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 two scheduled releases - 2022 Panini National Treasures Baseball and 2022 Topps Chrome Sapphire Edition. This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week.
2022 Panini National Treasures Baseball
A high-end release from Panini, 2022 Panini National Treasures Baseball is scheduled for release on Wednesday, January 11th.
There are two hobby configurations - a regular Hobby box and a First Off The Line (FOTL) Hobby box. Each box typically comes with eight cards (massive cards like the Treasure Chest 32 player booklet are probably going to be the only card in the box) with a mix of relics and autos. There is no specification either way on the split, but usually it breaks down to five autos and three relics. The only difference between the regular Hobby and FOTL Hobby boxes is that there is are two FOTL exclusives - a low numbered relic and a low numbered auto as part of the box. The regular Hobby boxes are currently on pre-sale for around $600, but online sellers have already teased as low as $525 on release day, and I expect you will be able to find even better deals in some places. The FOTL hobby boxes were dutch auctioned on Wednesday, January 6th starting at $800 with a floor of $525. From what I heard, they sold out just above the floor around $545. These have already started to show up in breakers hands as of last week. There are no retail formats of this product. ***Update - Panini is selling regular Hobby boxes for $525 on their website.
The design hasn’t changed much over the years - typically a white, borderless card with lined inner framing elements. But there really isn’t a base set outside of perhaps the basic relic cards - there are so many subsets that it’s really difficult to comment on the overall design. There are some really amazing patches, and there are some white napkins of all sizes - small to jumbo. A lot of the patches are not game worn for active or more recent ex-MLB players. We get a lot of cool materials like bat knobs and bat nameplates. The majority of autos are on card, but you will get your fair share of sticker autos as well. I even saw a dual player booklet last year where one player was an on card auto and the other player was a sticker auto. New this year are two inserts - Treasured Jerseys and Treasured Stats. The approach is that they will be short printed “ultra-rare” cards. I don’t see the attraction to them as they aren’t relics or autos, and the design appears bland for the stated rarity. It also remains to be seen if they replace a hit or are in addition to a hit.
The checklist is typical NT - gigantic and spread across prospects, rookies, vets, and ex-MLB players and coaches. There’s a ton of variety, which is really nice, but it also makes it that much harder to get your value back on an unlicensed product given the price point. Some of the prospects include Jackson Holliday, Jordan Lawlar, Adley Rutschman (not a rookie until 2023 product), Vinnie Pasquantino (not a rookie until 2023 product), Gunnar Henderson (not a rookie until 2023 product), Heston Kjerstad, Marcelo Mayer, George Valera, Termarr Johnson, James Wood (Padres version), Orelvis Martinez, and Elijah Greene. The rookie chases are mostly all there - Julio Rodriguez, Bobby Witt Jr., Wander Franco, Oneil Cruz, Spencer Torkelson, CJ Abrams (Padres version), Seiya Suzuki, and others. The main one I saw missing was Jeremy Peña. And the J-Rod cards are few and far between, so plan accordingly if you are hunting his cards.
I like NT a lot, but the drawbacks keep me from doing much other than buying singles. The high price point, the player worn rather than game worn material, some sticker autos, no team names or logos, and extensive checklist all keep me out on buying boxes or buying into dedicated product box breaks. I may end up in a mixer on occasion or a super cheap break of it in more uncommon formats, but I’m usually just picking up some really cheap singles in the aftermarket.
2022 Topps Chrome Update Sapphire Edition
An online exclusive based on 2022 Topps Chrome Update that debuted with the 2021 product year (released in March 2022), 2022 Topps Chrome Update Sapphire Edition is set to go live on the Topps website on Wednesday, January 11th.
