Each week over the past year our resident card expert Joe Lowry has given everyone on our Prospects Live Discord Baseball Card chat a heads up on what’s dropping in the Hobby. We’re now bringing those posts over to the main site to help keep everyone up-to-date on what is coming out and what might be worthy of your time. This week we have two products being released: 2021 Topps Heritage Minor League Baseball and 2021 Topps Update Series. This post will be updated if more news and/or product drops occur throughout the week. ***Updated for Update Series hobby box delay, Heritage Minor League price, and 2021 Topps Chrome Sapphire Edition
2021 Topps Heritage Minor League Baseball
2021 Topps Heritage Minor League Baseball is scheduled to release on Wednesday, October 27th and is a lower tier prospect release based off of the current year’s Heritage design.
There is only one configuration - a hobby box. Hobby boxes are running about $70 online at the moment and guarantee two autos per box. Last year you could pick up a box direct from Topps website for $59.99 and I expect to see either that or maybe up to $69.99 at most (Update - $64.99 was the official price). Let’s hope they don’t do something silly and push the price beyond that because it really becomes hard to justify beyond that with how the re-sell value on singles is not the best.
The design is exactly what you’ve been seeing with the regular Heritage release earlier in the year - a throwback to the 1972 Topps design. It’s not my favorite vintage design, but I know there are a lot of people who love it. It’s not completely part of the design, but this is probably the best place to mention it in case it was not completely obvious - all the players are shown on their minor league teams with those uniforms and teams listed. This typically does detract from the general hobby desirability and caps the ceiling on the card values.
The checklist is full of all of the prospects you’ve become familiar with in the various 2021 prospect products. Of the 65 base autos, there are probably around 10 that will be the ones people hunt for the most, which feels a bit underwhelming, but is probably par for the course. We are hunting for guys like Austin Martin, Coby Mayo (if you know, you know), Garrett Mitchell, Jairo Pomares, Kevin Alcantara (with his Yankees affiliate), Mick Abel, Max Meyer, Nick Yorke, Robert Hassell, Spencer Torkelson, and Yoelqui Cespedes.
Topps Heritage Minor League is a product I buy at least one personal box of every year because I love the product. It gives me cheap access to the prospects I love to collect. I love seeing the minor league team names and uniforms - they are so much more fun than the major league equivalent. And typically I like the throwback card design, although last year was tough with the black borders impacting condition and this year being a design I am not a fan of. But the design still wont stop me from getting at least one box of my own. A final note - this can be a bit more difficult to find from a breaking perspective as breakers tend to want to avoid the headache of minor league checklists and the challenging sorting that comes along with it.
2021 Topps Update Series
2021 Topps Update Series is scheduled to release on Friday, October 29th and is the third and final installment of the Topps Flagship product of the year. ***Update: Jumbo Hobby boxes are still scheduled for Friday, October 29th but regular Hobby boxes have been delayed five days to Wednesday, November 2nd.
There are two hobby formats - a regular hobby box and a jumbo hobby box. The regular hobby box guarantees one hit - either an auto OR a relic, which the odds lean towards the relic, plus a silver pack. A hobby box will run about $90 - $110 right now - last year Topps sold them online for $79.99 and I would expect them to come in at a slight increase at either $90 or $100. A jumbo hobby box guarantees you one auto and two relics plus two silver packs. They are running around $200 and up and are typically not sold through Topps’ website. There will also be all of the standard retail formats with blaster boxes, jumbo packs, loose retails packs, etc.
The design for the base is exactly what you found in 2021 Topps Series 1 and 2, so no need to rehash that. As usual with Update, you will find relics and relic autos focused on the All-Star game. The throwback set (redux) is 1992 Topps, which seems like a boring choice to me. There will also be the 70 years of Topps designs that they have been doing in Series 1 and 2 which are nice nostalgic cards.
I will be doing a full preview focused on the rookies that will go live with the release date. As we know with Flagship, it’s all about the rookies. The best bets at the moment with their first base Flagship rookie will be Jarred Kelenic, Andrew Vaughn, probable NL rookie of the year Jonathan India, Akil Baddoo, Alek Manoah, and Logan Gilbert. In general, the rest of the Update checklist is focused on players that have changed teams that Topps wasn’t able to move onto their new team given printing schedules like Franciso Lindor getting a Mets Flagship card or Free Agents that signed late or in-season like Maikel Franco. Or simply players that did not get cards in Series 1 or Series 2. Finally, you will get Rookie Debut cards. This will be for rookies that have already had Flagship rookie cards in Series 1 or 2 or even players with their first rookie cards in Update Series. Typically Rookie Debut cards are less desirable in the hobby than a player’s “true” rookie card with very few exceptions.
As the majority of the rookie class has disappointed, especially in comparison to previous years, I am questioning if there will be significant hobby interest in this product. Last year was a complete bomb, but Topps had already shot their shot with Series 1 and 2 with no one interesting left for Update. 2020 Update still languishes on breaker shelves and sealed wax hoards throughout the land. 2021 Update’s biggest hope is that the Jarred Kelenic believers will invest heavily. I am more interested in Update this year than I was last year (I bought none) simply because I still believe in Kelenic and I like India, Vaughn, Baddoo, and Manoah. But I doubt I will go out of my way for it and more than likely will only pick up some retail here or there as I run across it.
2021 Topps Chrome Sapphire Edition
2021 Topps Chrome Sapphire Edition was announced on Tuesday, October 26th as a Montgomery Club release on Wednesday, October 27th. This will likely go live to the public on Thursday or Friday. This is typically one of the more popular products every year since it’s original release back in 2016.
There is only one configuration, a hobby box. The format is the same as last year with one guaranteed auto plus one parallel card with a total of 32 cards per box. Surprisingly, the price has dropped from $299 to $249 from Topps. I think a bit of that surprise can be tempered though as my guess behind that price drop is an increased print run.
The design is the same as what you found in Topps Chrome but given the Sapphire treatment. Essentially the base cards are sapphire blue with the cracked ice/atomic refractor look and feel. Just to note, there are only base cards and rookie autos, so none of the inserts or relics or anything else along those lines you will find in the standard Topps Chrome release.
The checklist is essentially comprised of the Topps Series 1 and Series 2 base checklist. However, as they have done in the past, they have slightly modified that checklist to include a rookie that will not have a base rookie card until Topps Update Series/Chrome Update in Andrew Vaughn. Unfortunately Jarred Kelenic and Jonathan India were not chosen for inclusion, although Kelenic does get included in the Rookie auto set.
Last year this product was one of the three raffle (RIP) products Topps did and I was one of the chosen ones, so I picked up a box. I decided to rip since I didn’t really think through the 700 card base set last year (660 this year) was going to put the odds significantly against me hitting one of the big rookie base cards. Fortunately I got an Arozarena base, but my rookie auto did not turn out so great (Travis Demeritte). But since I didn’t immediately sell the Arozarena, I lost quite a bit on the box as a whole. And that lesson has taught me it’s really tough to get value out of a ripped box of this product and if that is your goal, flipping sealed is your best bet. But even then, it likely isn’t a huge money maker as 2020 sealed boxes are in the $400 range right now. And given the disappointing performance of this rookie class, 2021 sealed boxes might be challenged to realize $100+ flip in the medium term. For me, this product is a pass given the price point, checklist, and print run.