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 hobby product scheduled for release - 2022 Topps Inception. This post will be updated if more news and/or product drops occur throughout the week - we possibly could see 2021 Bowman Heritage but Topps has delayed that drop until an unknown date.
2022 Topps Inception
2022 Topps Inception is a low-to-mid tier release that is scheduled to release on Wednesday, March 30th.
There is one configuration - a regular hobby box. It is the familiar format of a single pack with seven cards - 4 base cards, 2 parallels, and 1 auto or auto relic. Box prices from the main online retailers at the moment are going for around $200 pre-sale. Last year Topps sold boxes for $140, which I believe was a big jump from $99 the previous year and even lower in years past. A popular product hitting at a good time on the release calendar, Topps has definitely been pushing the price envelope and I expect them to continue to do so this year. ***Updated - Topps has put these boxes up for sale direct from their website on Thursday, March 31st at a $10 increase from last year to $150.
The design is one of the most important aspects to the Inception line of products. Typically the base design leans into more of an impressionist artist feel that eschews a border for that true painting on canvas look. However, the 2022 design, while still throwing a lot of colors at you, has gone away from that impressionist ethos and more towards a geometric designs in small and large doses. I am on the fence with the design, but that was one of the main reasons I got into Inception in years past and am a bit disappointed we don’t get a continuation of what we’ve seen previously. A final point to mention is that auto-only cards are usually on card autos while auto-relic cards are usually sticker autos. The relics are almost always really nice, even if they have trended towards player worn and away from game worn materials, but the sticker autos do drag down the overall appeal of those cards.
The checklist is the standard composition of rookies and vets with a sprinkling of retired players (Maddux, Molitor, McGwire, and Vladdy Sr.). The main rookie chase card is Wander Franco and that’s about it. You have a couple of the Tier 2 guys in Jarren Duran, Brandon Marsh, and Vidal Brujan. Unfortunately Oneil Cruz doesn’t have autos - only a base card. And there are a couple teams with almost nothing to chase - I wouldn’t want to be a San Francisco Bay Area baseball fan buying into this product. For most people looking at this from a value perspective, this product will be Rays or bust.
Given the likely price point on Inception, the design departure, and the top heavy checklist, I am essentially out. Add in that my main PC team, the Giants, are poorly represented in it (not like we have a good rookie to chase, so I don’t fully blame Topps here), it makes it even easier for me personally to pass on this product. I still expect a fair amount of momentum given the dearth of new baseball products during this time on the calendar. This should give a decent selling window for those that are interested in doing so.