2022 BBM 2nd Version set

2022 BBM 2nd Version Set Summary

Size: 326 cards (cards numbered 337-600, the 26 cards of "Ceremonial First Pitch" subset are separately numbered FP01-FP26 and 36 cards for the "Cross Grotto" subset are separately numbered CG37-CG72)
Cards Per Team: 19 (team card + 18 players)
Team Card Theme: Early Season Candids
Number Of Leader Cards: N/A
Checklists: 0
Subsets: 1st Version Update (36), Ceremonial First Pitch (26), Cross Grotto (36)
Inserts: Wizard (12), Coming Hero (24), Combo Cross Foil Signing (12, #'d to 10), Treasure (24, #'d to 25), Foil Picturesque (12, #'d to 15)
Memorabilia Cards: Jersey cards for Kenta Kozono and Kou Matsukawa, both of which are #'d to 200 along with patch versions that are #'d to 20 each.  There's also a combination jersey card featuring both Kozono and Matsukawa which is #'d to 10 along with a patch version of the combination card that is #'d to 5.  There are autographed cards for players that use a landscape version of the "Cross Grotto" cards that have print runs between 5 and 30 cards and other autograph cards that are #'d between 3 and 5.  There is a special autographed card for Roki Sasaki celebrating his perfect game that is #'d to 5.  There are autographed versions of sixteen of the "Ceremonial First Pitch History" cards with print runs between 23 and 50 with a silver parallel autographed version that are #'d to 5 or 10.  There are also 13 players with autograph cards using the format for the autograph cards in the player's team set - these are mostly for players who BBM was not able to include autograph cards in their team set.
Parallels: 12 cards (one per team) have a "Secret" version which is a short printed photo variation.  12 other cards (also one per team) have an "Ultra Secret" version which is an even shorter printed photo variation.  108 of the "regular" and "1st Version Update" cards have SEVEN different facsimile autograph parallels - silver (unnumbered), gold (#'d to 100), pink (#'d to 75), hologram (#'d to 50), red (#'d to 25), purple (#'d to 10) and sky blue (1-of-1).  Each of these 108 cards also have a "holo" parallel - no signature but just a hologram finish.  Note - the "Secret" and "Ultra Secret" versions do not have the parallels.  Each "Cross Grotto" card has two parallels - one that's #'d to 100 and a "1 of 1" version.  There are five different parallels for the "Ceremonial First Pitch" cards - holo (#'d to 300), silver (#'d to 200), gold (#'d to 100), silver holo (#'d to 50) and gold holo (#'d to 25).  The "Wizard" inserts have three parallels - "Gold" (#'d to 200), "Green Foil" (#'d to 100) and "Purple Foil" (#'d to 25) - while the "Coming Hero" inserts have four - "Gold Leaf" (#'d to 200), "Green Foil" (#'d to 100), "Shrinking Gold Leaf" (#'d to 50) and "Shrinking Green Foil" (#'d to 25).
Notable Rookies: Natsuo Takizawa, Taiki Kikuchi

BBM's 2nd Version set came out about two months ago but I'm just now getting around to writing about it.  The reason - there were six sets coming out between mid-August and late September that I wanted to get and I decided to get them all shipped at once.  I got the big box from ZenMarket last Friday and I'm hoping to get posts up about all six sets in the next week.

This year's 2nd Version base set pretty much follows the same pattern that BBM has been using for it since 2015 (with the exception of 2020) - 216 "regular" player cards (18 per team), 36 "1st Version Update" cards (3 per team), 36 "Cross Something" cards (in this case Something is "Grotto"), 12 team checklist cards and some number of "First Pitch Ceremony" cards (in this case 26).  The total card count for this year's set is 326.

I've been saying nice things about the job BBM's been doing picking photos for their "flagship" sets the past few years but, unfortunately, that ends with this set.  I'm really not impressed with many of the photos as we're back again to the way too common "batters batting, pitchers pitching and catchers catching" rut.  Worse, there's an almost startlingly monotonous repetition in some of the poses - check out these three Giants cards as an example:

#419, #423 & #426

Here's some examples of some of the better photos from the set (although I picked the Takinaka card to show off a card with a horizontal format more than because it was a good photo):

#427

#584

#473

#524

#404

#564

#453

#550

I have one minor gripe about the design of the cards - I think it's way to similar to this year's 1st Version set with how the photo fades out at the bottom of the card and the relatively large uniform number.  As far as I can remember this is the first time the two designs were somewhat similar although I have no idea if it was intentional.

