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 release - 2022 Leaf Lumber. We may also see the 2022 Topps Finest Flashbacks online drop from Topps this week as it was originally scheduled for last week. This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week. ***Update - adding 2022 Topps Diamond Icons as it was not on the release calendar I was using but has popped up with a checklist and release date.
2022 Leaf Lumber
2022 Leaf Lumber is back for its third year and is scheduled to release on Friday, August 19th.
There are two Hobby configurations - a regular Hobby box and an Emerald Edition Hobby box. Each box comes with a single pack, which was actually a hard rigid plastic box in 2021, that comes with four cards, all hits. The majority of the hits are bat relics in one form or another with shots at bat knobs or bat nameplates being the highlights. There will also be auto relics as well, but judging from the past, these are less prevalent and I saw a majority of boxes that were absent any auto cards. The regular Hobby box is available for purchase from Leaf’s website for $219.99. The Emerald Edition box was sold direct from Leaf’s website and sold out at the price point of $249.99 - the main differentiator is that each card is numbered to four or less and will be an emerald parallel.
The design is really secondary to the fact that every card has some form of a bat in it, hence the “Lumber” name. Various different designs with and without player images (not sure why, but lack of player images on cards almost always a turn off for me unless the relic is ridiculously good) with none of the designs really grabbing me. Cut-out bat shapes, if you are getting a bat relic, is a decent idea, and The Exemplars insert does have some cosmic background behind the player image that is kinda cool and better than what we’ve seen in past iterations of the product.
The checklist is yet to be released, but it has focused heavily on retired players in the past with a sprinkling of active stars. This year we have Fernando Tatis Jr. on the sell sheet representing the active player contingent and I expect a handful more to join him. But this is truly about the retired greats along the lines of Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Johnny Bench, Reggie Jackson and others.
Outside of hitting Bat knobs or nameplates or very highly desirable autos, I haven’t seen a ton of aftermarket desire for this product, especially in the singles market. For myself, I am similarly-minded, but I would only really be interested in the knobs or nameplates as the autos are going to all be stickers. However, the knobs and nameplates are usually at a price point that I’m not comfortable paying, so I don’t own a single card from this product since its inception in 2020. Add in the lack of guaranteed autos in a box and this becomes an easy pass.
2022 Topps Diamond Icons
2022 Topps Diamond Icons is scheduled for release on Wednesday, August 17th.
There is a single hobby configuration - regular Hobby box. Each Hobby box comes with a single “pack”, typically a hard clear plastic box, with 10 cards. Seven of the ten cards are straight autos, two are auto relics, and the tenth card is a standard relic card. Product is almost non-existent at the moment, so the only publicly-facing pricing to be found was a full case (four hobby boxes) at roughly $20K which is giving us a price of $5K a box. Last year Topps sold these Hobby boxes for just under $2K direct from their website. This is a strange scenario where the three major online retailers currently don’t have the product listed nor most other secondary sites. While I expect that to change shortly, it’s entirely possible that Topps is doing something out of the ordinary here. If they release it online, I will update with the pricing they post. ***Update - Topps is selling these direct from their website for $2,999.99.
The design is mostly high end with a diamonds and curves with black, grey, and various blue or green tones with a lot of gold lines and filigree splashed throughout depending on the insert set. They take the diamond theme to the next level with a low numbered insert set called Diamonds in the rough that feature a small uncut diamond embedded in the card. Everything is numbered to 25 or less. Lost of high-end cut autos to chase as well. The final note here is that all autos are on card. But really, no one is buying this product for the design.
The checklist is a shortened list of rookies, vets, and ex-MLB players. You get the big four rookies with Wander Franco, Julio Rodriguez, Bobby Witt Jr., and Oneil Cruz as well as Spencer Torkelson. And that looks to be it from a quick scan of the checklist. The majority of the vets and ex-MLB players are really good, but there are still players that won’t return very much value with players like Eloy Jimenez, Shane Bieber, Steve Carlton, and others.
I really like this product in theory and have always wanted to pick up some PC cards from it, but have never done so given how expensive the sealed product is, breaks are, and aftermarket singles are. This product at $500 a box becomes great. At it’s current nosebleed prices, it’s for the gamblers and high end collectors. Wish I could take part, but it’s way out of my price range.