SPEAKER_00 0:12

Hello and welcome to Officer Card with Randolami, and we are in a bit of a roll of how to clean out the next Pokemon. But you just have to find still loving that on the door. We're still making 40 minutes before actually comes out.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Yeah, moment that's it. So I didn't want to fix it. That's fine.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

We have three fifty that we're gonna open.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Just find it out. But barring anything crazy, I can still connect a buy and sell it right away. Hopefully the air price is gonna get too hot bad.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

Yeah. It's already over 500 bucks a box as it stands today, the day before release. So wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Well, how are you doing today, Bert?

SPEAKER_03 1:24

I'm doing good. I'm doing good. It's been a busy day getting ready for Bowman's Best, but I'm feeling ready. I'm excited for tomorrow, and I'm excited to talk some cards tonight.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Yeah, we got a few things to talk about, even though there's a lull. There's never a lack of things to discuss.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Never. That's the best part about the hobby, honestly. It's like it's like golf. You know, you you you can play golf and you can never be satisfied with your game. You can hobby and you can never be satisfied with your knowledge of the hobby. There's always more.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

There is always more to digest, a new, new site, new platform, new product, old products coming back up and again hot, new players that you didn't realize were the best, and now all of a sudden they're just someone that you want to chase. There's always something going on.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

Yeah. Speaking of which, if anybody has any Brennan Davis, sell me some Brennan Davis, please. Anyone that was chasing him back in 2020, I'm I'm all in on the spring training hype train. Let's go.

unknown 2:20

All right. All right.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

So what do you want to talk about first today? Well, I want to hear about your show. You went to a show. Yeah, this was my second show. And this was last Friday. My first show was on a Saturday and a Sunday. This was Friday from 5 to 11. So it went pretty late. I've never done a night show. It was interesting. The most interesting thing was, and I knew this going in, it was like 99% Pokemon. When I reached out to the guy who runs it, he's like, if you know any more sports, guys, let me know. And there was literally, I had a sports guard next to me because I requested a table next to him. Um, just I thought it made sense. And, you know, it was nice because he didn't really have baseball. Um, and he had mostly football, basketball, he had some other stuff as well. So if someone was like, hey, you got baseball, he'd refer them to me, and then football, basketball. I'd be like, Oh, look at the guy right next to me if they were like selling something or looking to buy.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

Mm-hmm. How are the sales?

SPEAKER_01 3:15

The sales were decent, not like my first show, but my inventory wasn't as great as my first show. Yeah. I built uh a nice amount of Pokemon slabs I was able to sell while I was there, and I sold them all out. So the thing about card shows is now you got a lot of guys that are just buying for repackers, which some people won't sell to. Me, I'm not a store, I'm just a guy. And if someone wants to give me money for my cards that I'm looking to sell, so he's like, hey, what if I give you 85% comps on these and clear you all out? I'm like, Yeah, I'll do it. So he wrote down Yeah. He he wrote down what his offers were on each card, and we ended it all up. We came to an agreement, so I got rid of all of it. I didn't want to be left with just a few, so I took a hit on a couple, but I didn't want to just have like three Pokemon left, and you're not really gonna get anyone looking unless they're looking for those very specific ones.

SPEAKER_03 4:09

85% comps, you're gonna get 85% paid out from eBay after fees, so especially something I wasn't really attached to.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

And yeah, no no fees, no shipping, no worrying about returns.

SPEAKER_04 4:22

Heartache. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Made some trades. Got a nice junior Commonero rookie auto, PSA 9, that I like. He traded me with that, with some cash upgrade or what. But that was the only card that I really acquired that I'm probably just gonna throw in the PC.

SPEAKER_03 4:38

Nice. Which which uh which commonero rookie?

SPEAKER_01 4:41

I don't remember. It was such a blur of a show. There was so much going on. So I wrote all my cards myself. I know a couple guys at work. One has Pokemon, one has like some baseball, basketball, football, UFC. And I'm like, hey, name you have the show. You can come to my table and you can sell your stuff for all I care. So they came and then one of their friends ended up stopping by too, and then one of my old friends stopped by. I saw. So we ended up having like, even though it was just my booth, at one point we had like five people behind my booth. So there was a lot going on. Do you plan on going to the show again?

SPEAKER_03 5:13

Is it like a monthly or a quarterly or something?

