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 release - 2022 Bowman Chrome and 2022 Topps Heritage Minor League Baseball. This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week. ***Updated for 2022 Topps Allen & Ginter X online drop, 2022 Topps Chrome MVP Buyback program, and Topps X SGC 2022 Bowman Chrome Special.
2022 Bowman Chrome
One of the three core Bowman yearly releases, 2022 Bowman Chrome is scheduled to release on Wednesday, November 23rd for regular Hobby, Friday, November 25th for HTA Choice, and Lite Hobby on Wednesday, November 30th. ***Check out my full Bowman Chrome Product Preview now!
As just mentioned, there are three hobby configurations. The regular Hobby box guarantees two autos and are currently selling for about $325. HTA Choice boxes guarantee three autos and don’t come with anything but the autos (no base cards). Boxes are currently selling for about $340. Lite Hobby boxes don’t guarantee any autos but come with 5 black and white mini-diamond refractor parallels. Autos can be hit, but are not guaranteed. Boxes are selling for about $175. Last year Topps sold regular Hobby boxes for $179.99 - I expect a significant increase this year given pre-sale prices from retailers. There also likely will be a Mega box retail format which typically sell for around $50 that give you exclusive mojo refractor packs along with base packs. ***Update - Topps is selling regular Hobby boxes for $269.99 on its website.
The design is the same that we saw with 2022 Bowman Baseball, so I won’t go into depth on it here. The mini-diamond refractors from Lite boxes are nice even if I don’t think they are worth the price of the box itself. There is a new “Vapor” refractor this year which from the sell sheet image doesn’t look all that interesting. Hopefully it looks better in person.
The checklist is prospect focused, but you will find rookies and vets in it as well. I will have a full breakdown of the prospects with 1st Bowmans in the product on release day, but the highlights of who the hobby will be chasing are likely Jackson Chourio, Roderick Arias, and Cristhian Vaquero. Hard to hit rookie autos will include the big names - J-Rod, Witt, Wander, Tork, and Oneil Cruz.
Of the three core Bowman releases every year, Bowman Chrome has the most unknowns given the volume of International prospects with maybe a year or two or experience in the product. That makes it hard to heavily invest in it, but it also means you can hit really big without even knowing it. Almost no one was chasing Fernando Tatis Jr. or Juan Soto 1st Bowmans when they came out in their Bowman Chrome product. I’ll probably get in a random team break or possibly target a team or two in a PYT if I think the price is right.
2022 Topps Heritage Minor League Baseball
The popular prospect release, 2022 Topps Heritage Minor League Baseball, comes out on Wednesday, November 23rd.
There is only one configuration, a regular Hobby box. It guarantees two autos and is currently selling for about $55. Last year Topps sold these boxes for $64.99.
The design is the throwback to 1973 Topps baseball that we’ve already seen this year in the regular Topps Heritage release. I like this design a lot - it’s simplistic yet still has character. Unfortunately the card backs are in black which leads to showing a lot of issues with the paper stock. Edge chipping is going to be quite prevalent along with any slight corner imperfections - I saw this a LOT with 2022 Topps Heritage.
The checklist is exclusively minor league prospects with the exception of a few ex-MLB players in some insert sets. Some of the prospects with autos are Jordan Lawlar, Marcelo Mayer, Benny Montgomery, Blaze Jordan, Jackson Merrill, Harry Ford, and many others. As with every year, a checklist I like a lot.
This is a favorite product of mine every year, even last year with the black 1972 throwback design that showed a ton of quality issues. The cheap price, strong checklist, and throwback design are a winner in my book and I will definitely be getting at least one box for a personal rip, if not more.
2022 Topps Allen & Ginter X
Topps released 2022 Topps Allen & Ginter X to 582 Montgomery Club members on Tuesday, November 22nd and to the general public on Wednesday, November 23rd.
There is only one format - a regular Hobby box. It guarantees one framed auto per box - there are no relics in this edition of A&G. Boxes were sold for $69.99 with a limit of three per account. This was a significant discount from the $175 price-point Topps had this product at in 2021. To say that is a pleasant surprise is an understatement. Given that price, boxes sold out on the first day of public availability, which is something we haven’t been seeing much of these past few months.
The design is identical to the regular Allen & Ginter release we saw just a few weeks ago but with a black base as opposed to a parchment colored one. Because the cards are a black base, the signatures are in silver ink. Usually the low numbered parallels are using gold ink, although nothing has been announced one way or another in this regard.
The checklist is restricted to the base and base auto checklist found in 2022 Allen & Ginter. Essentially this product can be viewed as an “edition” type of release. As I said earlier, no relics, which most collectors will be happy about. As is standard for this edition, there are no inserts, so you lose some of that traditional eccentricity typically found in the main Allen & Ginter releases.
At the price point Topps offered this product, it was actually a decent value. I am going to speculate that the big rookie base cards will do pretty well from it and then add in a decent hit and you’ve made your money back. If I wasn’t half delirious from the Bowman Chrome release, I probably would’ve picked up a box for myself.
2022 Topps Chrome MVP Buyback
Topps announced on Wednesday, November 23rd a new Buyback program for the 2022 AL and NL MVP award winners - Aaron Judge and Paul Goldschmidt. Essentially any card you have of Judge and Goldschmidt from 2022 Topps Chrome, Logofractor Edition, and the yet to be released Sonic Edition can be turned back in to select Local Card Shops (LCS) or to an online retailer like Blowout and Dave and Adam’s for store credit. Depending on whether the card is a base card or a refractor/parallel of some sort will drive the amount of credit you get. The program starts on Saturday, November 26th and runs all the way through March 31st, 2023. I will add that it was mildly interesting that Sapphire is not included in this promotion, but I don’t think it means 2022 Topps Chrome Sapphire isn’t happening. I am just guessing the value proposition isn’t as good for turning in those cards at the buyback value. Another pleasant surprise from Topps this week. All the details can be found on the Topps website here.
Topps X SGC 2022 Bowman Chrome Special
Paired with the release of 2022 Bowman Chrome, SGC announced that they partnered with Topps to offer a limited-time special discounted pricing for all 2022 Bowman Chrome cards. The price-point is $9 per card regardless of the card value or type - base, parallels, autos, inserts, anything goes. This deal is in place through the end of the year. Additional details can be found on the SGC website.