Why I'm Buying Into Sorare MLB Season 4

A contrarian bet

It was around this time four years ago that I read “I Spent $35,000 on a Video You Can Find All Over the Internet: Here's Why” by Jon Bales.

I was sitting in a cold parking lot on a January evening scrolling Twitter when I stumbled upon the article.

I didn’t know why Bales was buying a short video of Ja Morant dunking, but I knew a lot about Bales from the world of DFS.

The thing about DFS players is they tend to be ahead of the curve on finding ways to “get their money in good”.

And that greatly applies to Bales, who ignited a Twitter discourse around NFTs, when most people hadn’t heard of the acronym.

Without going into too much depth on the lore of NBA Top Shot, most people likely remember a stark inflation of prices throughout the NBA Top Shot platform, followed by a drastic fall off a few weeks after.

Prices can’t go up forever.

But the whole situation taught me, and a lot of other people, about the economy of digital assets.

Hardwired To Collect

Collecting “Moments” on NBA Top Shot (Do they still call them that?) does not provide any utility outside of collecting itself.

Collecting is pretty fun though.

As a kid I grew up collecting all kinds of things from toys to physical sports cards and even to digital assets within video games.

One of my all-time favorite video games was Animal Crossing: Wild World for Nintendo DS.

There really is no point to the game outside of building and collecting.

You collect fish, bugs, fruits, furniture, fossils, even songs by K.K. Slider performed at The Roost.

I proudly collected everything in the game.

And I spent zero dollars.

This was also 2005. I was ten years old and didn’t own a bank account nor have any capability of swiping a debit card on a Nintendo DS game.

But it wasn’t just me that enjoyed Animal Crossing.

A new version for the Nintendo Switch was released in 2020, and it was the most popular game of that year (when everyone was cooped up inside from Covid).

The point I’m getting at is that there is something about the human brain that evolved to enjoy collecting.

And there is certainly something about the human brain that evolved to enjoy competition and winning.

Sorare MLB Season Four

Last week was a polarizing one in the world of Sorare MLB.

There was a blog post detailing what players can expect for this upcoming season, and it rubbed many people the wrong way.

The day before the blog dropped, I was fortunate enough to attend a call with community manager Jon, and product manager Damien, to get a sneak peek at the new changes (perks of being a Sorare MLB thought-leader, I suppose).

I understood the new changes, but I could see how some long-term players would be upset.

Essentially the rewards in Classic competitions will consist of essence, market credits, and something new called “energy”.

This is what we know as of now, but the reward pools have not yet been finalized.

Energy can be applied to Classic cards, making them eligible for In-Season competitions.

The second big change is the addition of something called “sealing”.

Managers can “seal” a certain number of their Classic cards, which means they can’t be played in contests or listed on the marketplace.

By sealing cards, Managers can earn “reward-multipliers” up to 1.5x the normal prize pool.

If first place awards $1000, you would win $1500 instead with the multiplier.

The first question you have to ask is “Why were these two new gameplay functions added?”

The sealing creates a less-saturated field in Classic competitions, while the energy creates an incentive to compete in In-Season contests.

This is actually very smart.

The Classic competitions have become increasingly diluted with two and a half MLB seasons worth of Sorare MLB cards awarded to Managers.

And the In-Season cash rewards are really what we want to be earning anyway.

So now we have the capability to field a team of SEVEN Classic cards to win cash, which is pretty awesome in my opinion.

It just comes down to how easy it is to acquire energy.

And a lot depends on how good the cash rewards will be this year.

I recorded an awesome impromptu podcast with Talor Meyer last week.

I felt like he and I were on the same page when I was parsing through the Sorare MLB discord, so I asked him to come on Sideline Talk for a third time.

He made several great points during the discussion.

Namely that it all depends on what the rewards will be.

If there is something worthwhile to earn in a competition, people will do whatever it takes to win.

From what I heard, rewards will be at least the same as they were last season, which everyone agreed was pretty good.

Once the cash rewards are posted for the upcoming Game Week, people will be sealing, stacking, or whatever else it takes to win.

Skin In The Game

My guy Cobi, aka Detroit Bad Boy, gave me the opportunity to buy a bunch of his Sorare MLB at a discounted price.

We recorded a podcast last season, where he told me he decided to dabble in the baseball streets after playing primarily on the football side.

He acquired a bunch of stud Limited players and even placed highly in a monthly chase last year for a sizable reward.

He decided to offload for this year, stating that it’s difficult to juggle multiple sports, particularly when football is by far his favorite.

As a result, 20 of those cards were transferred to Hunter FC (For an undisclosed amount).

I even tossed my football cards into the trade (which weren’t valued at much).

I kept forgetting to set my Premier League teams.

But I made these MLB acquisitions as a bet on Damien, Jon, and the new gameplay rules which I believe will strengthen the overall Sorare MLB economy while incentivizing Managers to chase more meaningful rewards.

This is certainly a contrarian take given the discourse last week, and perhaps I’m biased due to my involvement in content, or last week’s call, but I’ve never been afraid to go right when everyone else is going left.

That’s how Bales felt when he bought a video of Ja Morant dunking that anyone could find on YouTube.

That’s the art of the contrarian.

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Premium members get access to all Sorare sport-specific channels and everyone is welcome to enter the general channels.

Premium members also get full access to the bi-weekly newsletter once the MLB season starts.

Sorare MLB giveaways take place every week for premium members, with the February giveaway happening this week.

Reach out to me on X @Hunter_Himself if you have any questions or want to sign up!

Thanks for reading!