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 there are two scheduled releases - 2023 Topps Chrome Update and 2023 Topps Black & White Baseball. For the third week in a row, 2023 Onyx Vintage Extended Series is also on the calendar but if it happens this week is really anyone’s best guess - see the breakdown and my thoughts on it from two weeks ago. ***Update - 2023 Onyx Vintage Extended Series in fact did go live on Thursday/Friday of this week.
This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week. ***Updated for the 2023 Bowman Draft Pre-Sale.
2023 Topps Chrome UpdatE
The second and often less heralded version of the Topps Chrome Flagship products, 2023 Topps Chrome Update is scheduled to go live on Wednesday, November 15th.
There are now three Hobby formats of this product - up from one last year and none in years prior to that. On Friday, October 20th, Topps pre-sold all three of these Hobby formats, Pulling straight from TWiBC when the Pre-Sale went live on those three configurations: …a regular Hobby box, a Jumbo Hobby box, and a Breaker’s Delight Hobby box. Regular Hobby boxes guarantee 1 auto per box and are being pre-sold for $129.99 with a customer limit of 4. Jumbo Hobby boxes guarantee 3 autos per box and are being sold for $349.99 with a customer limit of 4. Breaker’s Delight Hobby boxes guarantee 2 autos per box and are being sold for $249.99 with a customer limit of 4. This is only the second time we’ve seen Breaker’s Delight Hobby boxes - the first instance was with the 2023 Topps Chrome release earlier in the year. We shall see what retail formats are sold, but the rumors are the long-familiar Mega Box configuration for Chrome Update will no longer happen. Like the Hobby formats with Chrome Update lining up with the regular Chrome release, it may be that the retail will follow suit with Value/Blaster boxes, hanger boxes, and loose retail packs. ***Update - as scheduled, boxes/cases went on sale on the Topps website at 12 PM EST on Wednesday. Regular Hobby boxes are selling for $139.99 with a customer limit of 4. Cases of regular Hobby boxes (6 boxes per case) are selling for $814.74 with a customer limit of 2. Jumbo Hobby boxes are being sold for $374.99 with a customer limit of 4. Cases of Jumbo Hobby boxes (8 boxes per case) are being sold for $2902.92 with a customer limit of 2. Breaker’s Delight Hobby boxes are being sold for $274.99 with a customer limit of 4. Cases of Breaker’s Delight Hobby boxes (10 boxes per case) are being sold for $2,667.40 with a customer limit of 2. Value/Blaster boxes are being sold for $34.99 with a customer limit of 10.
The design for the base is what we saw previously with Flagship and Chrome Flagship, so really nothing new to mention there. The big selling point/insert for Topps Chrome Update are the MLB Debut cards. Starting 2023, players debut game included an MLB Debut patch on their uniform. For Chrome Update, 91 of these debutantes are getting a card with that patch and what looks to be an on-card autograph including big chases like Jordan Walker and Anthony Volpe along with secondary chases like Masataka Yoshida, Kodai Senga, Mason Miller, Zach Neto, Matt McLain, and others. Some of the rookies that debuted later in the year did not make it into this insert, like Eury Pérez, as well as other rookies that debuted in 2022 but are considered “baseball card rookies” in 2023 like Corbin Carroll and Gunnar Henderson. Some of the other inserts remain the same from the earlier Chrome release, like Radiating Rookies, Titans, and Youthquake. Others are new to Chrome Update, with the Celebración set looking especially promising. We get a J-Rod holding the home run trident as the teaser image - hopefully this means we get the home run celebration props unique to each team being shown in these cards. One final item to mention - outside of the MLB Debut Patch autos, autographs are more than likely sticker autos. The marketing images look to be stickers and that has traditionally been the approach with Chrome Update, as opposed to Chrome where the core autos are on card (inserts will tend to be stickers or a mix of stickers and on card). ***Update - any auto that has a card number beginning with “RA” looks to be on card. This numbering falls in line with the Rookie Auto set in the Topps Chrome release and likely was initially targeted for that product, but 26 rookie autos have ended up in Topps Chrome Update. The biggest names in this group are Eury Pérez and Bobby Miller. The rest of the base auto set are numbered starting with “AC” and those all appear to be sticker autos as usual. ****Update - for the third time this year, Dave and Adam’s have put a bounty on a Topps card (Druw Jones 1/1 Superfractor auto in 2023 Bowman and the Babe Ruth 1/1 Superfractor in 2023 Bowman Chrome). This time it’s the Anthony Volpe MLB Debut patch auto and the bounty is $150,000. *******Update - MLB Debut Patch cards will not be packed out by Topps and instead will use a new type of White Glove Redemption scenario where the redemption never expires. Apparently this does NOT apply to these cards if inserted into the Breaker’s Delight Hobby box format. The plastic cases are good enough to prevent the potential damage that Topps is concerned about, and left unsaid is that Breaker’s Delight is not subject to pack searching.
For the checklist, it heavily draws on the 2023 Topps Update Series checklist - the base rookies are heavily favoring potential ace pitchers, while some of the bigger name hitting rookies appear with their less desirable rookie debut cards. Check out my breakdown on 2023 Topps Update Series if you want to get my thoughts on the impactful rookies with base rookies in this product.
