Star
• Free entries (as always)

The event runs until June 30.

This is another event where you should be able to farm some XP, and that’s why I do really like them keeping the “program” flashback/legend cards in the pool here. Relievers will be at a bit of a premium overall, but this should be a relatively straight forward event for the sorts of lineups you’ll see. They will probably end up a little left-handed heavy so plan accordingly with your pitching.

We have also moved into the era of 95 overalls being the card du jour. We are inching towards 99 overalls, but I still like the general pace the DD team is on slowly pushing us there.

Rewards

• 1 win – The Show pack
• 3 wins – 2,000 stubs
• 5 wins – 1,500 XP, Headliners Set 21 pack
• 10 wins – 2,000 XP, Rewind Event pack
• 13 wins – Headliners Set 22 pack (x2)
• 15 wins – 2,000 XP, Future Stars Eury Perez

With Future Stars Eury Perez, he has Outlier 1, which is a big upgrade over the gold card he had at the start of the cycle. I have used his gold card sparingly online in certain events, and it has gone surprisingly well, so I’m interested to see how this card looks on the mound. He got velocity boosts overall, so now he has a 95 mph sinker and 98 mph fastball. He mixes in a slurve and circle change, so he’s a little limited but I don’t consider it a bad pitch mix. He has 100 H/9, which is also solid for this time of year, so I would potentially consider him the best Future Stars pitcher released (over Bobby Miller who seems to get the majority of the votes right now). Beyond Future Stars, he’s probably a low-end top 10 starting pitcher if I had to ballpark it at this point.

• 18 wins – Ballin’ Is A Habit pack (x2)
• 20 wins – 2,500 XP, Future Stars M.J. Melendez

Future Stars M.J. Melendez has a little more cache than Perez because his gold card did have some buzz early in the cycle. He’s a left-handed hitting catcher, which makes him a bit unique, and then he’s got 90+ power against LHP and RHP. His fielding stats are all 90+ besides blocking, and he has 69 speed so he’s a really well rounded catcher card. There were some very good catchers who came out with Future Stars, so it’s also nice Melendez can slider to 3B to help his value out a bit. Korey Lee is right now my favorite catcher card from that Future Stars group, but I used Melendez the most out of any gold Prospects hitter, so I’m interested in this card for sure. Melendez should be in the top five for best catcher card in the game now.

• 23 wins – The Show pack (x3)
• 25 wins – 2,500 XP, Rewind Event pack
• 27 wins – Always Intense (Set 1) pack
• 30 wins – 2,500 XP, Always Intense (Set 2) pack
• 35 wins – 2,500 XP, The Show pack (x5)
• 40 wins – 2,500 XP, The Show pack (x5)
• 45 wins – 2,500 XP, The Show pack (x5)
• 50 wins – 2,500 XP, The Show pack (x5)

Headliners Set 24 Postseason Luis Gonzalez

Adding to the 95 overalls is Postseason Luis Gonzalez. Gonzalez is a favorite for some groups out there, and I would probably be among them since I’m partial to players with open stances. If we just focus on LF, then he’s there with Pujols as the best overall one, but I don’t think he’s going to surpass Pujols. I also think he’s going to fall below Ketel Marte and Vidal Brujan still when it comes to “best” Headliners because the versatility obviously isn’t the same. He’s a slow, poor fielder, but he clearly has elite hitting stats against LHP and RHP. His 114 power against RHP is top tier, and then he has 87 vision to be a slugger with lower strikeout totals. Lastly, a Postseason card is still a big get while trying to do the George Brett collection.

The odds on Headliners packs to pull a diamond are 1:10 (as always), albeit that diamond might not be Postseason Luis Gonzalez. In addition, this year you can buy one pack of the Headliners choice pack, which gives you 1:3 odds of pulling a 90+ overall diamond (and of course costs more stubs).