The Card Stock Watch is an occasional series where I will take a look at a current prospect who I think is worthy of buying or selling. Prospect card values are the most volatile asset in the baseball collecting hobby. As such, we should be plugged into the current trends and adjust our buying and selling strategies accordingly.
In Yankees Summer Camp, Clarke Schmidt has been balling out. He is pitching lights out and making veteran hitters look like rookies. The Twitter machine has been filling my timeline with the swings and misses along with the frozen batters from Schmidt’s nasty horizontal breakers.
He’s also showing an impressive analytical mindset, increasing the appeal to the SABR-minded fans and collectors.
A little background on Schmidt: The Yankees drafted him 16th overall pick in the 2017 MLB draft out of South Carolina as one of the top pitchers in the SEC in ‘16 and ‘17. He then had to go under the knife for Tommy John in the spring of ‘17. Due to the surgery delaying his start in the Yankees minor league system, he barely made it up to Double-A last year for a brief three-game stint. The expectation before the COVID craziness was that he would be back in Double-A to build up the innings, likely in anticipation of a 2021 big league debut. With the 60-game season and Schmidt’s performance in Summer Camp, these plans may have changed.
This all leads to an impressive run for Schmidt’s prospect cards over the past few months.
The prospect collecting world uses the Bowman 1st Auto as the benchmark and most desirable card for any prospect, and we will do the same here. Further drilling into that, we will focus on the base version of this card for our card stock watch.
Clarke Schmidt’s 1st Bowman auto came from 2017 Bowman Draft. This time one year ago, you could pick up his 1st autographs base cards from this product for $5 - $15.
With the spotlight now on Schmidt, his 1st autographs base cards have increasedfour to six times in comparison to 12 months ago and are currently going anywhere from $30 to $60.
Looking at the Comps
Let’s take a look at a few comps to give us some context for thinking about his card’s future value as well as whether we should be buying or selling right now.
First we will look at some younger, established pitchers 1st Bowman base autos.
Aaron Nola, a young pitcher that has had some ace buzz at times and varying levels of success, sells for about $30 for his 1st Bowman base auto.
Blake Snell, another young pitcher that already has a Cy Young trophy in his display cabinet, sees his 1st Bowman base autos going similarly in the $30 - $40 range.
Walker Buehler is the outlier here as he is just beginning to establish himself and had a lot of recent prospect buzz. Straddling that line of prospect hype and established young pitcher, his 1st Bowman base autos are going in the $100 - $125 range.
Next we will take a look at some prospect pitchers 1st Bowman autos.
Casey Mize - 2nd on the Tigers Top 30
Mize is the current prospect pitcher with the pedigree (1st overall pick in the 2018 MLB draft), has not reached the majors, and is still selling reasonably well. His 1st Bowman base auto is currently selling between $70 - $90.
MacKenzie Gore - 1st on the Padres Top 30
Gore, arguably the consensus top pitching prospect in baseball, has a similar price range of $75 - $100 for his 1st Bowman base autos.
Deivi Garcia - 2nd on the Yankees Top 30
Lastly, we will take a look at Schmidt’s teammate Deivi Garcia, who is listed just ahead of Schmidt on the Yankees prospect list as their number one pitching prospect. Garcia, with that context of the top Yankees prospect arm but lacking any recent publicity, sees his 1st Bowman base autos selling in the $20 to $30 range.
Sell Sell Sell
With that added context, we can decide on what we should do now and speculate on what to expect for the future of Schmidt’s cards. There is still a possibility of added helium in the short term with continued lights-out performance in summer camp, making the Yankees active roster, and excelling during the shortened season. That helium likely puts him in the Mize/Gore price range, with a very, very small ceiling outcome of approaching Buehler prices.
However, over the long term, even with regular big league success, his 1st Bowman base autos will likely settle down towards the top of the Nola/Snell range with some situational bumps (all-star games, playoff success, winning awards, etc.). The flip side is obviously that if Schmidt does not see the expected success, his cards immediately sink back to price points we saw 12 months ago.
Outside of owning/buying Schmidt cards for personal collection reasons, my recommendation would be to cash in the chips on a majority if not all of your Schmidt position - standard pitching volatility, uncertainty around how much he will be part of the big league team this year, and long term future value of his cards given the comps we explored all speak to recognizing your profit as soon as possible. Do I think Schmidt will be good? Yes. Do I think it’s time to sell his cards? Yes. It’s time to Sell, Sell, Sell your Clarke Schmidt cards.
*Prospect Lists are pre-2020 MLB Draft
**Personal Collection disclosure: I currently have one 2017 Bowman’s Best best of 2017 autographs base card of Clarke Schmidt in my collection and have not recently purchased or sold any Schmidt cards.