As the weeks have gone by, Diamond Dynasty has continued to be something I play on an almost daily basis. It's still popular to chat about among the staff as well, so it seems time to check in with a couple more tips for getting the most out of this popular mode nestled within MLB 15 The Show.

And just to be clear, I will be talking about how to get the most out of the auction house before discussing a couple basic strategies for when you get out on the field.

Let's get to it.

Buy Now Vs. Sell Now Differentials

Diamond Dynasty does a good job of doling out rewards as you play games, but if you're looking to make extra cash, one of the best ways to do so is simply look for large differentials between what the "buy now" price is for a particular card and what the "sell now" price is for the same card.

In the screenshot above, I used Mookie Betts as the example because he's one of my favorite players to target. He routinely has a difference of about 400 stubs.

In the span of a couple hours, I'm able to buy Mookie Betts for 400 stubs and then sell him for 625 to make a quick profit. In the above screenshot, you can see I do the same thing to quickly turn around profits on Jimmy Rollins, Darren O'Day and Emilio Bonifacio.

The general rule of thumb is look for those sizable gaps and then try to avoid being overly greedy. You just want to be the one who has the cheapest Sell Now price and the highest Buy Now price to split that differential gap. You can easily make plenty of extra stubs by following that basic rule to then repeat the cycle, buy packs of cards or buy something you really want in the auction house.

Inspecting Your Old Orders

Another basic rule to follow is never forget what you bought and sold something for in the past. While it would be great if you could just look at a card and remember what you paid for it, your old order history page is always there to be examined. Not everybody will have 75-plus pages of old orders like me, but if you do get into buying and selling stuff, it's easy enough to look back and remember what you need to sell something for in order to turn any sort of profit.

Sometimes you won't be able to sell items for what you paid for them based on a variety of factors -- and other times you will hate yourself for selling low on a Bryce Harper -- but the point is if you take the one extra minute to look back through your trade log, it will help you in the long run.

Patience

Be patient. Seriously, be patient!

Dee Gordon was a silver-rated player early in the year (see: a player who was below 85 overall) then through the magic of a roster update became an 86 overall. His price went up accordingly, and if you had waited to sell him you turned a nice profit -- if you didn't want to keep him and use him. This is going to keep happening! In both directions.

As you can see above, Hisashi Iwakuma is the negative side of roster updates. He was a gold who routinely went for 4 to 6 thousand stubs, but now his card hovers closer to 1,000 stubs. So maybe my actual point is be selectively patient. If you want to make the most out of your cards -- or figure out who to target -- it helps to follow Major League Baseball so that you can take educated guesses at which players might end up getting rating boosts in the roster updates that occur on Mondays.

Gold Is Good

Sometimes it's not a bad idea to gamble. You can most easily do that by focusing on guys that are rated 83 and 84 overall, or 86 and 87 overall. One bad week might push those 86s and 87s to 85 or below, knocking them down in cost as they fall to the silver level. But one good week might push those 83 and 84 rated silver players up into gold territory.

And again, patience might be key here. Maybe Lorenzo Cain won't turn into an 85 or above next week, but it could happen a week after that. On top of that, even after a player goes gold you could gamble and assume his ratings will go even higher. For example, Bryce Harper is up to 87 overall, but it's very possible his rating will continue to go up this season.

Mondays Are Weird

A final point is that Mondays can be very weird in the auction house. You have new players that come into the market each week as they're added to MLB rosters, and then you have new ratings changes that can really make player valuations fluctuate. In a lot of cases, this means you can either make the most money or lose the most money, so depending on how much you like to gamble with your stubs, this will either be your favorite or least favorite day to sell and buy items.
 

Patience Once More

OK, so I already talked about being patient in the auction house, but it's time to be patient once you step into the batter's box. I can tell you that, without fail, if you show you can take a pitch or two you will get better pitches to hit in the long run. It's amazing how quickly other players lose focus when pitching or have to actually battle to get some outs on the mound. If you can foul some pitches off, take a strike or two and especially avoid swinging at balls then you're ahead of the game.

Bunting And Stealing Suck, But Grind Through It



It's awful that bunting is so effective, and maybe even worse that stealing is impossible to stop a lot of the time, but there's no easy fix.

Is it awful? Yes

It is annoying? Yes

Should it be fixed? Yes

But with that being said, it's a reality.

I'm not sure if there really is an easy fix either. When I look at how the situation plays out, it looks like a general issue the online animations have by default is that they're slower. What I mean is that most of the animations simply play out in a much slower fashion online than offline. That is, all except the running animations play out at this slower speed. So your throwing animations and fielding animations are slowed down -- maybe to keep things in sync, maybe because of general online "code" who knows -- but players still quickly get out of the box. This means the baserunner just has an inherent advantage.

A basic step you can do to hopefully squash some of the bunting problems is get used to using the Quick Shifts menu when speedy players are at bat.



I'll go to the Bunt Defense on a regular basis if somebody has already tried for a bunt base hit in the game. My feeling is if users are trying to bunt that often, it's less likely they will be good enough to hit it by the drawn-in infield anyway. Is that me acting passive aggressive, and high and mighty? Probably, but I stand by my theory.

As for base stealing, it's about as helpless an endeavor to try and combat. Having a great defensive catcher, using pitch outs, using slide steps, pick-off throws and so on all help in theory. But in reality, if somebody knows how to release the steal button at the right time, you're mostly hosed. Sorry!

But hey, if these aspects really annoy you then just concede the game and go play your next opponent who maybe won't try to exploit these things whenever he or she feels backed into a corner.

Be Mindful Of Your Surroundings



This idea sort of goes together with bunting and stealing, but people are going to try and exploit weaknesses in the game at times. The best way to combat this is always assume people are going to try and take the extra base.

A popular baserunning move is shown in the GIF above. A user will try to steal second and bunt on the same pitch. Users do this because then they will just round second and keep running to third thinking you won't be paying attention.

It's a gross tactic, but people will do it so be ready to queue up that throw to third. The same concept applies when retrieving balls in the gap and so on. If you assume somebody is going to take the extra base, you can stop a lot of this stuff in its tracks.

If It's Low Let It Go, If It's High Let It Fly



The above phrase is closely tied together with a common strategy for attacking knuckleball pitchers, but it's also my motto when hitting online. Changeups at the bottom of the strike zone or just out of the zone are especially evil this year. It's not impossible to lay off these pitches, but I have more or less accepted it's not a winning strategy to say "I'm going to sit on low pitches" in this year's game.

People on the forums have already been talking about how fastballs and changeups in this year's game have really wide velocity gaps, and they're not off-base by calling this out as an issue. Not all pitchers have 10-plus miles per hour of difference when throwing their fastball and changeup. Beyond that, a changeup is sometimes only a show-me pitch for a pitcher, but The Show in general has struggled to find a way to make it so two-pitch pitchers actually are just two-pitch pitchers who rarely go to that third or fourth pitch because those pitches simply are not reliable or very good.

Nevertheless, the point is maybe just try to focus on hitting things in the middle of the zone or up. If you try to think about staying true to this strategy, you might find yourself having much more success hitting online.


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