At the beginning of every week in the Prospects Live Discord Baseball Channel, I give a quick blurb on all of the new product releases for the week. There are three prospect products every year that are worth a bigger breakdown and exposure to a wider audience.
These products are the Big 3 from Bowman - Bowman Baseball, Bowman Chrome, and Bowman Draft and they’re the only place you can find the coveted 1st logo (along with their derivative products such as Sapphire). 2020 Bowman Chrome officially released today, September 18, so let’s dive in.
What is it?
The product design is going to be familiar to anyone that has picked up 2020 Bowman Baseball - essentially looking the same for the base cards. There is going to be your base sets for MLB players 100 cards deep and for prospects also 100 cards deep (hoping this changes for the better because at the moment, the base prospect checklist is not good).
You will find 75 base prospect autographed cards and 18 base rookie autographed cards. As usual, there will also be various insert sets that are comprised of prospects and/or MLB players with a special “Farm to Fame” set with autographs by some of the living greats of the game such as Nolan Ryan, Cal Ripken, Jr. and Hank Aaron. One caveat - all of this information is based off of the currently known checklist, which can be inaccurate (the first checklist Topps publicized for this product was missing something like 19 prospect autos).
The configurations come in two flavors - Hobby and HTA Choice. Hobby is the cheaper option at around $250 or a little more and guarantees 2 autographed cards. You will get 12 packs per box with 5 cards per pack, all of which are chrome cards (unlike Bowman Baseball and Draft which include Paper cards). The HTA Choice option comes in around $315 and guarantees 3 autographed cards - and that’s it. One pack with 3 cards, all of which are your guaranteed hits. This is the option for the collectors not interested in base cards.
The Main Attraction
Bowman Chrome prospect autographs bring all the hobby collectors to the yard. Here are my thoughts on what we see for the main attraction with the checklist for prospect autographs.
Tier 1 Hitters - These are the prospects who went for $500 or more in the Cheap Fun Breaks Pick Your Player (PYP) 10 case auction:
Bayron Lora ($2,125) The top attraction in this product. It looks like Topps has his autos with the 1st logo, but his base cards with no 1st logo. They probably held back the autos from 2020 Bowman Baseball, perhaps because they didn’t get them back in time from Lora. If I end up with his card, awesome, but I can’t see going out of my way for it.
LuisAngel Acuna ($1,200) While talented, is not a power hitter like his older brother. There is some name value driving his prices in my opinion and like Lora I will not be targeting him at his probable price point. With the top two prospects being Texas Rangers, that break spot is likely going to be the most expensive/desirable choice for the first time in a while.
Erick Pena ($900) A player I am smitten with and will recommend the investment is worth the price, high as it likely will be. Athletic with a beautiful swing and plus power potential - sign me up.
Francisco Alvarez ($780) The top catcher and rightly the most expensive one in this product, but he is still a catcher which makes it a tough investment proposition at the price point.
Luis Matos ($753) His power tool needs to keep blossoming and he needs to find a spot in a crowded Giants outfield pipeline. A tough call for me with my Giants orange-colored glasses on. But I will be going out of my way to acquire at least a few Luis Matos cards as I am bullish on him.
Tier 2 Hitters - These are the prospects who went between $300 and $500:
Gilberto Jimenez ($450) Top of the order speedy CF with little pop - not a prospect card profile with high upside
Wilderd Patino ($425) Similar to Jimenez, speedy OF with average hit/power tools that has fourth outfielder risk - invest elsewhere
Michael Harris ($400) Pop-up prospect that could have some surprising potential if unlocked through development. Interesting flyer to take depending on where his price point ends up.
Antonio Cabello ($390) Power/speed profile, which is one of the things we look for. Strong 2018 but rough 2019 leaves me on the fence for his cards.
Vaughn Grissom ($380) Smart kid with raw power on the left side of the infield. Project with potential if his game power can be unlocked. One of the two players I am very interested in for this tier.
Jhon Torres ($350) Raw athlete with all the tools that may need a decent amount of development time. The second of the two players I am very interested in for this tier.
Nico Hulsizer ($350) Three true outcomes player, 1st Bowman already in a previous product, which pushes him off of my radar.
Oswald Peraza ($325) Defense, hit tool, speed, but unlikely to have much more than average power which will keep me away.
Raimfer Salinas ($325) Highly touted J2 signee in 2017, but has yet to perform up to those expectations and hit tool doubts are growing. I am staying away.
Anthony Garcia ($300) Big kid with 80 raw power potential at some point. High variance where he could end up as a Quad-A type or hit 40 bombs. Potentially worth a flyer if he can be acquired for cheap.
Ivan Herrera ($300) Second catcher on the board, and rightly so. But, as with Alvarez, catchers are tough to invest in at any sort of premium.
