The Moonshot Program has arrived in MLB The Show 25, and it’s generally regarded as one of the highlights of the Diamond Dynasty release calendar. SDS went all-out this time around by giving us the program, a new Diamond Quest board, the Moonshot event, and some top-end collection rewards.
I think you have to start with the collection rewards. The top reward is Moonshot Byron Buxton. You have to collect all 41 cards in the collection to get him, so he’s not going to be cheap or on the radar for most folks right away. However, he should be worth the wait with the lowest hitting stat being 90 power against LHP.
The other collection rewards are Yasmani Grandal at 30 collected Moonshot cards, and then Moonshot Carlos Delgado at 16 collected Moonshot cards. Grandal has terrible speed but should be top three at the catcher position as a switch hitter. Delgado will probably rank closer to the low end of the top 10 at first base, but it’s just good to see his face in the game again.
One thing to remember about all these cards (and something I don’t generally like) is that they’re all somewhat “make believe” cards. The Moonshot is all about light-tower power at the expense of everything else. This means some of the faster guys or guys with better gloves were downgraded a bit in those areas to up their power numbers — you got to cut from somewhere to keep the overall rating deflated. I don’t like “fantasy” cards in that sense, but I do think there are plenty of awesome picks if you can get by that realism issue.
Three other top players from this set are the Prince Fielder you can get from Diamond Quest, the switch-hitting Jeimer Candelario, and the all-powerful Joc Pederson. Both Pederson and Candelario are top-tier selections in the store packs, though Pederson is much cheaper on the market than Candelario (like over 100K stubs cheaper).
In terms of the program itself, the card waiting for you at the end of the XP rainbow is Moonshot Brian Roberts. He looks to be like another impressive 2B who is a switch hitter. The minor issue is he’s not as speedy as he could be (see: Moonshot as the reason), and it’s a little harder to play weaker defenders up the middle. But like with most of these players, he’s got great hitting stats overall.
Getting through the program will be straight forward as you need to earn 100 program stars. The missions essentially involve hitting lots of home runs with certain types of players at various positions, and earning XP with cards from the free program. You can also play the event if you want to earn some program points that way since there is well over 100 available points to snag, so play the game the way you want.
