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 three scheduled releases - 2022 Bowman Draft, 2022 Chrome Update Series Hobby, and 2022 Topps Five Star. There is also a good chance we see 2022 Bowman Chrome Sapphire this week as the checklist has been released by Topps. This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week.
***Update - Topps did a surprise new product release on their website on Thursday, December 22nd - 2022 Topps MLB Rookie of the Year - 75th Anniversary.
2022 Bowman Draft
One of the three core Bowman releases every year, 2022 Bowman Draft is scheduled for release on Wednesday, December 21st.
There are three, perhaps four, hobby configurations. Jumbo Hobby boxes guarantee three autos, Super Jumbo Hobby boxes guarantee five autos, Lite Hobby boxes don’t guarantee any hits but do come with five exclusive Black & White RayWave parallels, and possibly Asia Edition Hobby boxes which guarantee one auto and come with exclusive Asia Refractor (Mojo) parallels. The Asia Edition has not been announced to my knowledge and it usually just shows up in the Asian market until we get some drips and drabs of it in North America. Pre-release prices have been continuing to escalate with Jumbo currently around $450 and Super Jumbo around $720. Lite boxes are around $130, but they won’t be available until Wednesday, December 28th. Last year Topps sold Jumbo Hobby boxes for $375 and Lite Hobby boxes for $90 from their website. Topps dropped Jumbo Hobby boxes for $450 with a limit of 6 and cases of Jumbo Hobby boxes for $3,420 with a limit of 4.
The design is what we’ve regularly seen from the core Bowman releases this year, so I won’t dive into those details too much. It’s a good design, but I’m more of a fan of full border cards in general (excluding things like Stadium Club). The one item I will point out is that there is a shorter printed insert called Mood Ring that comes with a super short printed auto version (60 cards total in the entire print run). I really liked the first images of this insert that I saw and think it will drive good value even if it isn’t a true case hit as it is supposed to come one per 60 packs, which is 5 Jumbo hobby boxes, while a case of Jumbo is 8 boxes. So maybe a case hit, maybe semantics. You be the judge.
The checklist is deep and comprised exclusively of prospects. There are over 120 players with their 1st Bowman cards that were taken in the 2022 MLB Draft along with an additional inclusion of prospects that have had 1st Bowman cards in previous products. Check out my 2022 Bowman Draft Product Preview for an in-depth analysis on the 1st Bowman players.
Bowman Draft is an obvious favorite of mine as I love prospects and collecting their cards. Unfortunately prices are always high for this product and I don’t see that changing this year, which makes it really tough for an Average Joe like me to buy boxes outside of the Lite Hobby boxes. More than likely I will pick up some singles, jump in a few breaks, and contemplate buying a Lite Hobby box.
2022 Topps Chrome Update
Traditionally a retail only product, Topps has included a Hobby format of 2022 Topps Chrome Update scheduled for release on Wednesday, December 21st.
There is one hobby format, a regular Hobby box. There are no guaranteed hits but should come with one exclusive purple refractor parallel per pack. There are two retail formats - a Mega box and a Hanger box. Mega boxes and Hanger boxes do not guarantee any hits. Mega boxes will have one purple refractor parallels per pack, just like Hobby boxes. Hanger boxes will have three pink wave refractor parallels per box which isn’t quite one per pack (supposedly 5 packs per box this year). Hobby boxes are for sale on the Topps website for $120 with a limit of 8 boxes per customer. Mega boxes have been on sale off and on through Target’s website for the past few weeks as well as on shelves for roughly $50 and are now on sale at the Topps website for $50 with a limit of 10 boxes per customer. Hanger boxes are on sale on the Topps website for $25 per box with a limit of 20 boxes.
The design is exactly the same as we’ve seen with Topps Chrome earlier this year and there are no exclusive inserts (unless you count the All-Star game cards as inserts, because technically they are, but in reality they aren’t).
The checklist is essentially based off of the 2022 Topps Update Series in chrome format with a slimmer checklist. Rookies and vets are all there including the main guys for the rookie chases - J-Rod, Witt, Wander, Oneil Cruz, Tork, Peña, Seiya, Abrams, etc.
The Hobby box format with no guaranteed hits feels like a major money grab and the retail configuration pricing seems high. If you’re buying from Topps, you also have to add in shipping which further kills the value proposition. I don’t think I’ve ever spent $25 on a hanger box, let alone $25 plus shipping. I may buy one if I run across it at a retail location, but I am essentially out on this product outside of a break or two and perhaps some cheap singles.
