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 four scheduled releases - 2024 Topps Chrome Baseball, 2024 Panini Donruss Baseball, 2023 Leaf Eclectic Baseball, and 2024 Wild Card Five Card Draw Baseball. There is also the release of 2024 Panini Stars & Stripes USA Baseball H2 format on Friday, July 19th. The Hobby box format released on July 5th - see all the details here.
This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week.
2024 Topps Chrome
The Chrome Flagship product from Topps is one of the biggest releases every year and is scheduled to go live on Wednesday, July 17th. Official breaks will be happening via Fanatics Live on Tuesday, July 16th (and unofficial breaks have already started happening as of writing).
There are three Hobby formats - a regular Hobby box, a Jumbo Hobby box, and a Breaker’s Delight Hobby box. Regular Hobby boxes come with one auto and were pre-sold for $189.99. Fanatics currently has them listed for $199.99. Cases of regular Hobby boxes (12 boxes per case) were pre-sold at $2,279.99. Jumbo Hobby boxes come with three autos were pre-sold for $389.99. Fanatics currently has them listed for $399.99. Cases of Jumbo Hobby boxes (8 boxes per case) were pre-sold for $3,119.99. Breaker’s Delight boxes come with one auto and were not pre-sold. It is highly unlikely they are sold direct through the Topps or Fanatics websites and will be only available in the secondary market through breaks and Hobby direct customers of Topps. Breakers Delight Boxes will have exclusive Youthquake inserts and have much higher odds to pull base Legendary Autos, and you will only find parallels of Legendary autos in Breakers Delight Boxes - at least according to the odds sheet provided by Topps (***Update - after realizing I read the odds incorrectly, it has been brought to my attention that Legendary autos are ONLY in Breakers Delight boxes - from base through all the parallels). There will be various retail formats - at the least we have blaster/value boxes as well as monster boxes - no autos guaranteed, but each format comes with a guaranteed amount of various parallels. ***Update - As expected, this went live on the Topps website at 12 PM EST on Wednesday. Hobby boxes are listed at $199.99 and cases of Hobby boxes are $2,399.99. Jumbo Hobby boxes are listed at $399.99 and cases of Jumbo Hobby boxes for $3,199.99. Blaster/Value boxes are listed for $39.99.
The design will be based off of the Topps Flagship (Series 1/Series 2/Update) design that we’ve already seen this year with a chrome finish. Inserts will mostly be different from Flagship but will include the 1989 Topps Baseball throwbacks. We will see Radiating Rookies and Youthquake return this year, plus various other new inserts. A new insert that will be really hard to hit and Topps has teased are the Award Winner insert, comprised of the Cy Young Award Winners (Snell/Cole), the MVP Award Winners (Ohtani/Acuña Jr.), and the Rookie of the Year Award Winners (Gunnar/Carroll). Other popular inserts will like be the Ultraviolet and All Etch sets. MVP Buybacks will return as well, although only Acuña Jr. will have autos (which will be very limited). ***Update - Topps released images of a super short print insert called “Helix” which evokes strong Panini Color Blast comparisons. We’ll see how they do long term, but in the short term I expect these sell really well.
The checklist is one of the best case scenarios for Topps - nearly every big rookie chase is in the product - Elly De La Cruz, Jasson Dominguez, Wyatt Langford, Jackson Chourio, Jackson Holliday, Jackson Merrill, Evan Carter, Jordan Lawlar, Junior Caminero, Shota Imanaga, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and so many more. The only rookie missing is Paul Skenes, who should be able to provide enough fanfare to sell Topps Update Series and Topps Chrome Update all by himself. Limited and popular Legend autos are back this year, including Bo Jackson, Derek Jeter, Ken Griffey Jr., Sandy Koufax, and more. While the names in the checklist are fantastic, Topps took this opportunity to push the base checklist from 220 cards to 300 cards. That’s definitely worrisome as a collector since a strong checklist gets watered down.
As I said, this is one the biggest and most important releases every year, especially for rookie card chasers. The large volume of high-end rookie chases makes this an even bigger deal this year and I expect that this will drive demand through the roof, even with likely high prices. As much as I am not interested in paying the going rate, even I can’t deny the checklist and likely will find some way or another to get some cards from 2024 Topps Chrome.
2024 Panini Donruss Baseball
The Panini Flagship baseball product, 2024 Donruss Baseball is scheduled to release on Wednesday, July 17th.
There is one Hobby configuration - a regular Hobby box. Hobby boxes come with three hits on average, which can be a mix of autos and relics. Last year Panini sold boxes for $99.99. Currently Blowout is selling boxes for $149.95. There should be various retail formats, but none have been announced yet. ***Update - As expected, Panini went live on Wednesday with a price point of $124.95, and by the time I checked in the morning, about 30 minutes after go-live, boxes were sold out, which was not what I was expecting.
