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 - 2021 Panini Stars & Stripes USA Baseball. 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.
2021 Panini Stars & Stripes USA Baseball
2021 Panini Stars & Stripes USA Baseball (shown as 2022 on box imagery, 2021 on text information on Panini’s website) is scheduled to release on Friday, April 8th.
There are various retail formats, typically blasters, and one regular Hobby box configuration. The Hobby box comes with 5 packs with each pack containing a hit (either auto or relic) for a total of 5 hits per box. Hobby boxes are running around $100 pre-sale right now, but we will see what Panini sells them for on their website on Friday. I would guess in the $80 range as that is typically about the price point you will find them post-release. ***Update - Panini is selling hobby boxes for $75 direct from its website
The design is obviously heavily USA-themed - lots of red, white, and blue with stars and stripes scattered throughout. This year, strangely, in the sell sheet images, we see they’ve incorporated a heavy green theme. It feels very strange. As much as I don’t like going off brand here with the green tilt, it wont change my interest in the product. Interestingly they’ve included Whammy inserts (big head cards) that you would typically find in Donruss Baseball in this product with the players in their USA jerseys. Whammy cards are fun and I don’t mind their inclusion in this product. One other thing to be aware of is that there are a fair amount of thicker cards in the product. Given that it’s a lower end product and the printing situation being what it is in today’s hobby world, expect challenges with the quality of cards. There are typically edges and corners that are far from perfect in this product, so don’t buy this with the expectation of grading the cards.
The checklist is full of past and present participants of USA Baseball. For some of the younger guys, it may be their first hobby product, or possibly their second if they were in a Perfect Game product. Some of these guys include the biggest names in upcoming MLB drafts like Druw Jones, Termarr Johnson, Jacob Berry, Jackson Holliday, etc. Until these players get 1st Bowman cards, these cards can hold more value than you would expect. You’ll also find vets included with some tough to hit short print Alumni autos for guys like Nomar Garciaparra, Mark McGwire, and Will Clark.
This is a product I love every year. I’m a sucker for national team themed cards, and this is a product full of them. I’m a bit disappointed that we don’t get any of the asian league players as we have seen in years past with Japanese and Taiwan insert auto sets. This is also not a popular break product unless the breaker does it as a pack break, so you typically have to pick this up from Panini or in the secondary/retail markets. At an $80 or less price point, it’s a fun product to rip, and in the short term, with the right guys, like a Druw Jones, there is actually some decent ROI. Despite the green theme, count me in.