2023 Calbee Series Two

Calbee's second and apparently final set for 2023 was released about a month ago.  That's about two months later than normal and usually right about now is when Series Three would be getting released but for reasons that still don't make a whole lot of sense to me Calbee decided this year to delay Series Two until August and do away with Series Three altogether.  This was on top of their previous decision to lower the number of "regular" player cards in each Series from 72 to 60.

The total number of cards in the set,,,er, Series is 76 - 60 player cards, 12 "First Win" subset cards and four checklist cards.  Let's dive into the player cards first.  Calbee has continued their dedication to finding the blandest, dullest photographs possible for their cards.  Almost every photo is either a pitcher pitching or a batter batting.  There's some variety in the batting photos - a couple shots at the end of the player's swing or the batter starting to leave the batters box or even one guy bunting - but they're still pretty boring.  There's exactly one card showing a fielder fielding and - just like Series One - only one card that uses a horizontal format.  There's also one card showing a player apparently celebrating a walk off hit which may be the best photo in the whole set.

Judging a Calbee Series on the players it contains is always dicey since it's normally only a third of the set but given that there's no Series Three this year, I feel somewhat justified in criticizing the player selection.  On the plus side, the set contains some stars like Roki Sasaki, Yuki Yanagita, Koji Chikamoto, Teruaki Satoh, Hiroya Miyagi, Sosuke Genda, Takeya Nakamura, Shota Imanaga, Shugo Maki, Sho Nakata and Tomoyuki Sugano.  There's only one rookie (in the "2022 draft pick" meaning, not the "eligible for the Rookie Of The Year Award" meaning) - Takuya Hiruma of the Lions.  There are a handful of guys who switched teams over the winter - Hisayoshi Chono, Hideaki Wakui, Toshiki Abe, Nobuhiro Matsuda and Yota Kyoda.  But neither of the two biggest names to move to new teams last winter - Tomoya Mori and Kensuke Kondoh - have cards.  Mori at least appears in the "First Win" subset but Kondoh won't have any Calbee card this year at all.  Neither will Chusei Mannami.  Neither of last year's league MVPs - Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Munetaka Murakami - will have a "regular" player card although they are both in Series One's "Title Holder" subset and Murakami appears on a Series One checklist card and has a "First Win" card.

Here's some example player cards:

#083

#106

#075

#088

#071

I should probably point out that the cards are numbered 61 to 120 in continuation of the numbering from Series One.

The "First Win" subset commemorates each team's first victory of the 2023 season.  Three of the cards feature the first wins for the three first time managers - Kazuo Matsui of the Lions, Masato Yoshii of the Marines and Takahiro Arai of the Carp.  The remaining nine cards all feature players including the aforementioned Mori and Murakami as well as Masahiro Tanaka, Sho Nakata, Shuhei Takahashi, Kotaro Kiyomiya, Ryoya Kurihara, Koyo Aoyagi and Kentaro Taiga.  One thing odd about this subset is that typically Calbee doesn't have multiple cards of a player in a Series so if a player has a "regular" card they won't be in a subset and vice versa.  But there's four players in this subset who also have "regular" cards in the Series - Nakata, Takahashi, Kiyomiya and Kurihara.  The photos used in this subset are the best in the whole set as this card of Murakami shows:

#FW-07

The last four cards in the set are the four checklist cards which are numbered 05-08 in continuation of the checklist cards from Series One.  Each card features a highlight from the first week or so of the season - Kaima Taira's first career start after over 200 relief appearances, Yuki Matsui getting his 200th save, Shota Morishita making the Tigers' Opening Day lineup as a rookie and Takayuki Kajitani playing in his first game since July 10th, 2021.  Here's Matsui's card:

#C-06

So to sum it all up, I give this set a hearty "meh".  The "First Win" subset's not bad - the topic's a little dull but at least a lot of the photos are good.  But the rest of the set is pretty dull.  And not to sound too much like the odd joke about the two guys complaining about a restaurant where the one guy gripes that the food is terrible and the other one laments that the portions are too small, I really wish Calbee was still doing a Series Three this year.  They'd have a better player selection and with more cards they;d have more chances of picking better photos.  Hopefully things will be back to normal next year.  In the meantime you can see all the cards in this Series over at Jambalaya.