The Rest: There are a few prospect cards under the $300 range that I will be interested in taking fliers on, especially if they start off cheap in the singles market. Lewin Diaz ($265), Brenton Doyle ($233), and Austin Shenton ($125). Riley Greene ($200) also falls in this auction price category, but this will not be his 1st auto card since that was in 2019 Bowman Draft and the anticipation is that his cards may be short printed in this release. I doubt his cards will be cheap on the secondary market and with no 1st logo, it’s a pass for me.
TIer 1 Pitchers - These are the prospects who went for $200 and up:
Yoendrys Gomez ($225) One of the two pitchers in this product I am interested in. Our own Eddy Almaguer lays out the goods on Gomez here.
Jonathan Stiever ($215) Already had his 1st Bowman in a previous product. Combine that with being a pitcher and it kills any interest I might have.
Tahnaj Thomas ($211) The second of the two pitchers I am interested in. Young, raw flamethrower with a plus slider and a developing split-change. The sky's the limit for Thomas and I am as all in as I can be for a pitching prospect.
Osiel Rodriguez ($200) Top 2016 J2 pitching prospect, but not much is out there on him due to lack of exposure/being shut down due to reduced velocity in 2019. Too much unknown for me to be interested.
The Rest: There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect. I am not going out of my way for any of the rest of the pitchers on the checklist for any number of reasons, but mostly because TINSTAAPP.
Second Fiddle
Bowman Chrome rookie autographs don’t hold the cachet of the Topps flagship rookie cards/autographs, but they are a nice bonus to pick up as you chase the prospect cards. Keep in mind that they are typically harder to hit, hence the “bonus” term above. The main rookies in this release are Luis Robert, followed by Kyle Lewis, Trent Grisham, and a couple of guys who have lost some of their hobby hype - Nico Hoerner, Aristedes Aquino, and Brendan McKay. Also, as expected, Dylan Cease will have a rookie auto, because apparently it’s a requirement for all baseball card products in 2020 to include a Dylan Cease autographed card.
Final Thoughts + Story Time
Bowman Chrome is often the most overlooked of the Big 3 Bowman products. Bowman Draft has a majority of the studs and popular names from the current year MLB draft, while Bowman Baseball gets the benefit of being one of the first major releases of each calendar year coupled with the second overall pick from the previous year’s draft (Bobby Witt Jr. in 2020, Joey Bart in 2019, Hunter Greene in 2018). Bowman Chrome does not have this consistency to rely on to drive pre-release interest which often leads to a red-headed stepchild syndrome.
What you will tend to find in Bowman Chrome is a higher proportion of International and J2 prospects. That often translates to a lot more unknowns with the players, driving wide variations on people’s initial opinions of the checklist. The general opinion this year, as you will often hear most years, is that 2020 Bowman Chrome is a weak checklist. While I initially found myself in this camp as well, as you can see above, after digging into the product, there are still plenty of players I am interested in adding to my collection. And let me tell you a little story about 2016 Bowman Chrome.
As usual, most collectors were calling the 2016 Bowman Chrome checklist very weak, and were more excited about the rookie cards in the product than the prospect cards. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was the true top prospect in the product and then it was a glob of “the rest”. There were some folks hunting Willie Calhoun, Sam Travis, Eddy Julio Martinez, Yadier Alvarez, Billy McKinney, Harrison Bader, Isan Diaz, Cornelius Randolph, etc. Maybe there was a stray mention of some 17-year-old kid no one had heard of who tore up rookie ball and some other legacy kid whose father was a big leaguer, but those were whispers compared to any of the other chatter about the product and prospects involved when it came out. Two weeks after the release, there were just two prospect autograph base cards selling above $20, Vlad and Calhoun.
Fast forward to 2020 and unopened boxes of 2016 Bowman Chrome are easily the most wanted prospect product of the last five years. For example, unopened hobby boxes of 2015 through 2019 Bowman Chrome, with the exception of 2016, can be found for anywhere between $225 - $325. Unopened hobby boxes of 2016 Bowman Chrome, on the other hand, start around 10 times those prices if not more with a hefty price tag around $2,500 and up.
While Vlad is still a desirable card in 2016 Bowman Chrome, the players driving the current high product prices are the previously mentioned 17 year old kid and the legacy prospect who wasn’t considered much of a prospect - Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis Jr. Today, base autos for Soto and Tatis from this product easily go for $1,500+.
The lesson to be learned is that, as collectors, what we think we know about prospects and the prospect products can often be wrong, and sometimes spectacularly wrong, as seen with 2016 Bowman Chrome. Applying that lesson to 2020 Bowman Chrome, we should have educated opinions as we get into the product and the players included, but we should also recognize that only time will tell how right or wrong those opinions were.