The design is typical full-bordered Donruss. Usually it’s not something that stands out, and not something I hate, although 2022 was not good. As long as I’m not bothered by it, I check the box and move on, which is the case here. One very interesting note is that Donruss Optic did not happen in 2023, as Panini shifted to the new world of not having any sort of MLB license (they had the MLBPA license through 2022), their baseball lineup got slimmed down. This year, it looks like they are going to include Optic as part of the Donruss release - the entire base checklist is getting an Optic version and there are 24 Optic cards per Hobby box. Unfortunately, there are no Optic autographs listed in the checklist. Inserts include various ones we’ve seen in years past - Bomb Squad, Unleashed, and Whammy. If the Signature Series autos all look like the Pujols auto below, I can imagine a sneaky bit of interest in them.
The checklist is what we’ve come to expect from Panini baseball - primarily prospects (players that have yet to debut or have debuted in the current year - essentially considered prospects at the time the checklist was created) and ex-MLB players with a sprinkling of current MLB players that debuted prior to 2024 such as Bobby Witt, Jr., Elly De La Cruz, Abner Uribe, Sal Frelick, Bobby Miller, Evan Carter, Emmet Sheehan, Jordan Lawlar, Nolan Schanuel, and a few others. The main headlining “prospect” is Paul Skenes, but there are plenty of others that should be popular including Jackson Merrill, Jackson Holliday, Aidan Miller, Ethan Salas, Leo De Vries, Coby Mayo, Colt Emerson, Lazaro Montes, etc.
Last year I was on the fence with Donruss Baseball and I wasn’t going to get more than a blaster or two if I came across one, but I never did, so I did not end up with anything from the product. This year, with Optic now part of the product, I am much more interested and likely will go out of my way to grab a blaster or two, or just even some singles of PC players.
2023 Leaf Eclectic Baseball
The new, catch-all product for the current cycle of Leaf baseball products is scheduled to release on Wednesday, July 17th.
There is one Hobby format - a regular Hobby box. Each Hobby box comes with 4 autographed cards - there are no base or insert cards in the product. Currently Steel City Collectibles is selling Hobby boxes for $134.95. No word on whether Leaf will sell these direct or not, but given their recent approach, it’s unlikely. ***Update - while Leaf’s social media has not mentioned it nor is it available on their website, various online sellers are pushing boxes for around $135 today and I assume people are breaking it even though I didn’t see it with the few places I checked.
As for the design, this is primarily a product that contains cards with branding from various other Leaf products. According to Leaf, we will see cards from Valiant, Flash, Optichrome, Multigraphics, and “more”. In their tease, they also include cards from Vivid, but it’s not included in the checklist. Anime Nation is teased and in the checklist - this is typically an online exclusive and definitely has some fans who don’t mind unlicensed cards. They do include a card called Boombastic in the marketing material with the “Eclectic” branding to it, so there will be some cards specific to this product. As with all Leaf products nowadays, I expect all autos to be stickers (and obviously unlicensed).
The checklist is primarily prospects and ex-MLB players with a sprinkling of active MLB players, but none of those players debuted prior to 2023, like Michael Harris II, Elly De La Cruz and others. Plenty of chases like those above as well as Paul Skenes, Junior Caminero, Ethan Salas, and the younger brother of Jackson Holliday, Ethan. There is one Anime Nation card of a non-baseball player - Chuck Norris, which is fun.
This might be fun to open, but once the novelty wears off, I doubt it will have much staying power. Definitely not something I will be looking to get into breaks of or buy a box myself, especially with Topps Chrome release on the same day (if this product indeed comes out as currently scheduled, which is not always guaranteed).
2024 Wild Card Five Card Draw Baseball
2024 Wild Card Five Card Draw Baseball is back for its second year, scheduled for release on Friday, July 19th. ***Update - this is showing as delayed yet again (shocked face), currently with a go live of Monday, July 22nd.
Currently Blowout is selling Hobby boxes for $149.95. Each box comes with five autographed cards - no base cards or inserts in the product. Autos are almost all, if not all stickers. Last year all cards came in magnetic, sealed one touches.
The checklist has a sprinkling of current and ex-MLB players with a majority of the product focused on prospects. Anthony Volpe, Paul Skenes, Jared Jones, Ben Rice, Brooks Lee, Christian Scott, Drew Thorpe, Jonatan Clase, Jackson Chourio, Jackson Holliday, Mookie Betts, and Corbin Carroll comprise the current MLB players. Additional players of note from the prospect ranks include just drafted players like Tommy White, Nick Kurtz, Konnor Griffin, Travis Bazzana, Chase Burns, and others. 2025 potential draft picks include Ethan Holliday and Cam Cannarella. Other prospects of note include Brady House, Brock Wilken, Matt Shaw, and Sebastian Walcott.
To be honest, I had no idea this product had a 2023 version. Outside of every card being in a one touch and having a playing card theme, I can easily see why I missed it. Unlicensed and sticker autos are just a combination I’ve grown to ignore as I narrow my collecting targets. over time. If you don’t mind that combination, this is probably something you think about picking up some PC cards or a box or get into a break. Just be aware that this, like many unlicensed products, won’t resell well outside of rare scenarios.