Since this set doesn't change much from year to year I'll give pretty much the same description of it that I always do. As I said, the set contains cards all the 2022 draft picks (also know as the 2023 Rookie Class). The photos for the cards are all taken at the press conferences that each team holds to introduce their draftees to the fans and the press. As a result, they are generally boring poses showing a player swinging a bat, making a pitching motion or just adopting a "guts" pose. (For the sixth year in a row BBM has included "secret" versions of the 12 first round picks which are short printed photo variants showing the player in a different boring pose.)
There are two phases to the NPB draft - the "regular" phase and the "development" phase. All the players taken in the "regular" phase are signed to a standard contract and placed on the drafting team's 70 man roster. The players taken in the "development" phase are signed to development contracts and are not part of the team's 70 man roster but are instead known as "development players"* or ikusei. There were 69 players taken in the "regular" phase of the 2022 draft which is the lowest number in 10 years. All 69 of these players will have cards in BBM's 1st Version set and the "comprehensive" team set for their respective team (as well as Epoch's NPB set). There were a record 57 players taken in the "development" phase of last year's draft. Most of these players will have their only baseball card in this set - the exceptions will be any players who get signed to the 70 man roster (and therefore are former ikusei players) as well as possibly appearing in an Epoch team set, a team issued team set or the NPB Bowman set (assuming there's ever another one of those).
*How many times can I use the word "development" in one sentence?
Usually this is the first card for most of the players in the set but this year is a little different. Besides some players who appeared in the 2019 or 2020 Panini USA Baseball Stars & Stripes set (or both in one case), there's at least one player who was in JABA's 2021 corporate league set. Epoch also released on demand Epoch One cards for the "regular" phase draftees for the Dragons, Swallows, Marines, Fighters, Giants and Baystars*. Lastly one of the players the Fighters drafted - Gosuke Katoh - had a 10 year career in various MLB organizations and so has already had many cards.
*Making up one half of a very expensive Epoch Rookie Edition set
Here's some sample cards:
 |
| #086 |
 |
| #122 |
 |
| #093 |
 |
| #062 |
 |
| #028 |
The last 12 cards in the set are the "New Face" subset which features a young player from each team. I don't think any of these players have established themselves yet so while they're not rookies they're all kind of unproven. Here's an example:
 |
| #131 |
The set also has a 12 card ""Starting Point" insert set that features an established player from each team. I had picked up the Munetaka Murakami card from this insert set off of Ebay a week or so ago (I bought it separately from the set itself):
 |
| #SP07 |
I'll close this post with my usual comment about this set - I mock it all the time because of the remarkably dull photographs of the draftees posing but I do feel like this is an essential set to get every year.
Oh, wait, I'll close with what's really my usual comment about this (and most other sets) - you can see all the cards in the set over at Jambalaya.
No comments:
Post a Comment