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 Panini Donruss Baseball. This post will be updated if more news and/or product drops occur throughout the week. Including news on the 2022 Topps Series 1 Wander Franco 1/1 Platinum surfacing in the wild according to SlabStox.
2022 Panini Donruss Baseball
2022 Panini Donruss Baseball is Panini’s flavor of a paper Flagship baseball product and is scheduled to be released on Friday, April 29th.
There is one hobby configuration - a regular Hobby box. It will come with two autos and one relic card on average. They are running around $125 pre-sale at the time of writing and will be sold direct from Panini’s website on release day. As this is Panini’s version of paper Flagship, you will find pretty much every retail format under the sun, all likely with their own exclusive parallels. ***Update - Panini is selling regular Hobby boxes direct from their website for $109.95.
The design is a very square/rectangular geometric theme with thick borders. Last year was similar but using a diagonal/triangular geometric theme. Not really my favorite look last year or this year as it feels like throwing design elements at it for design sake rather than asking if it looks good or not, but I’ve seen worse. 2022 Donruss, as usual, has a ton of different inserts, some new, some we’ve seen before. Unleashed returns in its second year - I liked them last year, but this year with the one we’ve seen so far, I am less of a fan. The animal theme is cut down to a single animal hugely overwhelming in the background, almost drowning out the player. Big head Whammy cards which are typically a case hit and a fan favorite, even if they don’t hold huge value, although the Wander could at least in the short term. New this year are the Hit List (no images yet) and the Bomb Squad. Another over-the-top design which isn’t really my thing, but I’ve seen worse. There also will be some throwback designs for at least relics using the classic 1988 design which I loved as a kid. Finally, I expect to see Diamond Kings as usual even if we don’t have it guaranteed at the moment, and the classic Rated Rookie and Rated Prospect logos that drive good value.
The checklist has yet to be released but expect to find most of the desirable rookies like Oneil Cruz and Wander Franco, desirable prospects, active players, and retired players.
Donruss is a product I tend to avoid outside of a random retail pickup and/or as a throw-in to mixer breaks. It’s unlicensed which knocks down the desirability, it’s mass produced, and I would much rather pickup Donruss Optic (the chromium Flagship for Panini) later in the year. It often is released closer to the beginning of the product cycle in February/March, and being released close to May is also a problem as it will get lost in the sea of products that should be coming in rapid succession over the next weeks and months. Not a terrible product, especially if it can be had for cheap and ripped for fun, but otherwise it’s mostly a pass.
2022 Topps Series 1 Wander Franco Platinum 1/1
The biggest card in 2022 Topps Series 1 and arguably a Top 5 card in any 2022 baseball product was pulled according to SlabStox on their Instagram - the Wander Franco 1/1 Platinum Parallel base rookie card. One of their followers told them that it was pulled from a retail pack from a Walgreens and then he purchased it from the person who pulled it. Even if not in pristine condition, this card is likely a 6 figure card.