SPEAKER_01 5:16

His next one is in May. So it's every couple months, and he's local. It's a matter of having the inventory and the time with a wife and two kids, you know. There's and doing a podcast and obviously working. This is not my full-time job, believe it or not. Um, so you know, I I don't like to spend too much time away from them. Luckily, they were very well behaved for her that Friday night. I was happy to hear that. Uh, but it was literally right down the road from me at work. It was five minutes away from me at work. So I just I brought myself to work with me and I left work a little early, headed down there, set up, and I was good to go. If you're ever gonna do a show, you know, just make sure you're prepared. I would price everything out beforehand. You don't want to be that guy that's trying to look up prices and comps, be confident in your prices, build in a little room to negotiate. You know, no one's gonna really pay sticker if someone's buying a large amount of cards, help them out. And strike up conversations. Don't just be the only other sports guy that I saw there. He pretty much just gave me a nod when I tried talking to him and he had no interest in talking about cards and his prices were so overpriced. I was just thinking, if I brought these cards that he has, because we had a lot of the same cards, I could just undercut him. I'm not going to. But yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:29

It's probably a slow sales day for him.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Know your audience. You know, for me, it's just New York cards are gonna sell, which is easy for me since I have so many. Otani's always going to sell, the hot new rookies are gonna sell. But yeah, track of conversations, get talking to people, and they'll stick around. Eventually, something might catch their eye. One of my favorite parts of the show, actually, I mispriced a card. And what happened was I had the card on my display. It was it was a gilded card. I had it marked, I don't even remember the player. I had it marked at just$10 because it wasn't like any like major player. It was a retired player, maybe not even a Hall of Famer. Um, so I had it like marked for like$10. And this kid comes up to me and he's like looking at the cards. And then I see him like must have been 10 years old, and he's with his friend, and then he turns to his friend and he starts whispering. Like, hand over the mouth of whispering. And I'm like, I know exactly what's going on here. I definitely mispriced this card. Let's see what this kid does. And it's nothing where I misprice a card for like a thousand dollars or something. Like, if I put a card at$10, it's not gonna be worth any crazy amount. Because I would have just saw it and knew, it would have raised a red flag. But the kid comes, he looks at me and he's like, Would you take$8 for this card? And I'm like, Really? I was thinking to myself, really? You're you're gonna you know that it's worth more than this and you're going to uh try to negotiate. But but I like the tactic. So I look at him and I'm like, sure, I'll take eight dollars for the card. He only has a 20 on him. I have a 10 in one single. And I'm like, I'm like, I only got one single. He's like, fine, I'll do nine. So he gets the card, and I just see this smile across his face. So then I finally say to him, like, all right, so now now that you have the card, I'm not gonna back out of this. This is your card, don't worry. What is that card actually worth? What did you just find out? And you'd see the gears turning for a second, like, oh my god, did he just catch me? Like, he acted like he just did something like terrible for a second, and then he's just like$50. I'm like, good for you. I'm like, have yourself a good day. Enjoy the card, buddy. And he came back over to the table later. I'm like, You're trying to swindle me again? And he just got all shy. Respect the hustle. Yeah, yeah, doing that for a kid. I don't mind. Oh, I'll do that. If I have a card mispriced and like yeah, if it wasn't a kid, I would have been like, no, you're giving me$10 for the card or you're not, I'm not coming down at it. But I was just so entertained by how this kid was going about it. And then I have a lot of Otani lower end that some of them I missed repricing since my last show. So this guy was going through the cards and like he sees this Otani for 20 bucks, and like now it's like a$40 card. And like I see and put it to the side, I'm like, all right. So I take the card, I'm like, I will sell this to you for$20. I'm like, but I won't go down the price for it. It is actually worth like$40 now. The guy was like, no, no, no. Then you put it at$40, you keep. And I'm like, no, I will give it to you for$20. Because like you seem like you're buying a few cards anyway, but this one I'm not changing price on. And then he just insisted that I keep it and reprice it. So I didn't argue that much.

SPEAKER_04 9:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Well, that's enough about the card show. If you ever do have questions about card shows, I don't have a ton of experience, but I feel like I have enough somewhere. You can always reach out to me on Twitter, Instagram. You can reach out to our podcast um itself, or just to my personal Twitter or Instagram as well. So the fun thing to talk about today, we are going to talk about the top things to watch for and that we're looking forward to in the 2026 season.

