2022 Topps Chrome Baseball Pre Sale.. thoughts?

[baseballguy350]

I grabbed a retail blaster presale case last night with intention of opening if the checklist is as strong as it could be. I imagine $50 blaster boxes on the resale market wouldn’t be unexpected with JUST wander, but I think the odds of potentially seeing a lot more names in this are strong enough for me to take the plunge. Worst case scenario I’ll lose a little right after release by just flipping it sealed if the checklist isn’t strong.

[NCWolf]

Originally Posted by BRob1

per dollar which has historically been better with TC, hobby or retail? In Topps soccer over the last year or so retail has been better value than hobby based on odds.


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I buy two hobby for basically the cost of one jumbo. One less auto, but it’s easier to recoup money in my experience.

[BRob1]

Originally Posted by NCWolf

I buy two hobby for basically the cost of one jumbo. One less auto, but it’s easier to recoup money in my experience.

but what about retail? blaster, hanger etc. In soccer blasters have been having better odds than hobby as of late.

[NCWolf]

Originally Posted by BRob1

but what about retail? blaster, hanger etc. In soccer blasters have been having better odds than hobby as of late.

I’ll buy a couple when they release. Likely mega boxes just because I like Xfractors

[brios8]

Its getting late to buy! Still room to go up though

Prices are up again and Jrod hasn't even been called up yet...
There also hasn't been confirmation on the checklist, so once players start to get added prices will be significantly higher.

Jumbo Case $5,950
Hobby Case $4,750

My Prediction for Opening Day is at least $7,500 Jumbo and $6,000 Hobby

[cbeauch87]

My two go-to Canadian websites are sold out of hobby and jumbo boxes. Was $280 Canadian for a hobby ($225~ USD). I got one of each a while ago. If they restock I’m afraid of what the price will be haha


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[mma138]

Originally Posted by brios8

Its getting late to buy! Still room to go up though

Prices are up again and Jrod hasn't even been called up yet...
There also hasn't been confirmation on the checklist, so once players start to get added prices will be significantly higher.

Jumbo Case $5,950
Hobby Case $4,750

My Prediction for Opening Day is at least $7,500 Jumbo and $6,000 Hobby

julio rodriguez ?

[pewe]

Originally Posted by BRob1

per dollar which has historically been better with TC, hobby or retail? In Topps soccer over the last year or so retail has been better value than hobby based on odds.


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In ‘21 (and prior years) the big difference was usually:
— autographs were like 2 per case of blasters (vs 2 per box in hobby)
— color and image parallels were 25% harder to hit in retail
— hobby had exclusive “wave” parallels whose lack of inclusion in retail makes them more populous than expected in hobby (vs. their #d level on the card)

I haven’t done a price per pack compare, but at MSRP in the past, hobby was a better deal. But when hobby is 3x MSRP, my guess is retail is a better “deal”, if you can call one bloodbath a better deal than the other one


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[kon jelly]

Originally Posted by pewe

In ‘21 (and prior years) the big difference was usually:
— autographs were like 2 per case of blasters (vs 2 per box in hobby)
— color and image parallels were 25% harder to hit in retail
— hobby had exclusive “wave” parallels whose lack of inclusion in retail makes them more populous than expected in hobby (vs. their #d level on the card)

I haven’t done a price per pack compare, but at MSRP in the past, hobby was a better deal. But when hobby is 3x MSRP, my guess is retail is a better “deal”, if you can call one bloodbath a better deal than the other one


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2021 your best odds per dollar was the Hobby Lite boxes. Otherwise retail was the way to go for parallels while hobby was better for auto parallels. Blasters in 2021 were better than hangers, mostly because hanger prices went to $28 and you could still get blasters from target for $35, so blasters had the lowest price per card.

[pewe]

Originally Posted by kon jelly

2021 your best odds per dollar was the Hobby Lite boxes. Otherwise retail was the way to go for parallels while hobby was better for auto parallels. Blasters in 2021 were better than hangers, mostly because hanger prices went to $28 and you could still get blasters from target for $35, so blasters had the lowest price per card.

Thanks! Is your value assessment on a base card basis? Or does include the value of the additional parallels (and lower #d exclusives) and autographs?


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[kon jelly]

Originally Posted by pewe

Thanks! Is your value assessment on a base card basis? Or does include the value of the additional parallels (and lower #d exclusives) and autographs?


