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 and one additional product that has already hit the streets but will now be sold on the Topps website. We have 2024 Bowman Sterling and 2024 Topps Cosmic Chrome as new scheduled releases and 2024 Topps Chrome Logofractor Edition that will be dropped on the Topps website even though it has been available through the New York City MLB Store as well as a brief window of availability on the Fanatics website. ***Update for the 2024 Topps Stadium Club pre-order.
This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week.
2024 Bowman Sterling
The mid-tier prospect product is scheduled to go on sale on Wednesday, October 9th.
There is only one configuration - a regular Hobby box. Each Hobby box comes with five mini-boxes with one auto in each mini-box for a total of five autos per box. I assume this mini-box format will return this year as usual. Topps sold these boxes for pre-order at $389.99 per box and cases of Hobby boxes (12 boxes per case) for $4,679.99. The past few years Topps has sold these boxes for $349.99. ***Update - according to Topps social media, Hobby boxes will be priced at $399.99.
The design for Bowman Sterling is something that typically changes drastically from year to year, and this is no different. The base checklist is split between rookies and prospects with each portion getting their own design. The prospect portion is a full border scenario while the rookie version is three borders, eliminating the top border. What really stands out though is the matrix style background - it gives a very technology style of design. For inserts, Sterling Tek look really fun as they are giving design elements that are related to the player on the card - Jasson Dominguez gets an alien theme on his Tek cards, while Elly gets his team’s city nickname. I’m guessing the city nickname is something we’ll likely see for the remainder of the players in this insert. All autos should be on card.
The base checklist, as mentioned above, is split between rookies and prospects. The auto checklist is heavily favoring the prospects. Headliners there include Dylan Crews, Walker Jenkins, Roman Anthony, and Max Clark. All the major rookie chases are there with Skenes getting a rookie auto. Jackson Merrill only has a dual auto with Ethan Salas. Chourio, Holliday, Langford, Jasson, Elly, Caminero and Yamamoto also have rookie autos. Shota has a base, but no auto. You will also find some vets sprinkled in among the insert and insert autos like Aaron Judge, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, etc.
I’ve liked Bowman Sterling since it was re-introduced back in 2019. Unfortunately the price point has never been great, and now with the latest increase it makes it just that much harder to consider personal boxes. I love picking up cheap autos from this product months after release, which is the only thing I’ll be doing this year. Even breaks can be rough at this price point, but I wouldn’t fault anyone taking shots. Just be wary that aftermarket singles prices aren’t great, especially the further out you get from release.
2024 Topps Cosmic Chrome
The space themed version of Topps Chrome is scheduled to release on Friday, October 11th.
There is only one configuration - a regular Hobby box. Each Hobby box contains one nucleus refractor parallel and one Stars in the Night insert. There are no guaranteed autos, as has been the case in years past. Last year autos were one in three boxes (4 per case). I have yet to see the odds for this year, but I assume something similar will be the case. Topps sold these boxes via pre-order to 582 Montgomery Club members only for $289.99 and they sold out very quickly. Last year Topps sold boxes for $274.99. ***Update - according to Topps social media, Hobby boxes will be priced at $299.99. *****Update - Topps is selling this through their EQL raffle process rather than just opening it up as a free-for-all. As expected, Hobby boxes are $299.99 and cases (12 boxes per case) are $3,599.99.
The design is all about space themes. Planetary Pursuit returns for the second year with the hope that they fix the printing issue where none of the Venus cards ever made it into packs. There have been only nine confirmed sales of a Venus card, and none are currently listed on eBay. To my knowledge, Topps never acknowledged or commented on the issue, which has become rarer and rarer for them to not own up to an issue. Regardless, lets see what happens this year, as it is a good idea if it is well executed - an insert set with rarity based on how far away the planet on the card is from the sun.
The checklist is comprised of rookies and vets with some ex-MLB players as well. All of the rookie chases are included with every chase getting an auto - Elly, Jasson, Caminero, the Jackson 3, Langford, Yamamoto, Skenes, and Imanaga.
I thought year one of this product was fun, but then it just got out of control with the demand and increased prices. I know this product will be a hot one, so I don’t blame anyone for enjoying it for the space theme in chrome style or for taking advantage of the silly prices being paid for it. There are some really nice looking cards here and one day I may look to get some for my PC as prices go down, but I’ll be sitting on the sidelines for the most part.
2024 Topps Chrome Logofractor Edition
After being sold through the New York City (NYC) MLB store, and then briefly through the Fanatics website, the popular Topps Chrome Logofractor Edition will go on sale on the Topps website on Monday, October 7th at 12 PM EST. Boxes will be sold for $109.99 and cases (20 boxes per case) will be sold for $2,199.99. I expect these to be a hot item even at that crazy price point. There are no guaranteed autos, and each box comes with 5 base packs and 2 logofractor packs. Each logofractor pack has 5 logofractor cards in it for a total of 10 logofractor cards per box.
2024 Topps Stadium Club
Announced on Monday, October 7th, 2024 Topps Stadium Club is going to be live for pre-orders on Tuesday, October 8th. The pre-oder price will be $139.99 per Hobby box. Last year the cancelled pre-order price was $109.99 (these were all refunded) and the go live price point was $139.99. As usual, it will be two autos per box. We get a Jackson Holliday auto in the marketing image tease. More info to come once the pre-order goes live. ***Update - the pre-order went live as expected on Tuesday, October 8th at 12 PM EST. They are selling Hobby boxes for $139.99 and cases of Hobby boxes (16 boxes per case) for $2,239.99. They are selling Compact boxes (1 auto per box) for $74.99 and cases of Compact boxes (16 boxes per case) for $1,199.99. They are also selling a Compact box + Value/Blaster box bundle for $99.99.