Last week, somewhat out of the blue, news dropped that Topps had signed an agreement with the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) league to produce baseball cards for all twelve teams in 2021. While it’s an easy line to draw from the Fanatics take over of the American sports card markets to Topps trying to find other markets to create products in, this was likely in the works before the new kid on the block flexed his muscle. It takes quite a while to get the “i’s” dotted and the “t’s” crossed for any type of licensing deal. In addition, back in March of this year, Topps opened an office in Tokyo to have boots on the ground for supporting their asian markets with their existing products, which made sense. Soccer products, upcoming Formula 1 products, and Asia specific editions most commonly found with Bowman releases were all smart reasons to have a local office. But the obvious reason to put an office in Asia is to start producing cards specific to that market using local sports and non-sports properties.
The Current State of the NPB Card Market
There are three main card makers in the NPB - BBM, Epoch, and Calbee. BBM seems to be the most prevalent product followed by Epoch with Calbee bringing up the rear. They tend to follow a similar pattern as Topps with multiple series, or versions, per year. The later versions in the year tend to focus on team changes or players that joined after the year began. They will also put out rookie focused sets, stars and retired player sets, and team sets. The team sets seem to be much more important and prominent than what we typically see here in the MLB-based products. There are also premium products - in BBM’s case, for example, it’s called Genesis. A final note - Konami also has a license in relation to their baseball video game production that allows them to produce companion cards, but those seem to come out sporadically.
Regardless of the product, you will see some to all of the various expected scenarios in modern-day baseball card collecting. Parallels, relics, autos, inserts, and short prints/variations are all found in Japanese baseball sets. From my experience, the parallels tend to be more around facsimile signatures and the different colors of those signatures than the full card coloring or art differences. There is also a lot more use of foil and very little of the chrome treatment that is the height of popularity in products produced in North America and Europe. I find that the inserts are much more interesting and eye-catching with the Japanese baseball products than the Topps-produced baseball products. I’m not really sure why, but perhaps it’s a combination of being tired of Topps recycled ideas and seeing something completely different with the Japanese products.
Speculation Time
The Topps announcement focused on producing cards immediately for the 2021 NPB season. This likely means they already had all of the designs and checklists ready to be handed over to the production facilities as soon as the ink was dry, or possibly even before then. I think it will be safe to assume that Topps will be using one of their existing 2021 product designs for their 2021 NPB product(s) and the most likely choice is their Flagship design (Series 1, Series 2, Chrome). I hope they choose to at least go with a unique-to-Japan direction for their inserts, but I am not holding out much hope in this first go around.
As part of the announcement, Topps specified that their NPB products would be sold in local card shops in Japan as well as their just launched Topps Japan website. Currently it does not appear that you can get international shipping for the few products they have posted on their site as Japan is the only country that can be selected in the ship-to address. For at least Topps UK site and I believe also for their German site, you can get international shipping. It remains to be seen if that functionality will be made available for the Topps Japan site, but my guess is it won’t be as part of their 2021 releases.
I anticipate the initial product(s) will be printed in Japan using the same production facilities that the existing Japanese manufacturers use. The logistics of printing outside of the region, like in the U.S., and then shipping it to Japan makes zero sense. This may limit Topps from producing the chrome finishes if that truly is a limitation in that region and other standard features we have grown used to in the U.S. market. If chrome is an option, Topps going full-on chrome could be a potential help to grabbing more market share than expected.
In regard to the checklist(s), I don’t expect anything out of the ordinary. But I hope we get some historical NPB players that are currently or previously played in the MLB. Hideki Matsui, Ichiro, Hideo Nomo, and Shohei Ohtani amongst others. We won't get them in their MLB team uniforms because the revenue sharing and/or licensing agreements probably prevent that. It is still a great opportunity to not only attract Japanese collectors, and potentially MLB collectors as well. Especially with Ohtani and Topps having a player-specific agreement. If — and I doubt it will happen given logistics — they can get Ohtani autographs into their NPB products from the jump, then it will go to the moon. However, the only way I see this happening for their first products is via redemptions, but I fully expect it to happen in future product runs.
At the end of the day, I would wager that Topps will have a tough time trying to crack the Japanese market, especially without international distribution. It may take a while to gain a strong foothold, but given that they are losing the MLB license in the near future, I would guess that they put forward a significant effort to becoming a strong player in the NPB card market.
