Unexpected Calbee Set and 2025 Epoch Ones

Training camps are opening in Japan tomorrow (well, pretty much as I write this in the evening of January 31st on the US East Coast) and there's a couple new items that have popped up in the last day or so so I thought I'd do a quick post on them.

- For the second year in row, Calbee has issued an unexpected set in January.  Last year it was a 36 card team set for the Hawks that was probably delayed for a few months.  This year it's a 47 card set that's a tie-in to the video game "Pro Yakyu Spirits A".  The latest version of the game was released back in September so I suspect that Calbee meant to publish this set earlier.  UPDATE - according to a comment below from twycchang, the set is a tie-in to the mobile game "Pro Yakyu Spirits A" and not the one "Pro Yakyu Spirits" like I had originally thought although I still think the set was originally supposed to have been published earlier.  The cards all have a "cover date" of 2024.  47 is an odd number of cards for an NPB set to have but when you take a look at the checklist, you'll see what happened.  The checklist is arranged basically as four groups of 12 with each group having a player from each of the twelve NPB teams in it.  Well, that's how it was SUPPOSED to be but card #PS-11 did not get issued.  Extrapolating from the teams that are included in the other cards in that first group, you can see that the player who's missing is from the Marines.  I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb to guess that that was originally supposed to be Roki Sasaki but he had to be pulled from the set since he was heading to MLB.  The first 23 cards were picked by Konami while the last 24 cards were selected from user voting.  As far as I can tell, they are available all over Japan (as opposed to the Hawks cards from last year which were only available in Kyushu).  The cards are already on sale as someone on Reddit had a photo up of some of them.  I also was told by Kenny (Zippy Zappy) that he'd seen them in a convenience store - I assume he was in Tokyo. UPDATE - you can see most of the cards in the set (along with kira parallels) over at Jambalaya.

- Epoch is back with their on-demand Epoch One cards.  Like last year, the 2025 edition of the cards is starting with draft pick cards.  So far, there are 47 cards available featuring the 2024 draft classes (regular phase, no development players) for the Marines, Dragons, Fighters, Lions, Eagles, Swallows, Baystars and Giants.  It would not surprise me to see Epoch add cards for the Hawks and Tigers draft picks as well since they, along with the other eight teams, were the teams that Epoch included in the Epoch One cards last year.  The Buffaloes and Carp would surprise me since Epoch has never done Epoch One cards for Orix and hasn't done them for the Carp since 2019.  The cards are still 500 yen each, as they have been since 2018.

2024 Topps 206 NPB

There are many things that are popular for absolutely no reason that I can understand.  I won't list them here as, for the most part, I don't care if other people like things that I don't like.  I think one of the worst aspects of social media is someone saying that they like something and someone else replying and telling them that they're wrong to like that thing.  I mean, why harsh someone's mellow?

However.

The popularity of last year's Topps 206 NPB set boggles my mind.  What a boring set, with 216 head and shoulder portraits (or, as I like to call them, mug shots) of players, border color parallels and mini parallels.  I even found the "alternate image" parallels to be kind of dull.  About the only thing I had any positive feelings about were the "stadium background" parallels.  

Obviously most people did not feel this way about the set.  As I mentioned, it was very popular.  Popular enough that Topps brought it back for 2024 - it was one of the three NPB sets that Topps released in mid-December.  I got some cards from it from Jason which arrived earlier this week.  I actually had only bought seven cards but he threw in several more for no additional charge which gave me a good overview of some of the parallels.

The design of the base cards look pretty similar to last year's - same head and shoulder portraits, similar backgrounds, same set logo in the top left corner.  About the only real difference I can see is that the names of the player and team across the bottom uses a bigger font than last year*:

#16

* Calbee has taught me to look for subtle changes in card designs

The card backs look a little different from last year although Topps continues their dedication to putting as little effort into them as possible - although in fairness this is in keeping with how they've done the MLB versions of this set as well:

Here are the other base cards I had asked Jason for.  I had pretty much just wanted some of my favorite players:

#158

#123

#51

Jason sent me a couple of the very common brown border parallels, including one for Yanagita:

#51

#75

#7

He also sent me an "alternate image" parallel for Yusuke Ohyama:

#5

He sent me three different parallels for Yoshihiro Maru - the brown border, the mini and the "alternate image" mini.  Looks like the background is subtly different between the full size card and the mini:

#74

#74

#74

Looking at the official checklist for the set from Topps, I think every card has a mini parallel but only 60 cards (five per team) have "alternate image" parallels.  Those same 60 have a mini "alternate image" parallel too.  The checklist does not list the border color parallels.  I suspect that the all the cards have brown border parallels.  There are also at least three different numbered foil parallels - "Foil" (/99), "Blue Foil" (/75) and "Gold Foil" (/50).  There are at least two back parallels - carp (or koi) which is /8 and "beckoning cat" which is /7.