2022 Topps Five Star
An annual mid-tier release, 2022 Topps Five Star is scheduled to come out on Friday, December 23rd.
There is a single hobby configuration - a regular Hobby box. It comes with two cards per box, both of which are a guaranteed hit. Currently you can buy boxes for around $250 pre-sale. Last year Topps sold boxes for $174.99. There are no retail formats of this product. ***Update - Topps is selling Hobby boxes for $230 with no stated limits and Cases of Hobby boxes (8 boxes per case) for $1,748 with a limit of 2 per customer
The design is typically looking to evoke a rich feel with lots of use of gold embossed elements. This year is no different, but we get more of a framed look with more of a darker outer theme than grays and browns of recent years. All autos are on card with possibly the exception of multi-player booklets, although these have been on card in the past as well. Technically, cut autos aren’t on card either, but they aren’t sticker autos either. Patches in this product are also really good typically.
The checklist is roughly spread evenly across rookies, vets, and ex-MLB players. From a vet perspective, pretty much all the stars of the game will be present. From the rookie chases, most of the ones you want are there - J-Rod, Witt, Abrams, Oneil Cruz, Wander, Tork, Peña, etc. Since this is an auto-only product, you want have Seiya Suzuki as he has not signed for any Topps products. This product was originally scheduled for much earlier in the year, and I am used to seeing it sometime in the summer. So be aware that you may players that were traded in-season are likely to be in their pre-trade uniforms - for example, CJ Abrams is on the Padres and Juan Soto is on the Nationals.
I’ve never gone out of my way for Five Star. I’ve bought a PC card or two, and ended up in some mixer breaks where it was part of the mix of boxes, but the high risk, high reward nature of the product has never been worth the gamble for me. I don’t see that changing this year, especially given that the price is likely to be higher than ever this year as well as it landing on the calendar where a ton of other products, not to mention holiday gifts, have taken a big chunk out of my, and everyone else’s wallets already.
2022 Topps MLB Rookie of the Year - 75th Anniversary
A surprise new product release from Topps, 2022 Topps MLB Rookie of the Year - 75th Anniversary went on sale on their website on Thursday, December 22nd.
There is a single configuration - a regular “Hobby” box, although it can be purchased as a single box or in a 5 box bulk configuration. Each box comes with 10 base cards, one of which is a guaranteed parallel numbered to 75 or less. Autographs are not guaranteed and are supposed to fall one in seven boxes. A single box can be purchased for $19.99 with a limit of 50 per customer. The 5 box bulk configuration saves you one dollar per box for a total of $95 with a limit of 25 per customer. The product is supposed to be shipped in 8 to 10 weeks, so basically during Spring Training 2023.
The design is a full border that reminds me very much of 2007 Topps Flagship. Not specified is which card is a base card in their limited gallery of card photos. It seems like it will be black like the Ronald Acuña Jr. card they show. If that’s the case, it’s a bit concerning as black paper cards tend to have a lot of quality issues with edges and corners. Here’s to hoping if it is black base cards, QC issues don’t crop up. The other thing to mention is that it looks like the autos are sticker autos.
The checklist is comprised of rookies of the year from 1947 (Jackie Robinson) through 2022. However, the base checklist is just 61 cards when there have been just over 140 winners in the history of the award. And no, we won’t see Michael Harris II in this, most likely because he won’t have a rookie card until 2023 and Topps didn’t want to include him with a “callup” verbiage on the card as well as have to put his card in its own subset so it wouldn’t be numbered with the regular base checklist to appease the Beckett torchbearers. We have a lot of good players, but essentially the only rookie card in the product is Julio Rodriguez. Everyone else is either a vet or ex-MLB player. The auto list is pretty good, and fortunately we don’t get some of the duds from the base set like Michael Fulmer or Al Bumbry (who?).
Overall I would have loved to see a guaranteed hit per box, but then the box price would likely have been 5x-10x AND increasing the auto checklist as much as they possibly could. I nice balance would have been 1 in 3 boxes with a guaranteed auto or even two parallels per 10 card pack. For $20 with free shipping for a single box, it’s probably an ok rip, but it seems like there isn’t a ton of value to be had without ripping a ton of it or getting lucky with J-Rod parallels and autos.