Who to Collect
While I followed the NPB closer than I ever did in 2020, mostly because they gave us baseball before MLB did, I have not been able to at all this year. So I went to the best source possible, Prospects Live's own NPB expert Tom Mussa, to put together the list of rookies and stars. These players will be found in existing Japanese manufacturer products and should find their way into the Topps NPB 2021 products. A lot of these names might not be familiar to you or I, but you should also see some blasts from the recent past. The players with asterisks (*) are eligible for posting in the off-season and could find their way over to the MLB in 2022 which gives you an early buy-now opportunity. In addition, as we all know, rookies are the apple of the collector’s eye so make sure to check out the guys with the rookie designation (R).
Central League
| Yokohama DeNA Baystars | Hiroshima Carp | Chunichi Dragons |
|---|---|---|
| Yasuaki Yamasaki* | Seiya Suzuki* | Raidel Martinez* |
| Shugo Maki (R) | Masato Morishita | Yudai Ohno |
| Neftali Soto | Ryoji Kuribayashi (R) | Yariel Rodriguez* |
| Tyler Austin* | Shogo Sakakura (R) | Yuya Yanagi |
| Keita Sano | Ryosuke Kikuchi | Dayan Viciedo |
| Masayuki Kuwahara | Kaito Kozono (R) | Kosuke Fukudome |
Central League (cont.)
| Yomiuri Giants | Yakult Swallows | Hanshin Tigers |
|---|---|---|
| Tomoyuki Sugano* | Tetsuto Yamada* | Robert Suarez* |
| Yuki Takahashi (R) | Munetaka Murakami | Jefry Marte |
| Shosei Togo | Norichika Aoki | Takumu Nakano (R) |
| Thyago Vieira* | Scott McGough* | Yusuke Ohyama |
| Kazuma Okamoto | Yasunobu Okugawa (R) | Teruaki Sato (R) |
| Hayato Sakamoto | Koji Chikamoto | |
| Yoshihiro Maru | Mel Rojas Jr. | |
| Jerry Sands |
Pacific League
| Orix Buffaloes | Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles | Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters |
|---|---|---|
| Yoshihisa Hirano | Takahisa Hayakawa (R) | Hiromi Itoh (R) |
| Hiroya Miyagi (R) | Yuki Matsui | Naoyuki Uwasawa |
| Yoshinobu Yamamoto | Takahiro Norimoto | Drew VerHagen |
| Taisuke Yamaoka | Masahiro Tanaka | Kensuke Kondoh |
| Adam Jones | Hideto Asamura | Haruki Nishikawa |
| Yutaro Sugimoto | Daichi Suzuki |
Pacific League (cont.)
| Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks | Saitama Seibu Lions | Chiba Lotte Marines |
|---|---|---|
| Nick Martinez | Kaima Taira | Roki Sasaki (R) |
| Livan Moinelo* | Tomoya Mori | Brandon Laird |
| Kodai Senga* | Takeya Nakamura | Shogo Nakamura |
| Carter Stewart Jr (R) | Hotaka Yamakawa | Kyota Fujiwara (R) |
| Ryoya Kurihara | Takashi Ogino | |
| Yurisbel Gracial* | Leonys Martin | |
| Richard Sunagawa (R) | ||
| Yuki Yanagita |
Fun with NPB Products
Let’s be honest; I’m using this news to show off some of my favorite NPB cards. Even with Topps jumping into the fray, don’t lose sight of the existing manufacturers and some of the cool cards you can pick up from them right now.
2020 Epoch base card of Seiya Suzuki - great team color match & base design
2020 BBM Proud Ace insert of Tomoyuki Sugano
2019 BBM 1st Version Dominator insert of Haruki Nishikawa
2020 BBM 2nd Version Big Archist insert of Hayato Sakamoto
2019 BBM 2nd Version Cross Sunrise insert of Kazuma Okamoto
2019 BBM Fukuoka Softbank Hawks Team Set Get Over insert of Koudai Senga
2020 BBM 2nd Version Soul of the Team insert of Kohei Arihara
2020 BBM Genesis Cross Blossoms Cross Signing of Alfredo Despaigne
2017 BBM 2nd Version Cross Squall insert of Shohei Ohtani
2017 BBM 1st Version Silver Signature facsimile parallel of Shohei Ohtani
2013 BBM Rookie Edition Premium Golden Crop of Shohei Ohtani
2013 Calbee Exciting Rookie (hmmm…you think?) of Shohei Ohtani
2013 BBM Rookie Edition of Shohei Ohtani (pitching version)
2013 BBM Rookie Edition of Shohei Ohtani (batting version)
2013 Rookie Edition Premium of Shohei Ohtani