There's one other parallel which I thought was kind of interesting.  36 cards (three per team) have "Comic Book Variation" parallels which have a different design and a different background to go with the same mug shot as the base card:

#182

I like this design although I think I'd like it better if was on a full bleed action photo rather than just a  portrait.

There's an insert set of min-sized cards using the T205 tobacco card design.  There's only 24 of these (two per team) and they're numbered separately so they're not technically parallels (although they may be using he same mug shots as the base cards):

#T205-5

#T205-19

I actually like these quite a bit.  However, I think getting all 24 of them would be kind of boring as, again, they're all mug shots.

You've probably gathered at this point that I'm not a big fan of this set.  Besides the dullness of it, it just seems like it's almost identical to the 2023 version.  It seems strange to me that Topps dropped the Bowman NPB set (which I've also had issues with but I didn't think it was boring) to repeat the 206 set.

The issue I have with the set may simply be that I'm a set collector.  All I can think of is how boring it would be to look at all 216 cards in the set in a binder.  I guess other folks who aren't set collectors might not be as bored by it.  So I apologize for harshing your mellow, everyone.

You can, of course, look at all the cards over at Jambalaya (including some of the more rare ones).  You know, in case you need help falling asleep.

And once again, thanks to Jason for sending me these cards.  I do appreciate it, even if I'm not a big fan of this particular set.

2024 Topps Chrome NPB

Among the cards I got from my friend Jason yesterday were a bunch from the 2024 Topps Chrome NPB set that was released last month.  Like the 2023 version of this set, this is not simply an ugly chrome version of the 2024 Topps NPB set that came out last May.  Instead it's a whole new set which different players and different photos.  To be honest, if Topps had published a non-Chrome version of this set last May, I'd have been a lot happier than I was with the dreck they actually published.  The photos in this set are pretty good (and were taken in 2024 instead of 2023) and the player selection is better than the earlier set.

I didn't buy a complete Chrome set.  I REALLY don't like the Chrome finish on the cards - I think it makes the cards really ugly and they don't scan well - so I wasn't interesting in getting all the cards but there were a handful I asked Jason about.  Most of these were either favorite players or I liked the photo (although there's a couple I don't remember why I wanted.)  Here's what I got in the package yesterday:

#104

#209

#210

#184

#94

#9

#131

#180

#28

#57

#43

#183

#98

You're going to have to take my word on the fact that these look much better in person than in the scans.  Well, not MUCH better because they obviously still have the ugly "chrome" finish on them (have I mentioned I'm not a fan of the "chrome" finish?) but better than this.  Jambalaya seems to have done a better job scanning the cards than I have so you can check out all the cards over there.

Besides not liking the "chrome" finish, I'm also not a big fan of the myriad of parallels that this set has.  I was surprised, though, that there was one parallel that I liked.  Known as the "kanji" parallel, it replaces the English text on the front of the card for the player's name, team's name and position with Japanese text (which isn't necessarily Kanji).  I got both the base card and the "kanji" parallel for Iori Yamasaki's card:

#120

#BKV-5

It's difficult to tell from the scans but these are actually the same photo - I have no idea why the scan of the base card turned out so much darker than the parallel.  Also I guess that technically this isn't a parallel since the "kanji" card has a different number.

The complete set has 216 cards which, as always, breaks down to 18 cards per team.  All three of the NPB sets Topps put out in December - this, Stadium Club and 206 (which I'll post about tomorrow) - have 216 cards in them so I got curious if they all had the same set of players.  I'm a computer programmer so I wrote a little application to compare all three checklists.  What I found was that all three were different.  There are 283 players represented in at least one of the three sets.  There are 157 who appear in all three sets, 25 who are in Stadium Club and 206 but not Chrome, 14 who are in Chrome and Stadium Club but not 206 and 12 who are in 206 and Chrome but not Stadium Club.  There are 33 players who only appear in Chrome (including Stewart and Kishi from the cards above), 22 who only appear in 206 and 20 who only appear in Stadium Club.

I do want to thank Jason again for selling me these cards.  Despite my feelings about the "chrome" finish on them, I like what I got.

Mail Day From Jason!