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It's just figuring out the price per pack, and then multiplying it by the pack odds in each format. Here's part of what I had for 2021 Chrome:



Obviously all those values change with whatever the market price is.

[BRob1]

Originally Posted by pewe

Thanks! Is your value assessment on a base card basis? Or does include the value of the additional parallels (and lower #d exclusives) and autographs?


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Originally Posted by kon jelly

It's just figuring out the price per pack, and then multiplying it by the pack odds in each format. Here's part of what I had for 2021 Chrome:







Obviously all those values change with whatever the market price is.

It’s a great tool that I appreciate you sharing for the various releases. It’s one of those things you could go to the nth degree analyzing.

The one thing that does jump out is that even though hobby and jumbo get smoked by retail in the odds for basically every parallel, I wonder how much it evens up from a value perspective when you consider that yes, odds are worse on each individual parallel, but hobby has more parallels available with there being several exclusives.

Then the thesis would be trying to assign a dollar value to each parallel (including autos) to try to come up with an expected value for each box and the return on investment for each format. Does the value of an auto or low number offset pulling hits less frequently. A tall task for sure.


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[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by JRX

Before people mortgage their house for this keep in mind:

1. We dont know the checklist beyond wander
2. We have no idea what the print run will be, hint it wont be the same or lower than 2019
3. We dont know what other nonsense fanatics will pull, maybe another 1st edition
4. The base cards are highly unlikely to reach the vlad/soto/tatis prices unless the quality control is really that bad.

Its exciting seeing so many get called up and if they were all in topps chrome and we're talking 2019 pr, then yes go take out a 2nd mortgage. However, I would think fanatics is going to capitalize on this opportunity and not just give us a loaded product.

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Solid post, but this is backwards. Better QC equals higher prices for base. The PSA 10 might be more expensive with bad QC (maybe), but if they're tougher to get they provide less value. It's very similar to the Superfractor vs Base Auto in Bowman products. The Super gets all the glory for the high price, but the base auto are providing ~15x more value to a ripper.

[pewe]

Originally Posted by BRob1

It’s a great tool that I appreciate you sharing for the various releases. It’s one of those things you could go to the nth degree analyzing.

The one thing that does jump out is that even though hobby and jumbo get smoked by retail in the odds for basically every parallel, I wonder how much it evens up from a value perspective when you consider that yes, odds are worse on each individual parallel, but hobby has more parallels available with there being several exclusives.

Then the thesis would be trying to assign a dollar value to each parallel (including autos) to try to come up with an expected value for each box and the return on investment for each format. Does the value of an auto or low number offset pulling hits less frequently. A tall task for sure.


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This is what I was getting at… I haven’t done detailed EV odds for Chrome in years. As I stopped buying wax back in ‘18. But back then I seem to remember when Hobby was $100 and blasters were $20, the Hobby format was the best “deal” on an EV basis. BUT retail was the best deal on a median / most likely value basis. Why? More base/refractor per $$ on the latter, so the floor value was generally higher. Even if the curve up on EV was much much more skewed.


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[kon jelly]

Originally Posted by BRob1

It’s a great tool that I appreciate you sharing for the various releases. It’s one of those things you could go to the nth degree analyzing.

The one thing that does jump out is that even though hobby and jumbo get smoked by retail in the odds for basically every parallel, I wonder how much it evens up from a value perspective when you consider that yes, odds are worse on each individual parallel, but hobby has more parallels available with there being several exclusives.

Then the thesis would be trying to assign a dollar value to each parallel (including autos) to try to come up with an expected value for each box and the return on investment for each format. Does the value of an auto or low number offset pulling hits less frequently. A tall task for sure.


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I'm not sure that would even be possible. For starters, you're guaranteed an auto from a hobby box, but there are a ton of rookie reliever autos that are worthless. How do you assign a value to a generic "auto" card that could be worth $.10 or could be worth hundreds? It's an interesting angle, though.

What I've learned from these things is what most people probably already figured: if you want autos buy hobby, and if you want parallels buy retail.

[JRX]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

Solid post, but this is backwards. Better QC equals higher prices for base. The PSA 10 might be more expensive with bad QC (maybe), but if they're tougher to get they provide less value. It's very similar to the Superfractor vs Base Auto in Bowman products. The Super gets all the glory for the high price, but the base auto are providing ~15x more value to a ripper.

