One small MLB The Show 2025 change is a huge improvement for the series

San Diego Studio finally removed Sets and Seasons from Diamond Dynasty in MLB The Show 25, and this was the right decision to make for long-term health of the game.

MLB The Show 25 officially launches on Tuesday, March 18, 2025. This year’s installment introduces new gameplay innovations, such as Ambush Hitting, G.O.A.T difficulty, and a home run rob meter.

Meanwhile, for the first time in franchise history, you can start your Road to the Show career in high school, and Franchise finally overhauls free agency and negotiates contracts in the offseason.

As for Diamond Dynasty, a new offline and online game mode is the highlight, but what caught my attention was what’s not included this year.

MLB The Show 25 finally removes Sets and Seasons

San Diego Studio

MLB The Show 23 introduced Sets and Seaons in Diamond Dynasty. Seasons ran from six to eight weeks, and players could only build squads of specific Set items within that time frame. The timing of when a card is released determines what set it belongs to

For example, any card released during Season 1 belongs to Set 1. Previously, Diamond Dynasty started cards with low Overalls in the 80s before slowly building up to 99 Overall at the end of a game’s life cycle.

Short Seasons allowed the devs to introduce 99 Overall cards at the start of a new title because players could only use them for a limited time before the process reset at the beginning of a new Season.

There was an exception to that rule, as Wildcards allowed you to use one batter and one hitter from a previous Set. Yet even with that caveat, it grew tiresome pouring hours into the game mode to unlock a card, just for it not to be available eventually.

San Diego Studio

San Diego Studio deserves credit for experimenting with a new system that gives players higher overall cards without needing to wait until the end of a game’s life cycle when fewer players are in the game mode, anyway.

However, Sets and Seasons presented its issues. There are only so many former and active baseball players in the database, so there were way too many 99 Overall cards with similar attributes, eliminating any variety and nuance with teams.

Some players even got multiple similar cards. For example, there were three 99 Overall Aaron Judge cards in MLB The Show 24. That isn’t to say the traditional power-creep system doesn’t have downsides, either.

Regardless of the highest Overall available, there will always be meta cards, and most top players will use similar lineups. In addition, using better cards at the start of a new title was much more enjoyable than being drip-fed better content to keep you engaged for longer.

But it ultimately turned out that being spoiled early wasn’t the correct solution either. It’s not enjoyable to unlock the same players every Season just for them to have similar stats, and seeing 99 Overall lineups for an entire year got old fast.

San Diego Studio listened to that feedback, and MLB The Show 25 is a refreshing return to the traditional system we all know and love, even if there are some trade-offs.