Diamond Dynasty - Judge to 97 Overall, New Event, Headliners Set 39

With our usual Friday content dump in Diamond Dynasty, we get the latest Diamond Dynasty ratings update, Headliners Set 39 Finest Jason Kendall, and the Dog Days of Summer Event. We’ll cover it all below.

Dog Days Of Summer Event

• Finest, Awards, Milestone, Prime, Signature, 2nd Half Heroes, Live Series players allowed
• Max team overall of 95
• 3-inning games
• Difficulty: All-Star
• Free entries (as always)

This event runs until September 1, and we’re getting a rare 3-player rewards pool.

Rewards

• 1 win – The Show pack, 500 XP
• 3 wins – 2,000 stubs
• 5 wins – Headliners Set 38 pack (x2), 1,500 XP
• 10 wins – Rewind Events choice pack, 2,000 XP
• 12 wins – Finest Luis Aparicio, 1,000 XP

Is this the year a Luis Aparicio card finally gets used by some people!? No, probably not, but this might be one of the better versions we’ve ever been given.

• 15 wins – Awards Hal Newhouser

Newhouser does not get Outlier, but since we’ve seen a truly dominant Newhouser before, I’m sure some folks will check this card out.

• 18 wins – Ballin’ Is A Habit pack, 1,500 XP
• 20 wins – 2nd Half Heroes Eddie Murray, 2,500 XP

I love me some Eddie Murray, but I would say this card falls short of elite status or anything truly approaching it at the 1B position.

• 25 wins – Rewind Events choice pack, 2,500 XP
• 27 wins – Legends Takashi Okazaki choice pack (Soriano), 1,500 XP
• 30 wins – Tool Box choice pack, 2,500 XP
• 35 wins – The Show pack (x5), 3,000 XP
• 40 wins – The Show pack (x5), 3,500 XP
• 45 wins – The Show pack (x5), 4,500 XP
• 50 wins – The Show pack (x10), 5,000 XP

August 19 Diamond Dynasty Ratings Update

Judge goes back to being the leader in the clubhouse as the top-rated MLB Live Series player. We also see a deGrom boost, and the Cardinals duo also gets a jump.

Going 90+

• Edwin Diaz
• Jose Ramirez (leaves the 90+ club)
• Ronald Acuna Jr. (leaves the 90+ club)
• Josh Hader (leaves the 90+ club)

New Diamonds

• Emmanuel Clase
• Andres Gimenez
• Austin Riley
• Zack Wheeler
• Dylan Cease

Leaving Diamond

• Tim Anderson

Some rather aggressive changes by SDS here (by their standards). I wonder if we see more updates like this down the stretch or this is just an outlier.

Headliners Set 39 Finest Jason Kendall

At this point, you should understand what Jason Kendall brings to the table in Diamond Dynasty. He’s a faster than usual catcher who relies on contact. It’s something that makes him unique, but it also means he rarely stands out because while speed is nice at catcher, it’s not that great if we don’t get power to go along with it. He’s also just decent behind the plate, so he’s sort of unique without being intriguing much of the time. He does have maxed out contact against LHP, and his 90 power against LHP is higher than he usually gets as well. He could be a platoon option in theory, but really he’s probably just nice to have for collections.

The odds on Headliners packs to pull a diamond are 1:10 (as always), albeit that diamond might not be Finest Jason Kendall. 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).