Depends on your point of view. If you're ripping and flipping maybe not, but as a collector and given the expected higher print run, I would find it highly unlikely that their base would be worth more. The parallels may end up going for more because they're now essentially lottery tickets that will be next to impossible to pull. PSA 10s could go for more if the qc is really bad and the pop count stays low. Did we ever figure out 21 update chrome pr? I know the purples were 30k ish. There's going to be way more 22 Chrome than their was 21 Update.

[pewe]

Originally Posted by kon jelly

I'm not sure that would even be possible. For starters, you're guaranteed an auto from a hobby box, but there are a ton of rookie reliever autos that are worthless. How do you assign a value to a generic "auto" card that could be worth $.10 or could be worth hundreds? It's an interesting angle, though.

What I've learned from these things is what most people probably already figured: if you want autos buy hobby, and if you want parallels buy retail.

I'm frustrated, as I did a stub version of this analysis above for Wander specifically, and found ~$600 in EV/hobby case assuming his prices match Tatis/Vlad level. And then of course I didn't save the excel.

I'll re-do. And make it generalizable so it can compare across format.

Essentially we just need to make a few assumptions on 4 categories of players:
-- # hottest RC
-- # 2nd tier RC (they generally get ~1/5-1/10th the prior bullet)
-- # mid-career stars that get disproportionate value (we found it was ~6 before)
-- the rest

BTW one other thing that is important in the model is assumptions of insertion rate of each above bullet in Autographs. In the past, when I've mapped hundreds of cases of breaks it has stayed consistent over the years:
-- first couple bullets are ~1:10 vs. "the rest" for a base card, and generally have full color parallel coverage
-- third are ~1:40 vs. "the rest" for a base card, and generally only have ~1/3 of the color coverage (just the gold and rarer parallels), which makes numerical proportion even worse

With that we can get roughly the EV/case. Which I had found previously to be in the $2000 range for Chrome Hobby with one set of assumptions.

[Krypteia]

Anybody have any recommendations of where to go for preorder? BO and Steel seem high.

Thanks.

[seanbros55]

Did you ever think that you’d see imbeciles happily pay $750 for a total of 156 Chrome cards?

[NCWolf]

Originally Posted by Krypteia

Anybody have any recommendations of where to go for preorder? BO and Steel seem high.

Thanks.

They've gone up in $25 increments over the past few weeks. Don't know that you'll find anything cheaper unless it's a LCS

It's expensive, but just be glad it's not 2022 PRIZM football hobby prices...

[baseballguy350]

SteelCity just bumped blaster cases up another $200

[JRX]

Gonna be a bloodbath when they release the checklist and half are in update and the other half are in 2023 s1.

[MoreToppsPlease]

Originally Posted by JRX

Gonna be a bloodbath when they release the checklist and half are in update and the other half are in 2023 s1.

And the other half are in brand new Topps flagship/Topps flagship Chrome products that nobody knows about now but are going to be invented before the end of the year.

[NCWolf]

Originally Posted by JRX

Gonna be a bloodbath when they release the checklist and half are in update and the other half are in 2023 s1.

Certainly possible. But from hearing what long timers here say I think it's more likely we see the big ones in flagship if they make the opening day roster. Here's my guess...

2022 Chrome:
Julio Rodriguez
Spencer Torkelson
Wander Franco
Bobby Witt Jr
Bryson Stott
CJ Abrams (if he makes the opening day roster)

2022 Update:
Adley Rutschman
Riley Greene
O'Neil Cruz
Brennen Davis
Alek Thomas
And potentially some other huge names if the situation works out...

Looks to me like there's plenty of room for studs in both releases

[brios8]

Originally Posted by NCWolf

Certainly possible. But from hearing what long timers here say I think it's more likely we see the big ones in flagship if they make the opening day roster. Here's my guess...

2022 Chrome:
Julio Rodriguez
Spencer Torkelson
Wander Franco
Bobby Witt Jr
Bryson Stott
CJ Abrams (if he makes the opening day roster)

2022 Update:
Adley Rutschman
Riley Greene
O'Neil Cruz
Brennen Davis
Alek Thomas
And potentially some other huge names if the situation works out...

Looks to me like there's plenty of room for studs in both releases

You know what your talking about

The bloodbath is for those who keep missing out in not buying lol
Oh well let the prices RISE!! Jrod oficially is starting Opening Day, im guessing prices go up more, and more once the players are confirmed in the checklist..
And more once we get closer to release + higher once released.

Ohh and we might still get Abrams/Stott + a random player pulling an Arozarena impression

Pumpers or whatever, the prices are only GOING UP