Got a package in the mail from my friend Jason today that contained a bunch of goodies, most of which were from the Topps Chrome and 206 sets that were released last month.  I'll be doing posts about those cards in the next few days but I thought I'd do a quick post about the BBM cards I got from him first.

I picked up two "secret version" cards from the 2024 BBM Fusion set.  The first shows Shogo Togo's no-hitter from last May while the second one celebrates Franmil Reyes' 25 game hitting streak:

2024 BBM Fusion #30 (Secret Version)

2024 BBM Fusion #84 (Secret Version)

The other cards were all jersey cards from the 2024 BBM Genesis set:

Both cards are /350.  I think this is my fourth jersey card for Yamada - I wasn't going to buy another one but Jason made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

The last card I'm going to show tonight was the one I was most excited to receive - it's another jersey card from last year's Genesis set:

It's /60.  Takeya Nakamura is my favorite active player and this is the first memorabilia card I have for him.

Thanks for the cards, Jason!

Card Of The Week January 26

The Orix Buffaloes announced this past week that they were inviting Jarryd Dale of the Melbourne Aces (and veteran of six seasons in the San Diego Padres organization) to join them for spring training next week.  Dale hit .381 for the Aces in this winter's Australian Baseball League season that just wrapped up and the Buffaloes were familiar with him as they've been sending players to Melbourne the past few seasons.  I don't think he's guaranteed a roster spot but Orix is at least giving him a chance to try to make the team.

There's obviously no Japanese cards of Dale yet - and there won't be if he doesn't make the team - but there is at least one Australian card of him from the 2018/19 ABL set from Choice (#35):

Shinnosuke Ogasawara Of The Washington Nationals

The Washington Nationals have signed former Chunichi Dragons pitcher Shinnosuke Ogasawara to a two year contract.  Ogasawara is the fourth and final Japanese pitcher to sign with an MLB team this off season and today was the deadline for his posting.  If he hadn't signed today, he'd be back with the Dragons this season.

Ogasawara was Chunichi's first round pick in the 2015 NPB draft out of Sagami High School.  He was actually not the Dragons' first choice in that round.  The Dragons initially picked Junpei Takahashi who was also picked by the Hawks and Fighters.  The Hawks won the lottery for him so both the Dragons and Fighters picked Ogasawara.  The Dragons won the lottery for him with the Fighters ending up with Kenta Uehara as their third selection for their first round pick.

He split time between the farm team and the top team for his first few seasons, missing some playing time on multiple occasions due to elbow injuries.  By 2021, though, he was healthy enough to be one of the Dragons' top three starters (along with Yudai Ohno and Yuyu Yanagi and he was a staple of the starting rotation every since.  He made his only All Star team appearance in 2021.

His numbers haven't been great but some of his superficial stats like win-loss have been hurt by the fact that the Dragons have been pretty miserable the last couple years.  I saw him pitch twice last May when he was going through a stretch of something like 40 innings where the offense didn't score any runs when he was on the mound.  I saw him throw eight-plus shutout innings against the Tigers in Nagoya but he left the game with a no-decision in a game the Dragons ultimately lost 1-0 in 11 innings.  Things were better a week later against the Giants in Tokyo - he only went six innings and gave up two runs (one on a home run by Yoshihiro Maru) but the Dragons scored four runs and he got the win.

His first card was in the 2016 BBM Rookie Edition set (#094) and he appeared in several other BBM sets that year including 1st Version (#292), Genesis (#091) and the Dragons team set (#D02).  2016 also saw his first Calbee card (#208 from Series Three) and, somewhat surprisingly, his first Epoch card - #8 from the Chunichi Dragaons 80th Anniversary - Record Breakers set.  Here's some of his cards - it's a little heavy on the 2016 cards:

2016 BBM Rookie Edition #094

2016 BBM 1st Version #292

2016 Calbee Series Three #208

2016 Epoch Dragons 80th Anniversary - Record Breakers #8

2017 Epoch Dragons #PS-02

2018 BBM Dragons #D02

2019 Calbee Series One #064

2020 Epoch NPB #362

2021 BBM 2nd Version #517

2022 Topps NPB #164

2023 Calbee Series Two #118

2024 BBM 1st Version #138

I'm kind of excited for the upcoming season as three of the four new NPB imports are playing for the three MLB teams closest to where I live.  Tomoyuki Sugano is with the Orioles, Koyo Aoyagi is with the Phillies and now Ogasawara is with the Nationals.  Makes it much more likely that I might see one of them in person.

More 2025 Sets

There's been a couple new sets announced in the past few weeks so let's get caught up...

