Currently, baseball season has arrived. As part of MLB 2023 Spring Training, the players have already taken the field, and you should already see your favorites. New rules were also implemented this year, such as making shifts illegal and pitch clocks. You should have noticed this by now. Just as new rules are added to the sport, Sony San Diego has been working on adding new features to their annual baseball game. So, you can look forward to the same on MLB The Show 23.

This time, MLB The Show 23 will feature some new features that will make a difference, including the addition of "Captains" to the Diamond Dynasty mode just this year. If you're new to Diamond Dynasty, this mode is for you. In this mode, through player cards, you can collect the players you need, and try to build the best baseball team in MLB history. In fact, this game mode is somewhat similar to Madden Ultimate Team in Madden NFL and Hockey Ultimate Team in NHL games of EA. If you build an all-star team, you can choose to battle other custom teams to see whose team is better.

More Synergies

This year, Captains are brand new. In a team, Captains allow you to create more synergies in your team. If you implement these synergies, your player stats will boost. Since the card is marked "Captain Patch", then you can select Captains from the players. After meeting the requirements, each Captain will show you different stat boosts.

To let you know more about how Captains work in MLB The Show 23, I'm going to use the Willie Mays Diamond Dynasty Captain card. If you have a Willie Mays Captain card like this one, and he is also the Captain of your Squad, you have the potential to get three tiers of boosts.

• Tier 1: +5 Power vs R, +5 Speed, +5 Fielding Ability

Requires: At least 3 hitters from the 1950s or 1960s on your squad.

• Tier 2: +10 Power vs R, +10 Speed, +10 Fielding Ability

Requires: At least 5 hitters from the 1950s or 1960s on your squad.

• Tier 3: +15 Power vs R, +15 Speed, +15 Fielding Ability

Requires: At least 8 hitters from the 1950s or 1960s on your squad.

If you want the Willie Mays Captain card to help you boost your stats, you'll have to choose from players who played in the 1950s and 1960s to build your ideal team. You can get these players by using MLB The Show 23 Stubs. If you can successfully build such a team, your stats will get a nice boost. The more and more players you add to your squad who meet this requirement, the higher and higher the stats you can boost.

More Dynamic

When Captains are added to Diamond Dynasty, then you can create your team based on different themes and the chemistry that can be generated. One thing about Captains is quite dynamic: different Captains have different rules that need to be followed to reach each level, and the number of players is not the same. For Willie Mays, he needs eight players to reach Tier 3. However, this does not mean that other Captains also need 8 players to reach Tier 3. Some other Captains may need 11 players to reach Tier 3.

At Least 6 Innings

One more thing you need to make sure: the Captains you choose have played at least 6 innings. If the Captains you choose have played less than 6 innings, they will not be able to boost your Tier. Affected by this aspect, you need to come up with more strategies before selecting Captains, instead of simply choosing to add Captains and delete Captains after the first inning.

Out of a total of 30 teams, each team will have at least one player who can have the Captain ability in Diamond Dynasty. As MLB The Show 23 progresses, more and more Captains will appear in the game. But, among those 30 teams, there are always some Captains looking to start Diamond Dynasty from MLB The Show 23.

In Diamond Dynasty, with the presence of the Captains feature, there will be a lot of players who love the game like you to create all kinds of cool combinations of players. Rather than having you create a squad of players that are best used in the game, Captains give you a lot of incentives to create a team around a particular theme. In Diamond Dynasty, you can still create a squad of the best players. However, you may not get the extra Tier boosts, and those Tier boosts may be more useful than you think. So, I think the emergence of the Captains feature is very good, and it is worth your various attempts.