2022 Epoch Japan Retired Foreign Player Association Set

Back to the cards Ryan sent me a few weeks ago...

Epoch teamed up with the Japan Retired Foreign Player Association (JRFPA) for a boxed set of cards featuring - as you might expect - a bunch of retired foreign players.  This is the second such set that Epoch and JRFPA have collaborated on - the first was in 2021.  This set was supposed to be released in 2022 but it ended up delayed until February of 2023.  (Technically this is the third JRFPA set as they did a "mini colored paper" set with Produce 216 (or Hits or whatever their name is) in 2022 featuring OB Carp players.)

Each box contained 41 cards - the 39 card base set plus (I think) a parallel card and an autographed card.  As always, I just got the base set.  

The player selection is...interesting.  On the one hand, you've got the players who played in Japan long enough to no longer count as foreign players - Leon and Leron Lee, Tuffy Rhodes and Randy Messenger - along with players who made big impacts in shorter amounts of time such as Bobby Rose, Ralph Bryant, Alonzo Powell, Roberto Petagine, Kris Johnson, Jose Fernandez and Tom O'Malley.  On the other hand, you've got a bunch of guys who played for a year or less - Bryant Nelson (54 games), Kevin Mitchell (37 games), Rusty Ryal (33 games), Jonny Gomes (18 games), Mike Greenwell (7 games) and Mike Campbell* (3 games with the Baystars farm team).  No offense to any of those guys but I'm not sure there's been a big demand for Japanese cards of any of them**.  Trey Hillman is included in the set for his time as Fighters manager (2003-07).  Marty Brown is included as a Carp player but not as manager of the Carp (2006-09) or Eagles (2010).

*Campbell's biggest claim to fame was being the player-to-be-named later included with Mark Langston in the trade between the Expos and Mariners that brought Randy Johnson to Seattle in 1989.

**OK to be fair, there's probably SOME curiosity out there for Japanese cards of Mitchell and Greenwell.

Eight of the guys in the set were in the 2021 set - Bryant, Andruw Jones, Leon Lee, Messenger, Alex Ochoa, Carlos Ponce, Rhodes and Matt Winters.  Twenty players or just over half the set were included in one or both of the foreign player sets that BBM did back in 2013 ("Legendary Foreigners" and "Deep Impact") - Benny Agbayani, Brown, Bryant, Melvin Bunch, Fernandez, Eddie Gaillard, Greenwell, Hillman, Greg Larocca, both Lee brothers, Mitchell, O'Malley, Ochoa, Petagine, Ponce, Powell, Rhodes, Rose and Winters.  The Gomes card is one of only three for his brief tenure with the Eagles - the others being a card given away with Sports Card Magazine #117 and a card in the 2016 team issued Eagles set.

The photo selection is pretty generic, mostly "batters batting, pitchers pitching" photos (and a "manager managing" photo for Hillman).  The older photos aren't grainy which is a nice change of pace from some of BBM's photo selections.  The one thing I think is kind of odd is that the background of the photos of Leon and Leron Lee appear to be in black-an-white (which was also the case with Leon's card in the 2021 set).  I don't like the card design as much as I liked the 2021 set but it's not bad.  Here's some example cards:

#03

#13

#18

#22

#34

#35

You may have detected that I'm kind of feeling "meh" about this set.  I think part of that is simply that I already have cards of all these players on all these teams so I don't feel like it's really adding anything to my collection.  Obviously others may feel differently and there's nothing really wrong with the set.

I don't think that I'll get another edition of this set unless they really put together an interesting collection of players.  One thing that would be nice is for them to get some foreign players who didn't have any Japanese cards ever (Rich Gossage, Floyd Bannister, Alvin Davis, Bobby Tolan), only had cards in Takara sets (Danny Goodwin) or at least hasn't been in a dozen sets in the last ten years.

As usual, all the cards can be seen over at Jambalaya.