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 Leaf Metal Baseball and 2022 Topps Gold Label. We may get the delayed 2022 Bowman Heritage online release as well since Topps currently has it on the calendar for this week, but I feel like I’ve said that multiple times before. Check out my thoughts on 2022 Bowman Heritage in This Week in Baseball Cards from a previous iteration.
This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week.
***Updated for the Donruss Baseball news
2022 Leaf Metal Baseball
The prospect focused product, 2022 Leaf Metal Baseball is scheduled to release Wednesday, March 22nd at online retailers, although Leaf has the release date on their website as last Wednesday, March 16th. And I have seen one breaker opening this product this past weekend. This used to be known as Leaf Metal DRAFT Baseball, but it looks like Leaf has dropped the “Draft” terminology from this product.
There are two formats - a regular Hobby box and a Jumbo Hobby box. The regular Hobby box comes with 6 autos, one of which is an un-slabbed proof auto. The regular Jumbo box comes with 10 autos, 2 of which are un-slabbed proof autos and 1 slabbed proof auto. Hobby boxes are going for around $120 - $130 while Jumbo Hobby boxes are going for around $230. In year’s past, we’ve seen an Red White and Blue hobby box offering that was somewhat like First Off The Line products, but since they’ve changed up the approach a bit to go to each card being numbered to 10 or less. RWB used to be that approach and now that it’s across the whole product, they likely didn’t see the need for this configuration.
The design for the chrome cards are a mess of interconnecting tilted square shapes, or I suppose you could call them symmetrical diamonds. There are a ton of inserts as Leaf looked to extend the checklist while keeping the parallels to 10 or less. They have seen how popular the animal parallels are and are going to include Zebra, Tiger, Peacock, Snakeskin and Giraffe parallels that I imagine will be the more sought after parallels in the product. They are also including dual and triple autos for the first time in memory in this product. As has become the norm with Leaf, all autos are likely stickers. Proof cards, even though they are technically 1 of 1’s, don’t typically have anything on the back of the card (or sometimes they will have a sticker denoting they are a proof) and hold less value than you would think.
The checklist, as I said, has grown quite a bit. Typically we would see a few rookies/vets and one or two retired players with the rest of the checklist was prospects. This year, given the format change to get to every card being numbered to 10 or less, they significantly increased the players included, the amount of parallels, and the amount of inserts. Leaf is making the claim that they have slashed the print run in half, but I have a hard time believing it. Anyways, if you name a prospect, they are likely in this product - Jackson Holliday, Druw Jones, Jackson Chourio, Elly De La Cruz, Francisco Álvarez, Anthony Volpe, Termarr Johnson, Jordan Walker, Marcelo Mayer, Spencer Jones, and guys who were still prospects in the 2022 product cycle like Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman, and Corbin Carrol. Rookies in 2022 like Bobby Witt Jr., Oneil Cruz, Spencer Strider, and Seiya Suzuki are also included, but past frequent Leaf signers Julio Rodriguez and Wander Franco are not included. Current players and ex-players are now plentiful and highlighted in a Hall of Fame based set (Enshrined) that includes Ken Griffey Jr., Mariano River, George Brett, Nolan Ryan, Rickey Henderson, and many others. You will also find ex-players scattered throughout the base and insert sets like Ichiro, Sammy Sosa, and Jose Canseco. Funny side note on the sell sheet images - an Ichiro card is shown for the “Enshrined” set, but he won’t be eligible for the MLB Hall of Fame until 2025 and is not listed in that insert in the checklist (whoops).
I used to really like Leaf Metal Draft. On card autos (gone), BGS slabbed autos (replaced by Proof autos), and a small checklist chock full of prospects (no longer true) at roughly $100 or less for a Hobby box were a decent value and a lot of fun to open. This product has essentially jumped the shark for me and I’ll likely only pick up a few PC cards (Vaun Brown and Kyle Harrison perhaps). It will still be a fun
2022 Topps Gold Label
The low-end product that provides one of the cheapest ways to get gold-framed autos, 2022 Topps Gold Label is scheduled to release on Wednesday, March 22nd in what may be it’s swan song.
There is a single configuration - a regular Hobby box. Each Hobby box comes with one gold-framed auto guaranteed. There are also relics that can be pulled, but typically those fall at less than one per case. Last year Topps jumped the prices up to $119.99 per box from $69.99 (nice) in 2020. Currently boxes can be found for pre-sale around $110, so it’s likely Topps lands somewhere near its 2021 price point. ***Update - Topps sold these for $94.99 on their website on Wednesday, March 22nd and they sold out quickly. The Fanatics website is selling at the same price and as of writing was still in stock.
The design of Gold Label starts with three different versions of the base cards, called Class 1, Class 2, and Class 3. Each player gets one of each, and they use different photos for them. In the past, these class designations would also appear written on the front of the cards. However, this year we don’t see that in the sell sheet images, so hopefully that is written on the back of the cards at the very least. Class 1 are the most common while Class 3 are the rarest (1 in 2 packs) of the base cards. The cards have what I can only describe as a bottom of a shoe sole/waffle iron design as the background. All of the various types of autos - base autos, auric autos, and relic autos, come with a metallic gold frame around it. Some relics will be a small gold nugget which is not something you see anywhere else, but those are long odds to hit.
The checklist is standard fare for 2022 products. Rookies are most of the big names - Julio Rodriguez, Bobby Witt Jr., Wander Franco, Oneil Cruz, Spencer Torkelson, CJ Abrams, and Hunter Greene. Missing is Jeremy Peña and the oft-missed Spencer Strider is included as an auto-only rookie. Vets and ex-players make up the rest of the checklist. For some reason, they have something they call Prospect Autos and Prospect Relics, but that is more likely playing off the theme of gold prospectors rather than players called prospects because they have yet to debut (or debuted to late for a rookie card). So don’t get confused that this product may include guys like Jordan Walker, Anthony Volpe, Corbin Carroll, Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman, Michael Harris II, etc. - they aren’t in the product.
I always have enjoyed getting cheap access to gold-framed cards. Heck, I hit a Jake Rogers gold-framed auto in a break a few years ago and gave it to my then 5 year old daughter to essentially play with because she liked it. And that is the conundrum - a lot of the hits can fall into that almost dollar bin style of card. When boxes were under $70 prior to 2021, it was worth the gamble and it didn’t break the bank to just open it for fun. With it over $100, it takes a lot of that value away and makes the gamble a lot worse. I stayed away last year and likely will do so this year, even though it will be going on hiatus for 2023 and 2024 with an uncertain future beyond that.
Panini Baseball is back!?!?!
Last week we saw 2023 Panini Stars & Stripes USA Baseball show up on their release calendar. It had been easily a month since Panini had any baseball on their release calendar. The expectation was that they could decide to simply leave the market after having lost the MLBPA licenses for 2023 and beyond (they did not have the MLB license to lose). Stars & Stripes seemed like the one place it would still be potentially making a baseball product since the USA Baseball license was a separate deal altogether, and that looks to have come to fruition.
Fast forward to this Tuesday and Donruss Baseball shows up with a tentative release date and sell sheet! I was not expecting this, but if they can think they can make money with this new format, then why not give it a shot. And that new format is to go with prospects and ex-MLB players to completely circumvent the packaged player license deal that the MLPA provides. This is the Leaf/Onyx model of signing individual deals with the players to be able to include their name, image, and likenesses in the product, but at a much larger scale in theory. We’ll see how much larger in scale since Leaf has really been expanding their checklists, and we’ve yet to see the Donruss checklist. An interesting development, even if it’s not earth shattering.
