Helping to keep everyone up-to-date on what is coming out and what might be worthy of your time in the Baseball Card Hobby for the current week. Check out our Discord for more discussion on this and any other hobby chatter Prospects Live Discord.
This week we have one scheduled release - 2022 Topps Cosmic Chrome. This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week. Yet again I say perhaps we see 2022 Topps Archives Snapshots online exclusive drop. Maybe we get 2022 Topps Chrome Sonic Edition, whatever that is. Or even 2022 Topps Chrome Sapphire Edition? Perhaps, 2022 Topps Chrome Ben Baller Edition?. Leaf also teased 2022 Perfect Game Metal around 10 days ago, but gave zero info on a release date, so we should always be looking for that to show up as well. And finally 2021 Leaf Valiant Baseball shows up with different release dates depending on where you look - either this Friday or next seems most likely, but with Leaf it’s never wise to plan for their release dates to actually show up on publicized dates. ***UPDATE - Topps has delayed release of 2022 Cosmic Chrome to Wednesday, November 16th. Further Update - 2021 Leaf Valiant Baseball actually released on Friday, November 4th.
2022 Topps Cosmic Chrome
A new release for 2022 that is a standalone brand but still uses the well-known “Chrome” branding, 2022 Topps Cosmic Chrome is scheduled to release on Friday, November 4th. ***Update - Topps released the product on Wednesday, November 16th.
There is only a single configuration - a regular Hobby box. There are no guaranteed “hits” in Hobby boxes. Autos are supposed to come four per case. With a case containing 12 boxes, the assumption is that autos will be one in every three boxes. The Youth Invasion insert will be a case hit. You are guaranteed one Nucleus refractor (not numbered) per box as well as two or three additional refractors. It’s a bit confusing, but given base refractor odds (1 in 10 packs with 20 packs per box), it seems like the three refractors per box includes counting the Nucleus refractor as part of that total (2 refractors, 1 Nucleus refractor). At the time of writing, boxes are going for $250 pre-sale. No retail formats have been announced and I don’t expect any. ***Update - Topps sold Hobby boxes directly from their website starting on Wednesday, November 16th for $199.99.
The design feels like if an astronaut took Topps Finest and Bowman’s Best to outer space and bred a hybrid child in zero gravity. Various bold designs with the night sky and the cosmos in the background seem to be the main theme. Looking forward to seeing the full set and if there is anything I really get hooked on. Nothing has jumped out to me even if in general I think it has potential.
The checklist has not yet been announced. I will likely update this section once it has been released. At the moment we’ve seen rookies (inserts only at the moment) and vets. Those rookies are Bobby Witt Jr. and Julio Rodriguez.
As with most new products, there is always an element of TBD until we see boxes opened and have cards in hand. As such, I’ll reserve overall judgement. However, given the pre-sale price point and the lack of a guaranteed hit, it seems like more of a singles product or some shots at breaks.
2021 Leaf Valiant Baseball
Leaf Valiant Baseball is the final prospect release of Leaf’s suite of prospect products for the “2021” year and they get it in just before the calendar flips over to 2023 going live on Friday, November 4th.
There is a single configuration - a regular Hobby box. Each Hobby box contains four autos plus a slabbed auto - no base cards in the product. That slab can be a BGS graded card or a 1/1 ungraded but slabbed production proof. While the 1/1 is great in theory, the reality is that they are not that desirable and you’d much rather get the BGS graded card. Boxes are currently going for around $115.
The design is typical Valiant - chrome cards with a large V themed background. There are three insert auto versions with Fearless Phenoms, Lionhearted, and Honor Guard. None of them are particularly noteworthy or interesting to me and the themes really don’t shine through.
The checklist is heavily prospect focused and even includes a pre-draft player (Derek Curiel) along with the token vet - in this case Shohei Ohtani. Among the prospects to chases are Brady House, Blaze Jordan, Benny Montgomery, Colson Montgomery, Grayson Rodriguez, Jasson Dominguez, Jack Leiter (pretty much the only manufacturer you can currently get cards of his from), Jordan Lawlar, James Wood, Robert Hassell, and Zac Veen. In addition you will have cards that were prospects but have debuted in 2022 like Adley Rutschman, Bobby Witt Jr., Nolan Gorman, Triston Casas, and a few others.
When I got back into the hobby, I liked Leaf Valiant breaks a lot because of the opportunity to get a BGS graded slab in every box plus access to a load of prospects as boxes were under $100. Now that Leaf has lengthened the print run by including production proof slabs, which I am not a fan of, and increased the price just enough to be noticeable (to be fair, it’s been this high now for a few years), it really makes it hard to be interested in. Add in that I was never a fan of the design and it’s now an easy pass for me unless they include a PC player, which I will pick up in the aftermarket. I can see why some people would be interested given the relatively good checklist and the slab, but it’s not a product for me any more.