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 hobby product release - 2022 Topps Definitive Collection Baseball. This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week. 2021 Leaf Trinity Baseball is scheduled for end of week, but I will add it when it actually does drop as Leaf products regularly miss their street dates. ***Update - 2021 Leaf Trinity did actually hit its street date of 7/8/22 and has been added below.
2022 Topps Definitive Collection Baseball
2022 Topps Definitive Collection Baseball is one of the higher end products of the year and is scheduled for release on Wednesday, July 6th.
There is one configuration - a regular Hobby box. Each Hobby box comes with a single “pack” which has recently been an actual clear hard plastic case rather than traditional foil packs or cardboard boxes. Each pack/box typically provides six autos and two relic cards with opportunities for booklets and cut autos. Currently running around $2K pre-sale, last year Topps sold it direct for $1,599.99.
The design doesn’t change much from year to year for Definitive. It’s a classic white base design with a lot of tasteful gold elements. All on-card autos and some of the best relics in baseball releases. Unfortunately some of the higher numbered relics will be single color jersey swatches, but all of the low numbered stuff is great including plate protector materials (shin guards, elbow guards).
The checklist is composed of current and ex-MLB’ers. The majority of non-rookies are really nice to great hits but some of these can be under-appreciated names in the hobby and wont return anywhere near the value that is invested. Ex-players like Larry Walker, Tim Raines, and Steve Carlton, amongst others, tend not to have a lot of Hobby juice. For current players you get all of the big names like Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, Ronald Acuña Jr., Juan Soto, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Fernando Tatis Jr. The rookies actually is one of the weaker parts of the product, but you do get what is essentially turning into the big 4 of 2022 with Wander Franco, Bobby Witt Jr., Julio Rodriguez, and Oneil Cruz. But beyond that, it is going to be relatively deflating to pull the rest of the rookies, at least from a value perspective.
I really like Topps Definitive Collection from a product perspective and I really dislike the price point of Topps Definitive Collection. That leads to me staying away from buying boxes or even getting into breaks of it. Breaks are tough with 8 cards per box and it really is only viable as a hit draft to protect against getting skunked. But then you are looking at $250+ per hit draft spot and that is just going to lead to a lot of losers coming out of that break. Other break styles with this product lead to a high level of skunking even though you could get cheaper price points. All that is to say, I will pick up cheaper PC cards of this product in the aftermarket - I’ve been able to do that in the past for sub $50 and will likely do that in the future if I find similarly priced cards.
2021 Leaf Trinity Baseball
2021 Leaf Trinity Baseball released on Friday, July 8th.
There is one configuration - a regular Hobby box. They contain six cards, all autographed hits, although no guaranteed breakdown between standard autos and the more desirable patch autos. Boxes are running around $170 which feels like a decent rise over last year, but I don’t have that data handy. In addition, rumors are that Leaf has significantly restricted access to their products to legacy distribution partners mainly which will likely keep prices more controlled. Your best bet will likely be Frank J’s boxes on twitter if you do want to grab one on release day (this typically goes for most releases).
The design is really not that big of a deal with Trinity as Leaf usually only tweaks it from year to year. They have the standard white-ish overall cards with some minor design flourishes that is where the parallel colors are expressed. The star of the show are the patches. Some of the best patches, and certainly the best patches for the price, in any baseball product. The main thing to be aware of is that these patches are player worn and will even be patches from uniforms that were used prior to some of these players being born.
The checklist is still not available on release day, but you can assume the majority of prospects you’ve seen in previous 2021 Leaf prospect products to be present. Some of the standard big names are Khalil Watson, Adley Rutschman, Oscar Colas, Marcelo Mayer, Jordan Lawlar, and Bobby Witt Jr. You will also get Brady House autos who has yet to sign for Topps/Bowman (but still has Panini autos) and the elusive Jack Leiter who seems to be a Leaf exclusive signer so far. You actually can’t even find Jack Leiter cards outside of Leaf products, so if you want some, this is where you have to go for them.
One of my favorite products when I got back into the hobby, but my interest has waned over the years from going all out to just picking up some PC cards in the singles market typically. Some of that is due to sticker autos and the loss of the inscription cards because everything is stickers. Some of that is due to the ever increasing price point. And some of that is what feels like we get fewer and fewer patch auto cards in the past two to three years. I know plenty of fans of Trinity and expect it to get plenty of love again this year, but I’ll just pick up my guys after the hype dies down.
Topps X Lauren Taylor Wave 2
Wave 2 dropped from Topps on Tuesday, July 5th. We get the other big rookies with Wander Franco and Bobby Witt Jr. along with their requisite autos in the checklist. This appears to be it for this specific collaboration, which isn’t a terrible thing for the card values, but it will likely make it harder to acquire on the buy side. See all of my thoughts on this collaboration in last week’s This Week in Baseball Cards.