Given the checklist not being favorable to the hobby, Topps needed to find a way to sell this product. Shifting to the Chrome hobby formats helps, but it’s not enough to overcome the lack of big name hitters with true base rookie cards. Granted, these big name rookie hitters like Corbin Carroll, Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman, Jordan Walker, Anthony Volpe, and others will have rookie debut cards and autographs, but the autograph checklist is long and is an absolute minefield of relievers, back-end starters, and org depth bats. The MLB Debut patch auto insert chase cards is a really smart marketing move by Topps to help sell the product, especially since this is the first time we will see them. You just have to be aware that there are only 91 of these cards in the entire product print run, so the likelihood of pulling one is astronomical. Secondly, I expect we see these cards, are similar MLB Debut patch cards, in other products. Whether that’s not happening until 2024 or not, it’s still going to happen. We had over 250 players debut in 2023, and they should have all gotten an MLB Debut patch that can be used by Topps. At the end of the day, I’ll probably grab a retail box or two if I see them. And I will definitely look to pick up some Giants rookie PC cards at some point. But I wouldn’t be going hard on this product in breaks or personal boxes.
2023 Topps Black & White Baseball
Back for its second year, 2023 Topps Black & White Baseball is scheduled to go live on the Topps website on Thursday, November 16th at 12 PM EST.
The format remains relatively the same in year 2 - a Hobby box that contains 3 packs of 10 cards each. This year Topps is guaranteeing one “hit” per pack for a total of at least 3 hits per box. Topps is defining “hits” as an autograph, short print, super short print, parallel, or the Golden Hour insert. Last year Topps guaranteed two parallels, or “hits”, per box. No price has been released as of writing. Last year Topps sold boxes for $50. ***Update - Topps is selling boxes at the same price from last year - $49.99 per box with a cart limit of 50 boxes (this is the first release, at least in baseball, that I can recall a cart limit rather than a customer limit. Maybe the 206 releases had this? Shows a lack of confidence in the product, perhaps?).
The design looks to be similar to last year - very much in the realm of Stadium Club. Full bleed photos in black and white with a glossy finish. Parallels will offer various color enhancements - player-only in color, background only color, full color, negative color, etc. The Golden Hour inserts do look particularly nice. Autographs look to be stickers, as they were last year.
The checklist is yet to be released. The base set last year was only 100 players, and the auto list, especially for the rookies, was really weak. Hopefully in year two they are able to do a lot better there. ***Update - the base set includes rookies across the spectrum from Series 1, 2, and Update. The big chases are there in the base set with Corbin, Gunnar, Adley, Volpe, Walker, Casas, Senga, Yoshida, Álvarez, and Harris. The auto checklist is pretty long and there are probably only four rookies that return purchase price value - Corbin, Yoshida, Volpe, and Adley. For the vets and ex-MLB players, it’s probably only Ronald Acuña Jr., Fernando Tatis Jr., and perhaps Vladdy Jr. and Bo Jackson.
I picked up a box last year, and while I didn’t hit an auto, I still was relatively happy with the cards. That’s no surprise as I am a fan of Stadium Club, and this product lands in a similar vicinity. With no auto guaranteed and sticker autos, it’s going to need to be a good checklist and a similar price point to last year to do well. I am guessing Topps will make that happen. Interestingly, it looks like there may only be 5,000 boxes in the print run this year - Golden Hour inserts are numbered to 50 and the checklist for it is just 10 players. So there will only be 500 Golden Hour cards in total. The Topps odds for these cards are 1 in 10 boxes. So 500 cards total multiplied by 10 boxes gives you the full print run of 5,000 boxes. With that small print run, it is likely that Topps sells out relatively quickly, so be ready on Thursday at 12PM EST if you are interested. ***Update - with the 50 boxes per cart limit, I wonder if the print run is really this small. I wouldn’t be surprised if Topps did the math wrong, I did the math wrong, or we both did! *****Update - went and checked the odds again and the Golden Hour insert odds have been updated to 1 in 22.5 boxes. So that gives us a total of 11,250 boxes, which is still a smaller print run given today’s standards, but does put a slight damper on the value proposition and makes more sense on why there are no customer limits.
2023 Bowman Draft Pre-Sale
On Monday, November 13th, Topps announced that 2023 Bowman Draft would go through the Pre-Sale process on Tuesday, November 13th. They are selling Jumbo Hobby boxes, Super Jumbo Hobby boxes, and cases of each. New players teased with 1st Bowman cards are Paul Skenes and Max Clark. Wyatt Langford as an insert auto tease as well, so it’s relatively safe to assume he will have 1st Bowman cards in the product. We’ll also get Tom Brady’s first official baseball card - he was drafted by the Expos in the 18th round of the 1995 MLB draft out of high school but never signed with them and went on to play football at Michigan. In 2020 Fanatics announced that they had a partnership as the exclusive provider of Brady’s autographs, collectables, and memorabilia, so it’s no surprise they are finding every angle to take advantage of that partnership. This is part of the approach started with 2023 Bowman Chrome of 1st Bowman cards that never were (a.k.a. retrofractors) - in that product it was Babe Ruth, Roberto Clemente, and Johnny Bench. At this point, the only major unknown is Dylan Crews. We already know that Walker Jenkins is slated for 2024 Bowman - will Crews be as well? Or will he even make it into Topps products, along the lines of Jack Leiter? This blurb to be updated with pricing and any other info that comes with the drop on Tuesday. ***Update - No Dylan Crews in the checklist, we shall see if he makes it into 2024 Bowman. Along with Tom Brady, the 1st Bowmans retrofractors of players that never had them are Carl Yastrzemski and Josh Gibson. Hobby Jumbo boxes are listed for $479.99 with a customer limit of 2. Hobby Jumbo cases (8 boxes per case) are listed for $3,650.00 with a customer limit of 1. Super Jumbo boxes are listed for $649.99 with a customer limit of 1. Super Jumbo cases (6 boxes per case) are listed for $3,782.94 with a customer limit of 1.