I had a bit of an "a-ha!" moment when more details came out about the set. The base set has 74 cards BUT there's only 37 players in it - each player has two cards in the set. "I was right!" I thought to myself, "The set contains cards of all the MLB players who've played for all six of the Japanese WBC teams."
And then I looked at the checklist and was somewhat surprised to discover I was wrong. The 37 player thing was a coincidence. While there were a couple retired players from the 2006 and 2009 teams (specifically Ichiro and Munenori Kawasaki), the bulk of the players were from the 2023 and 2026 teams (along with Sadaharu Oh, the manager of the 2006 team). What surprised me even more is that only 16 of the 37 players in the set ever played in MLB. I decided to do a breakdown of the checklist and figure out which WBC teams got represented.
Before I show that, however, let me give a little more details about the set. In addition to the 74 card base set, there are six short printed cards that are numbered from 75SP to 80SP. Two of these are for Ohtani with the others being for Ichiro, Oh, Yamamoto and Sasaki. There are four insert sets - "Generation Greats" (5 cards) and the afore mentioned "Neon Nights" (10 cards), "Samurai Spirit" (5 cards) and "Sensational Samurai" (10 cards) sets. I've included the latter three sets in the checklist breakdown below but I left off the "Generation Greats" because each card features a pair of players. The pairings are Ohtani & Oh; Ichiro & Seiya Suzuki; Yamamoto & Yu Darvish; Hiromi Itoh & Sasaki; and Murakami & Kazuma Okamoto.
In addition, there are 13 autographed cards and one autographed "Generation Greats" card - the one with Ohtani and Oh. That card is apparently a 1/1 and will, obviously, command quite a price. (As someone said on the Japanese Baseball Card Discord group, that's "a house in a card. Possibly a very nice house.")
Here's the list of players in the checklist along with which WBCs they played in and whether they ever played in MLB. I think it's odd that there was no representation from the 2013 team at all despite there being five MLB players on that roster including Kazuo Matsui, Kenta Maeda and Masahiro Tanaka.
| #s | Player | WBCs | MLB? | Short Print | Autograph | Neon Nights | Samurai Spirit | Sensational Samurai |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1, 38 | Sadaharu Oh | 2006 | 79SP | x | ||||
| 2, 39 | Munenori Kawasaki | 2006, 2009 | x | x | x | |||
| 3, 40 | Ichiro | 2006, 2009 | x | 76SP | x | x | x | |
| 4, 41 | Yu Darvish | 2009, 2023 | x | x | x | x | ||
| 5, 42 | Kodai Senga | 2017 | x | x | ||||
| 6, 43 | Seiya Suzuki | 2017, 2026 | x | x | ||||
| 7, 44 | Roki Sasaki | 2023 | x | 78S | x | x | x | |
| 8, 45 | Shohei Ohtani | 2023, 2026 | x | 75SP, 80SP | x | x | x | x |
| 9, 46 | Yoshinobu Yamamoto | 2023, 2026 | x | 77SP | x | x | x | x |
| 10, 47 | Shota Imanaga | 2023 | x | x | ||||
| 11, 48 | Masataka Yoshida | 2023, 2026 | x | x | ||||
| 12, 49 | Chihiro Sumida | 2026 | ||||||
| 13, 50 | Hiromi Itoh | 2023, 2026 | x | x | ||||
| 14, 51 | Yusei Kikuchi | 2026 | x | |||||
| 15, 52 | Koki Kitayama | 2026 | ||||||
| 16, 53 | Tomoyuki Sugano | 2017, 2026 | x | |||||
| 17, 54 | Ryuhei Sotani | 2026 | ||||||
| 18, 55 | Taisei | 2023, 2026 | ||||||
| 19, 56 | Shoma Fujihira | 2026 | ||||||
| 20, 57 | Hiroto Takahashi | 2023, 2026 | x | |||||
| 21, 58 | Atsuki Taneichi | 2026 | ||||||
| 22, 59 | Yuki Matsui | 2017, 2023 | x | x | ||||
| 23, 60 | Yuki Matsumoto | 2026 | ||||||
| 24, 61 | Hiroya Miyagi | 2023, 2026 | ||||||
| 25, 62 | Seishiro Sakamoto | 2026 | ||||||
| 26, 63 | Yuhei Nakamura | 2023, 2026 | ||||||
| 27, 64 | Kenya Wakatsuki | 2026 | ||||||
| 28, 65 | Kazuma Okamoto | 2023, 2026 | x | x | x | x | ||
| 29, 66 | Sosuke Genda | 2023, 2026 | ||||||
| 30, 67 | Kaito Kozono | 2026 | ||||||
| 31, 68 | Teruaki Sato | 2026 | x | |||||
| 32, 69 | Shugo Maki | 2023, 2026 | x | |||||
| 33, 70 | Taisei Makihara | 2023, 2026 | ||||||
| 34, 71 | Munetaka Murakami | 2023, 2026 | x | x | x | x | ||
| 35, 72 | Kensuke Kondoh | 2023, 2026 | x | x | ||||
| 36, 73 | Ukyo Shuto | 2023, 2026 | ||||||
| 37, 74 | Shota Morishita | 2026 |
Oh, I haven't bothered to list them but there's a metric sh*t ton of parallels of almost every card available because of course there are. It IS a Topps set, after all.
The set is due to be released on October 16th. The cards will only be available on Topps' website and will be sold in either a single, 7 card pack (each pack contains six base set cards plus one non-base set card) or a four pack "Collectors Box". The MSRP for a pack is $40 and for the Collectors Box is $180 although they are selling on Ebay for much more than that - $450-ish.
I was tempted by this set but the combination of the price and the fact that it's a "Topps Chrome" set (I find Chrome to be extremely ugly although I realize I'm in the minority on this) has pretty much killed any thoughts of picking it up.
