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 four releases expected - 2024 Topps Now Road to Opening Day, 2024 Topps Archives Signature Series Active Player Edition, 2023 Topps Dynasty, and 2023 Bowman Inception. This may be the last release of 2023 products we see from Topps.
This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week.
2024 Topps Now Road to Opening Day
Topps will start sales of Road to Opening Day online exclusive on Tuesday, March 19th. This will be the first release using the 2024 Topps Now design. No checklist has been announced as of writing. This is a team-based product where each team gets a “set” that you can purchase individually. There will likely be 10 players per team set for the base set with one of those cards likely being a parallel. Last year Topps sold these team packs for $34.99. Base Rookies teased so far are Evan Carter, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Pete Crow-Armstrong, and Elly De La Cruz. Topps is also going to be selling the Autograph Collectors Pack and likely will include one on card auto numbered to 99 or lower, one exclusive foil numbered to 24, and 8 random base cards. Last year Topps sold these packs for $99.99. The teased auto signers are Aaron Judge, Corbin Carroll, Gunnar Henderson, and Heston Kjerstad. In addition, there will be Turn Back the Clock Spring Training inserts. It is unknown if those will be in the Auto Packs, the Team packs, or both. This will be updated as more info becomes available. ***Update - Topps is selling base team packs for $39.99. There does not appear to be any customer limits on team sets on the purchase page, however some of the more popular team sets have sold out prior to the April 4th final sale date. The Autograph packs went on sale for $129.99 and sold out very quickly. It looks like this may be the first opportunity to get Jung-Hoo Lee and Shota Imanaga autographs.
2024 Topps Archives Signature Series Active Player Edition
The one autographed card only product is scheduled to release on Wednesday, March 20th.
There is only one configuration - a regular Hobby box. Each Hobby box comes with one on-card autograph in a magnetic one touch holder. Last year, Topps sold these boxes for $69.99 with a customer limit of 5. Currently Blowout Cards is selling boxes for $84.95. ***Update - Topps released this as expected, selling at the same price of last year of $69.99 with a customer limit of 6. They are selling cases of Hobby boxes (20 boxes per case) for $1,339.99 with a customer limit of 2.
The design is that there is no design. All of these cards are buy back cards, meaning that they are cards from products from previous years. Topps then stamps them in gold foil with the Topps Archives Signature Series 2024 logo, which is the only way to determine, if the card is removed from the magnetic one touch, that it from the Sig Series product and not pack pulled from the original product and then signed in person. So far we’ve seen a 2020 Topps Series 2 insert called WARriors of the Diamond insert of Mike Trout and a 2023 Topps Big League Big Leaguers insert of Julio Rodriguez in the marketing material.
The checklist is unknown at this point - the above-mentioned Mike Trout and Julio Rodriguez are the only ones known at this time. Even though this is a 2024 product, the only way you get the 2024 rookies are through their prospect cards. For example, if Elly De La Cruz is in the product, it won’t be his rookie cards. It will be his prospect cards from the various Bowman products, or perhaps some Topps Pro Debut or Topps Now cards.
This is one of the products I regularly skip. When these boxes were in the $40-$45 range, it was a fun and sometimes profitable rip. Once you get close to double that price, you’re losing so regularly that it gets tough to swallow. Typically at that price point, there is one to maybe two boxes out of a case (20 boxes per case) that are money makers. I don’t mind grabbing these cards of PC players in the secondary market. The on card autos are really nice. However, the artificial 1/1 scenarios also devalue the product.
2023 Topps Dynasty
Moving from a low-end one card autographed product to the highest end one card autographed product, 2023 Topps Dynasty is scheduled to be released on Friday, March 22nd.
There is one configuration - a regular Hobby box. Each Hobby box comes with one hard-signed patch autograph card in a magnetic one touch. Last year Topps sold boxes for $824.99 with a customer limit of 2 boxes. At the time of writing none of the three major online retailers have this product in stock. ***Update - Topps released the product at 12PM EST on Friday and it almost immediately sold out. This is almost assuredly due to the Wemby inclusion. Hobby boxes were being sold for $899.99 with a customer limit of 15. Cases of Hobby boxes (5 boxes per case) were being sold for $4,499.95 with a customer limit of 3.
The design is typical Dynasty - a white, black, and silver palette for the base cards (numbered to 10) with high end patches. Unfortunately these patches are often not from any specific game, event, or season, which is pretty disappointing given the box prices. We do get World Baseball Classic (WBC) cards in this release giving us the opportunity to collect players in their country gear rather than their MLB team gear.
