Friday, May 5, 2017

2017 Bowman WBC Cards

Topps has issued their first World Baseball Classic cards that can be found in packs this past week.  Last week Topps released the 2017 Bowman set.  This set includes a 150 card "Paper Prospects" insert set (which is 50 cards more than the 100 card base set) that features top prospects of the MLB teams.  It also contains five cards of players on their WBC teams.  Four of the five players are from Samurai Japan - Takahiro Norimoto, Tomoyuki Sugano, Yoshitomo Tsutsugo and Tetsuto Yamada.  The other player is Korean pitcher Yang Hyeon-Jong.

2017 Bowman "Paper Prospects" #BP97

2017 Bowman "Paper Prospects" #BP98

2017 Bowman "Paper Prospects" #BP62

2017 Bowman "Paper Prospects" #BP56

2017 Bowman "Paper Prospects" #BP141
There is a "Chrome" version of each of the cards as well as various different color parallels - blue, red, yellow, orange and gold.

It's a bit strange that the only WBC cards in the subset are from Japan and Korea but most of the potential prospects from the WBC who aren't in MLB organizations are from Japan and Korea.

It's kind of odd though that the first WBC cards that Topps has issued this year (other than the Topps Now and TBT cards that could only be bought on-line) are part of a larger subset rather than a subset dedicated to players from the tournament.  It will be interesting to see if this continues in other sets the rest of the year.

7 comments:

Zippy Zappy said...

I kind of assume that this is one of the products Bowman really wanted to have Shohei Ohtani in. An already loaded Bowman Chrome prospect checklist with the possibility of pulling Shohei Ohtani's first US-company issued cards (maybe autographed too?) pulling in more preorders and sales.

NPB Card Guy said...

I hadn't thought of that but you're probably right

Fuji said...

Kinda wish they would have created a larger WBC subset. It's always fun to see the players in their country's uniform.

NPB Card Guy said...

There probably will be more WBC cards as the year goes on.

Drec said...

My son pulled the Shohei Ohtani purple mega refractor today....I see Zippy's comment above, was this a good pull? My son pulled Clint Frazier green refractor, Judge purple refractor as well from same mega box...might be have a hot hand?? 😁

NPB Card Guy said...

I am not aware of there being a Shohei Ohtani card in that set.

NPB Card Guy said...

I stand corrected - I did not realize that this card existed