- I swear to God that both BBM and Epoch are going out of their ways to tempt me back into buying new sets.  First BBM announces that crazy high school girl's baseball team box set with Ichiro, Hideki Matsui and Daisuke Matsuzaka which is just the kind of oddball set that I love and then Epoch announces what is apparently the first ever OB Samurai Japan set.  The official title of it is "Japan Professional Baseball OB Club Official Card Japan National Baseball Team Career Achievement 2024 Card Set".  It's being done with the OB Club but it's not one of their ultra-high end sets.  It's a 25 card box set with each box containing the 23 card base set, one parallel card and one autographed card.  The guarantee of an autographed card will make the price of the set a little on the high side but there's no listing of a price yet.  The base set contains cards of retired players who played for the professional versions of either the Japanese National Team or Samurai Japan (as the team was called after the 2013 WBC) such as Hisashi Iwakuma, Akinori Iwamura, Seiichi Uchikawa, Michihiro Ogasawara and Nobuhiro Matsuda.  It also includes former team managers Sadaharu Oh and Hideki Kuriyama.  (To be honest, I'd be a lot more interested in this set if it included cards of former professional players who played on the national team as amateurs.  I mean, how cool would it be to have cards of Hideo Nomo and Atsuya Furuta from the 1988 Olympic team?  As far as I can tell, all the guys in this set have appeared on a national team set from Topps, Calbee, BBM or Upper Deck in the past).  From the name of the set, I assume Epoch had intended to publish the set in 2024 but delayed it for some reason.  I'd be curious if this means that Epoch now has the rights to do Samurai Japan cards which would explain why Topps has not released the team set for the Premier 12 squad that I was expecting.  It'll be out on March 22nd.

- Also coming out on March 22nd is Epoch's delayed 2024 edition of their "Holographica" set.  This is another collaboration between Epoch and the OB Club but, unlike the National Team set, it IS one of their ultra high-end sets.  Each six card box retails for 16,500 yen (about $105) and I think are guaranteed to include two autographed cards.  There are 61 cards in the base set, each with a parallel version, and something like seven different varieties of autographed cards.  Players in the set include Sadaharu Oh, Hideki Matsui, Koji Uehara, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Hisashi Yamada and Yuki Saitoh.

- "216 Co., Ltd." (aka "Hits" and "TIC") will be releasing their annual "mini shikishi" card set for the Hawks on March 29th.  There's 32 oversized cards available - 16 "normal" and 16 "special with foil autograph".  There's 16 players listed so everyone has a "normal" and a "special" card.   I think there are real autographs available as well.

- BBM's annual set for retiring players will be out in late February.  Once again the set will not only include baseball players but retiring athletes in other sports including badminton, swimming, soccer and judo.  The set is sold as a 34 card box set.  Each box will include the entire 32 card base set plus two other cards which could both be autographed cards although I think it will more likely be an insert card and an autographed card.  The set includes baseball players like Tsuyoshi Wada, Norichika Aoki and Takayuki Kajimoto.  It also includes a card for long time corporate league player Katsutoshi Satake, who's played for Toyota since graduating from Waseda in 2006.

Koyo Aoyagi Of The Philadelphia Phillies

A third former NPB pitcher also found a home for the 2025 season last Friday.  In addition to Sasaki and Fujinami, former Tigers pitcher Koyo Aoyagi signed a minor league deal with the Phillies.

The sidearmer was Hanshin's fifth round pick in the 2015 draft out of Teikyo University.  He split his first couple seasons between the farm team and the top team before spending almost all of 2018 on the farm.  He established himself the team's starting rotation in 2019 and had his best two seasons in 2021 and 2022, leading the Central League in wins and winning percentage both years as well as ERA in 2022.  His numbers tumbled some in the past two years but he was still the Tigers' Opening Day starter both seasons as well as the starter in Game 7 of the 2023 Nippon Series.  He made the All Star team in 2019, 2021 and 2022 and won a Best 9 award in 2022.  He also was a member of the gold medal winning Samurai Japan squad for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games.

His first card was #085 in the 2016 BBM Rookie Edition set.  His only other cards from major sets that year were in BBM's 1st Version and Tigers team sets.  His first Calbee card wasn't until 2019 Series Three.  Here's a random selection of his cards:

2016 BBM Rookie Edition #085

2016 BBM 1st Version #242

2017 Epoch Tigers #15

2018 BBM Tigers #T27

2019 BBM 2nd Version #372

2020 Calbee Series Three #FW-09

2021 Topps NPB #86-KA

2022 BBM Fusion #TH17

2023 BBM Tigers #T06

2024 Topps Stadium Club NPB #61