Here's an example of a card back - it has the player's stats up until May 23rd:

#502 (Roki Sasaki)

There were 44 players who appear on the "regular" cards of the set who were not in this year's 1st Version set which I think ranks up there with last year's set for the most ever (last year I counted 43).  I suspect (as I did last year) that the reason for that is that there were so many new foreign players who ended up in the "1st Version Update" subset (which I'll talk more about in a minute) that other players who might have ended up in that subset ended up with "regular" cards instead.  (Although I again have to mention that I have never had any clear idea why BBM decides who goes into the "1st Version Update" subset and who goes into the "regular" cards.)  These 44 players are mostly guys who BBM hadn't originally expected to make much of an impact like Go Matsumoto of the Fighters, Yuma Tongu of the Buffaloes and Iori Yamasaki of the Giants although there are a handful of new foreign players - Matt Shoemaker of the Giants and Jantzen Witte, Bo Takahashi and Burch Smith from the Lions.  

The "1st Version Update" subset contains 36 cards (3 per team) using the 1st Version design featuring players who didn't appear in 1st Version.  As I said above, a lot of these - 19 in all - are foreign players who are new to Japan and arrived too late to be in the 1st Version set.  This includes Tayron Guerrero of the Marines; Freddy Galvis of the Hawks; Aaron Wilkerson of the Tigers; Drew Anderson, Ryan McBroom and Nik Turley of the Carp; Arismendy Alcantara, Renato Nunez and Cody Ponce of the Fighters; Jesse Biddle, Brevic Valera and Jacob Wageuspack of the Buffaloes; Dietrich Enns and Brian O'Grady of the Lions; Jose Marmolejos of the Eagles; AJ Cole of the Swallows; Brooks Kriske of the Baystars and Gregory Polanco and Adam Walker of the Giants.  The subset also contains players who kind of established themselves this season like Hiroto Takahashi of the Dragons and Souma Uchiyama of the Swallows.  There are also several ikusei players who signed 70 man roster contracts during the season including two 2021 draft picks who got the rookie icon on their cards - Natsuo Takizawa of the Lions and Taiki Kikuchi of the Giants.  Here's a couple examples cards:

#355

#371

The theme for the team checklists is best described as "early season highlights" again.  There's about eight that show teams celebrating apparent walk-off wins like this one for the Tigers:

#590

I'm kind of partial to this one showing a sunset over Chiba Marine Stadium myself:

#596

The set has the other half of the cross set subset "Cross Grotto" - the first half was in the 1st Version set.  There are 36 cards (three per team) numbered from #CG37 to CG72.

#CG39

At 26 cards, the "Ceremonial First Pitch" subset is quite large this year and it may have actually been short printed (given the prices I'm seeing for individual cards on Yahoo! Japan Auction).  If you're not familiar with this subset, it features non-baseball (usually) Japanese celebrities throwing out the first pitch at baseball games.  This year's collection of people includes Idols Mana Okamura and Manatsu Akimoto (from Nogizaka46); singers Yuuki Tokunaga and Fuminori Ogawa (from BUDDiisS); table tennis player Miu Hirano; pro wrestler Manami Toyota; model Honoka; comedians Seiya Ishikawa (from Shimofuri Myojo), Masanori Hasegawa (from Nishikigoi) and Ryuichi Hamaie (from Kamaitachi); announcers Masaharu Miyake and Seika Inoue; voice actors Nagisa Aoyama and Naomi Payton; and actresses Ayano Kudo, Anju Inami, Rikako Aida, Yua Shinkawa and Hiroe Igeta.  There's a number of winter sports athletes included as well - speed skater Miho Takagi, Nordic combined skier Akito Watabe, ski jumper Ryoyu Kobayashi, figure skater Marin Honda and snowboarders Kokomo Murase and Sena Tomita.  I think all of these athletes except Honda were on the 2022 Japanese Winter Olympics team.  The last person in the subset is Iori Miura, a member of the Hanshin Tiger's women's baseball team.  Takagi (2018 2nd Version), Kobayashi (2019 2nd Version) and Kudo (2017 2nd Version) have all appeared in previous "Ceremonial First Pitch" subsets and Miura has cards in various JWBL sets as well as one of BBM's "Shining Venus" sets.

#FP15

#FP10

As always you can see all the cards in the set (including the "secret" versions and some of the parallels and inserts) over at Jambalaya.