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 three scheduled releases - 2024 Topps Chrome Update Sapphire Edition, 2024 Topps Brooklyn Collection, and 2024 Topps x Chris Berman: Boomer’s Baseball.
This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week. *****Update for 2024 Bowman Draft Sapphire Pre-Order
2024 Topps Chrome Update Sapphire Edition
One of the most popular products of the year is getting it’s Sapphire Edition release on Tuesday, December 10th.
There is one configuration - a regular Hobby box. Each Hobby box come with one autographed plus three parallels. Topps allowed 582 Montgomery Club members to pre-order this back in November at the go-live price of $379.99. The 2023 version of this product was significantly less expensive at $224.99 per box. The main difference is the checklist, which is one of the strongest in recent memory. ***Update - as expected, this went on sale for $379.99 per Hobby box with cases of Hobby boxes (10 boxes per case) for $3,799.99 and both sold out immediately.
The design is the same Chrome Update given the Sapphire Edition treatment approach. The only insert is what we’ve seen over the past few years - the Sapphire Selections insert in both non-auto and auto versions. Autos will be on-card.
The checklist has all the big 2024 rookie chases - Skenes, the Jackson 3, Langford, Imanaga, Yamamoto, Junior Caminero, Elly and Jasson. All of these players have base and autos. With just 32 auto subjects in total, and some of those secondary chases being nice consolation prizes (Evan Carter, Jung Hoo Lee, Jordan Lawler, etc.), this product should break really well. The price point makes this all but impossible to do single box rips, but breaks are worth value hunting, and singles as always are the best idea.
2024 Topps Brooklyn Collection
The popular mid-tier product, once a 582 Montgomery Club exclusive but no-longer, is set to release on Wednesday, December 11th.
There is one configuration - a regular Hobby box. Each Hobby box comes with two autos and is priced at $199.99, the same as last year. Topps posted to their social media that boxes would be $119.99, but on their website it says $199.99, so it’s safe to assume the social media price was a typo. ***Update - this went live as expected with Hobby boxes priced at $199.99 and cases of Hobby boxes (20 boxes per case) priced at $3,999.99. These sold out almost immediately.
The design is interesting with an almost “ticket” sort of feel that I’d see in Panini Contenders back in the day, except taking a lot of the busy elements out of those Contenders designs. Don’t hate it, but don’t really love it. However, we do get a Yoshinobu Yamamoto rookie card using a design heavily influenced by 1982 Topps, which is great. The Topps odds/checklist don’t mention anything about a design variation, so I’m not really sure if that is an actual base card (doesn’t seem like it) or an unannounced variation. Brooklyn-themed die-cuts are also back and are expected to be short printed. Autos should all be on card.
The checklist, as always, is a strong one. All the rookie chases are there - Skenes, the Jackson 3, Langford, Elly, Jasson, Junior, Yamamoto, and Imanaga, and all have autos. There are a fair bit of good to great current vet autos (Ohtani, Acuña Jr., J-Rod, Witt Jr.), and some good ex-MLB player autos (Bench, Koufax, Jeter).
At this price point, it’s a tough proposition to do a single box rip. The auto checklist is long enough that you could easily be more than 50% under water on single box rips. Breaks are definitely a good choice here given the short base checklist, but with just seven cards per box, skunking is not out of the question even on a case break. Singles as always are a strong play - I love picking up PC cards from this set with on-card autos of veteran and ex-MLB players. They tend to be good prices, especially the further out from release we get.
2024 Topps x Chris Berman: Boomer’s Baseball
A new product in the collaboration series that no one was asking for, 2024 Topps x Chris Berman: Boomers Baseball is scheduled to go live on Thursday, December 12th.
There is only one configuration - a regular Hobby box. Each Hobby box comes with 12 “hits” as defined by Topps, but no guaranteed auto. Autos are expected to come one in every two boxes. The “hits” are defined as a Berman’s Nickname insert (Shohei “My Oh My” Ohtani and Elly De La “Caribbean” Cruz are the examples shown to us), numbered parallel, short print, or “additional insert”. The fact that Topps considers an “additional insert” as a marketable hit feels like they’ve stooped to WhatNot breaker levels of marketing. At the moment, the price point is not yet known. ***Update - This went on sale as scheduled with boxes priced at $74.99.
The design is basic with the exception of a Chris Berman clipart photo with a speech bubble saying the product name “Boomer’s Baseball”. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a base design that felt like it came from the worst era of early 90’s Junk Wax cards, but Topps has somehow nailed it. The inserts at least look fun, but nothing I’d personally go out of my way for. No word on whether these will be on card autos, sticker autos, or a mixture of both. ***Update - Chris Berman autos are on card while all others are stickers according to the description.
The checklist is not yet out. The players in the marketing material are Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout, Gunnar Henderson, Bryce Harper, and Aaron Judge for the current MLB vets. Ken Griffey Jr. is the only shown ex-MLB player. Jackson Holliday, Paul Skenes, and Elly De La Cruz are the only rookies shown. The base checklist is said to be made up of 100 players. Chris Berman will have cards in the set as well, including autographs. While he’s made many appearances in Football products, the sport for which he is much better known for in my opinion, some ESPN-themed products, and some non-sport Leaf products, he’s only appeared twice that I could find in baseball-specific products - a 2006 Upper Deck Sweet Spot product as an announcers autos sub-set, and 2015 Topps as a cut auto.
I have a feeling that the Chris Berman-specific cards will be popular, but beyond that, I don’t really see this set standing the test of time. If the autos are on-card, that helps a tad. If they are stickers, it’s going to be a problem, especially if the price is high. If the price point is over $100, then it is one of the easier products to pass on. I’m out even without knowing the status of the autos or the price, unless it’s like $25 a box, and there’s no way that price is even close to the reality.
2024 Bowman Draft Sapphire Edition Pre-Order
The Sapphire Edition of the popular prospect product, 2024 Bowman Draft Sapphire is going through the pre-order sale with Topps 582 Montgomery Club members on Thursday, December 12th. No details on whether this will make it out for pre-order for the general public, but it’s unlikely given how popular this product is, even at sky-high prices. The pre-order price is $449.99 with a limit of one box per membership. Last year the price when it went live was $379.99. The configuration us unchanged - it comes with one auto and three parallels per box. The base checklist remains the same as Bowman Draft, while the autograph list is significantly shortened. You get all of the Tier 1 players with Bazzana, Rainer, Griffin, Kurtz, and Moore and a nice helping of Tier 2 players with Caglianone, Cam Smith, Hagen Smith, Burns, Montgomery, Payne, Burkholder, Lindsey, Waldschmidt, Tyson Lewis, and Yesavage.