There is only one configuration, a regular Hobby box. The contents at the moment are unknown, but I anticipate it to be different to a certain degree than last year. In 2021, there were 32 cards per box with one auto and one numbered parallel guaranteed. The auto checklist was 35 players, but in 2022, the auto checklist is only 14 players. This to me makes it pretty much impossible to guarantee one auto per box. If I had to guess, we will likely see a 32 card box with new parallels added to get to two parallels guaranteed per box and no autos guaranteed. Last year the price was $149.99 on the Topps website - no info on price is available at the moment. I will update this when more information is known, likely on release day. ***Update - This went live on Wednesday and sold out fast with a lot of demand - checking out was challenge for many buyers given the volume of purchase requests. The price point was $129.99 with a limit of 10 per customer, and as expected, the configuration was 32 cards with two parallels per box, no autos guaranteed, and parallels running out to 99 (although parallels are not yet known until these boxes land in consumer’s hands). Autos are numbered to 25 or less, putting the total autos in the product at 350 or less. They will be hard to hit and likely very expensive.
The design is the Sapphire version of the Topps Chrome and Topps Chrome Update design - nothing new here to speak of. The autos, just like in regular Chrome Update, should be sticker autos. Parallels were out of 50 (Green) or less - I expect we get at least out of 99 and probably a couple more.
The checklist for the base is identical to 2022 Topps Chrome Update - all the desirable rookies are there - J-Rod, Witt, Peña, Tork, Abrams, Seiya, etc. And then you also get Rookie Debut cards of players like Wander and Oneil Cruz. There are no inserts, so you wont get any of the 1987 throwbacks or All Star Game insert set, which is a shame because those All Star Game cards this year were really good. The 14 players on the auto checklist are all good to great rookies to hit which is why I anticipate they drop the guarantee on them.
I didn’t get any of this product last year as I didn’t think the value was there at $150 with one guaranteed auto and by that point, we knew about the really weak rookie class. It was also available for Montgomery Club pre-sales last year, which it doesn’t look like will happen this year (at least that has not been communicated to the Club members from what I’ve seen). With a really strong checklist, this becomes a very tempting buy unless Topps shoots the price up way too high. I expect it will sell out fast, and given the 330 card checklist, lack of a guaranteed auto (more than likely), I probably will sit this one out. However, I think you will do quite well if you buy at Topps price and flip the sealed wax or potentially even hold long term depending on the auto redemption situation (how many, if any, of the big boys will be redemptions? probably a majority of them…).
2022 Topps GPK x MLB Series 2 by Alex Pardee
Back for its second iteration after Series 1 featured artist Keith Shore in October 2022, Series 2 is featuring artist Alex Pardee and is scheduled for release on Wednesday, January 11th.
There is one configuration - a regular Hobby box that contains six cards with five base cards plus one parallel, chase card, or artist signature card. Each box costs $24.99 and you can also make a bulk purchase of eight boxes for essentially a $5 total discount at $194.99.
The design is the full border setup with an over the top subject often in gruesome, hilarious, or strange references. With Alex Pardee, we are likely to see more of a horror/gruesome approach.
The checklist is short, just 15 vets and rookies like Series 1 plus the artist and chase cards. We have plenty of repeat players from Series 1 to Series 2, which is a bit surprising, but I also understand as you want to focus this product to the big boys. The rookies are Wander Franco (repeat), Bobby Witt Jr. (repeat), Julio Rodriguez (repeat), Oneil Cruz (repeat), and Spencer Strider (NOT a repeat). Such a short checklist is great that you should be able to get all the base cards relatively easily, and they will all be good names. But it also makes the rarity of the good hits very small. It’s a tough balance to strike and I’m glad I am not responsible for making checklists (well, only kinda glad).
While I was a fan of Garbage Pail Kids as kid in the 1980’s when they first showed up, I haven’t at all had the itch for any of the new releases since I got back in the hobby. I’m not sure why that is, but even the MLB crossover stuff hasn’t struck a chord. So for me personally, I passed on Series 1 and am passing on Series 2. On the other hand, I can see the appeal, and Pardee was the star of Project 70. To be honest, I’m surprised this hasn’t sold out after a day in the Topps online store.