Is 2025 MLB Topps Chrome the worst product of the year?

Yahoo

5 days ago

In what is generally an 'exciting time,' 2025 MLB Topps Chrome launched to maybe the most 'meh' degree imaginable. After some pointed out that the rookie checklist was one of the worst in modern baseball history, it became a little clear that maybe we all needed a moment of reflection.
Is it time for us to recalibrate The Hobby?
You can literally pay $300 for a 'guaranteed' auto of a player who is 28 years old and no longer in the Major Leagues. That could be your 'one guaranteed' hit.
As Clever Cuban Cards also points out that it might be time to lower the rookie auto checklist and only guarantee hits in Jumbo Hobby boxes - let people collect without having to spend over $300 for less than $50 worth of cards.
Yes, the 1/1 gold patches are pretty insane, but you have a better chance of making the Majors Leagues than you do hitting one of those.
And the MVP buyback program everyone seems to love. Except Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, who has a shot at winning the American League MVP (if something were to happen to Aaron Judge, of course) isn't even in the checklist.
What happens if Raleigh wins? Then there goes half of the buyback program.
Now, yes, this rookie class is pretty abhorrent compared to last year's, but that's still beside the point. You have 160+ rookie autos on the checklist and maybe a handful of them are knowable.
Granted, this happened this year as well with NBA Prizm after people were paying 'Wemby prices' for mediocre cards – until they weren't – so this isn't a problem that exists exclusively with Topps.
I get there's a bit of a time lag for price corrections, but there certainly seems to be a need for the hobby to recalibrate, generally speaking, how they're pricing boxes. Not everyone wants to spend $300 for garbage and not everyone only partakes in breaks.
Let's put the fun back in "collecting sports cards… um, for… fun' and bring back the joy of baseball collecting!
Oh, wait, you are? But also joy-joy, please.
Hulk Hogan died this week. Have to admit, before we go any further, I was a massive Ultimate Warrior fan. I of course had the Wrestling Buddy and used to use the Ultimate Warrior in WWF Wrestlemania Challenge on NES back in the day.
I'm not going to wax on about how awesome Hulk Hogan was because of that, and, you know, also, the racism stuff.
But, I do wonder if wrestling figures are going to get hot at some point. More specifically the mid-80's, rubber versions where you could take one of the wrestlers with 'red shoes' and rub the color off on another wrestler to make it look like they were bleeding.
We all did that, right?
Those have to make a run at some point. The nostalgia, the fact that they preceded the hard plastic ones. And I can't imagine there are many at all that are still in boxes.
It feels like vintage baseball cards lore - we all took them out of their boxes, scuffed them up heavily, maybe put them in the spokes of our bikes (maybe?) and now very few boxed and pristine versions are out there.
How's about paying $850 for one? Maybe we're too late? (Buy on eBay)
I don't want to pat myself on the back for calling this one, but…I called it. Caitlin Clark's 1/1 Flawless RPA (out of the WNBA Royalty box that I still think was a waste of money) sold for $660,000 over at Goldin.
Whatever, that Dutch auction was still stupid.
Speaking of recalibrating the price of things, with the new round of WNBA cards still set to launch it's a wonder if we're going to pay Caitlin Clark prices for product or if they're going to start to scale back.
It was 'insane' when Sabrina Ionescu moved WNBA Prizm hobby boxes to over $400. What followed was two years of a lull in the WNBA Prizm pricing with boxes going for under $200.
Clark and Reese's rookie campaigns moved them back up to near $1,000 per Prizm box, but it will be interesting to see where Paige Bueckers helps settle the price tag of boxes this year.
I'm guessing we're going to see Clark/Reese pricing for this year's release of WNBA Prizm, but also lucky for Panini those boxes might actually be worth the price.
There's been a lot of chatter online about all the 'things you need to know' as we head into The National Sports Cards Convention this week. Hard to think of any actual, useful advice to dole out other than: have fun.
Maybe stay away from sports card influencers. Don't overspend on PCA cards to add to your PC, aye?
And remember to drink lots of water. It's hot out there - stay hydrated, kids.
Pop over to Mantel to share your itinerary and hopefully get some fun meetups going!
This dude has over $1 million in McDonald's collectibles and I just want to set the record straight: he is not I and I am not him.
I do have some Mickey D's cups, though. But I'm more of a Burger King collector, if I'm being honest.
Finally, great to see that Walmart got in on the collectibles action and launched Walmart Collector Con 2025 which, as far as I can tell is just the same stuff they already sell on their website… but under one singular collectibles page.
Very innovative, very wow.
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