The checklist is yet to be released. Dynasty is a product that includes, rookies, vets, and former MLB players. This year, because of the WBC, there’s an outside chance we get more than that. Obviously if you are buying into breaks, make sure it’s clarified if it is team breaks that the player on a WBC card is going to the team that they played for in 2023 (the standard rule) or if there is something different. For example, Shohei Ohtani’s cards would go to the Angels slot if it was the 2023 team, or the Dodgers if it is based on current team. I don’t expect we get any WBC players that weren’t on a 2023 MLB team or a 2024 MLB team or both. However, as mentioned above, there could easily be Shota Imanaga, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Yuki Matsui from Team Japan and Woo-Suk Go and Jung-Hoo Lee from Team South Korea that did not play in the MLB in 2023 but are playing for them in 2024. I don’t expect it, but I suppose it could happen. And even players that weren’t and aren’t in the MLB at all, although I find that to be an even longer shot. ***Update - There will be a Victor Wembayana and Aaron Judge dual auto in the product. Wembanyana is the hottest rookie in current year NBA products and any of these cards are sure to draw a huge initial payday. Yankees spots just got that much more expensive in this product for PYT breaks. *****Update - Apparently Wemby has his own autos as well - it will be interesting to see if breakers sell those cards in the Yankees spot (he’s wearing a pinstripe jersey from when he threw out a first pitch) or if he will go to his own spot or to a random to everyone in the break. Obviously pick your player breaks are a different story.
I really like Dynasty cards. I also don’t own any Dynasty cards. All of my PC players that have Dynasty cards are in a price range I’ve never been willing to pay in the singles market, and I’ve never been willing to pay the sealed wax price. I don’t really see that changing any time soon.
2023 Bowman Inception
The prospect product is back for its third year and scheduled to release on Friday, March 22nd.
There is one configuration - a regular Hobby box. Each Hobby box comes with 7 cards - 2 autos, 1 parallel, and 4 base cards typically. Last year Topps sold Hobby boxes for $165 with a customer limit of 4 and cases of Hobby boxes (16 boxes per case) for $2,508 with a customer limit of 1. Currently Blowout Cards is selling Hobby boxes for $174.95 and cases for $2,749.95. ***Update - Topps is doing a “drop” on Fanatics/MLBShop websites. It looks like you can enter the drop with a purchase quantity of up to 8 boxes. It looks like a lottery system. The drop started on Thursday, March 21st and runs through mid-day on Friday, March 22nd. The price is $164.99. ****Update - Topps put the product on sale as expected on Friday, but earlier than normal, likely due to Dynasty going in the normal release window. They are selling Hobby boxes for $164.99 with a customer limit of 4. They are selling cases of Hobby boxes (16 boxes per case) for $2,559.99 with a customer limit of 2.
The design again gives some of that space theme we saw with the 2022 product, although it feels much more geometric. As in the 2022 version, we expect to see a “1st Inception” logo for the prospects appearing in an Inception product for the first time, but this gimmick hasn’t really done much in any way, shape, or form (*Update - 1st Inception cards are back as confirmed in images of Druw Jones and Spencer Jones cards on the Topps website). Autos are typically on card, although Bowman Inception products in college basketball and college football have been using sticker autos. Hopefully that doesn’t happen here because it would kill the product. And I don’t anticipate it will be, but something to keep an eye on.
The checklist has yet to be announced. The checklist should be completely comprised of prospects as of the 2023 baseball product cycle. The ones we’ve seen so far teased are Roderick Arias, Lazaro Montes, Termarr Johnson, Druw Jones, and Jackson Holliday. ***Update - Nothing unexpected with the checklist. This checklist was put together prior to the August 1st trade deadline - for example, Edgar Quero is still on the Angels even though he was traded at the deadline to the White Sox. And more on the White Sox - they only get a base Colson Montgomery card. This timing also means that, as we’ve seen in the past, none of the product year (2023) MLB Draft picks made it into the product even though we are getting the release a half year after the draft.
I don’t mind this product. It doesn’t break the bank for sealed wax, although it will be really tough to get your money back. My preference is easily the singles market, and then possibly a few select cheap break spots. As these boxes approach $200, it becomes even more of a singles-only product, so we shall see where these prices end up from Topps.