SPEAKER_03 9:52

Yes, sir. I can't wait for 2026. I just hope we have a full season. It's gonna be electric.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

I'm excited for a lot of things. The first thing I'm gonna go over, we did a top five. I'm gonna give an honorable mention to this because it doesn't have as much of a hobby impact. But something that is a big change coming up is the ABS system, the automated balls and strikes. This is a change everyone was asking for. How are you feeling about this big change to the new year?

SPEAKER_03 10:19

My first introduction to the ABS system was at the Futures game in Seattle a few years back, uh, and they were doing it. And the one thing that I remember is all of the kids in the crowd watching the game were so into it. They were standing up, tapping their helmets, say challenge, challenge, challenge. And then they put it up on the Jumbotron and they they give you the K zone and they tell you whether or not it was a ball or strike. And the kids were having these huge reactions to it. And I thought, wow, they're onto something here. This is great for the game. Kids love it. It's gonna keep fans engaged. It's another thing to pay attention to. I think it's great.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

One thing I think we're gonna see quickly is that the teams are all gonna advise their pitchers, unless it's like an ace or someone that you can't argue with, they're gonna advise their pitchers, don't challenge, leave it up to the catchers. Because you're already seeing it where the pitchers they don't have that correct eye on it, especially those they're those pitchers that kind of fly over to the other side of the mound and they're not getting the right angle to see it. So I think that's something we're gonna see as the season goes on. That teams are just gonna say, nope, just the catchers, unless you're seeing like a really tenured guy where they're gonna trust them. I don't know. Do you think that that's fair to say? You think that'll head in that direction?

SPEAKER_03 11:35

Yeah, I don't know. It's gonna be it's interesting too to see how pitchers adjust because I think they're gonna get a lot more pitches, especially breaking balls at the bottom of the strike zone, called for strikes that traditionally, you know, especially if a catcher doesn't frame it well or if a catcher's glove kind of drifts off into the dirt when they catch it. Traditionally, you're gonna call that for a ball. But a lot of these I'm seeing on ABS are strikes. So it'll be interesting to see how pitchers adjust. I think the throwing down in the zone is gonna become more of a thing again, like it was when I was originally being coached to pitch, but now we've had this revelation of you know, fastballs high in the zone and stuff like that. I don't know. I think it's gonna change.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

I think if anything, it'll affect the vets more. You know, with the young eyes, yeah. They can adjust.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

Just like the pitch clock did, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

All right, so number five on one of the things that I am most excited for and looking forward to to see. Can the Dodgers three-peat? That is how the season ended, and we'll get right into that to how the season will begin. What do you think? How do you like their odds?

SPEAKER_03 12:40

Nobody, and I mean nobody wants to see the Dodgers three-peat outside of Dodgers fans. I think, you know, there's such a negative stigma associated with the Dodgers and what they're doing for the base for baseball outside of Otani.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

I'm gonna correct you. You caught it. So the only other people that want to see the Dodgers three-peed are Otani holders and collectors. They want to see that.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

Yeah, I don't know. I think there's some interesting things to watch with the Dodgers this year. We'll see, you know, as it pertains to the hobby, we'll see how it affects Kyle Tucker's market. If Kyle Tucker comes out the gates hot, I think you could see a big appreciation in a lot of his stuff. In my opinion, his cards have never been, I think his cards have always been a little bit underpriced. They jumped quite a bit when he came out the gates hot with Chicago, but they went right back to normal and below where they were once he started hitting that skid. LA's a different market. Kyle Tucker, when you look at his career numbers, on track to have a pretty amazing career. Um and if he can kind of hit his stride and perform like he did in the first half of last year, I think you're gonna see his numbers jump quite a bit. Mookie, too, is an interesting one. Mookie had his first kind of off-year in his career ever since he started becoming a perennial all-star, perennial MVP candidate. Sounds like he's feeling pretty good. And we could see a return to form for Mookie. He's not that old.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Um The thing is it's hard for like those stars to like really shine in NLA where you have Otani kind of just taking up like all the spotlight, and then you have so many stars, and outside of Otani, they they kind of wash each other out, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

I mean, not to mention they have the best rotation in baseball one through six, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Yeah, like and they added Edwin Diaz.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

They have guys in kind of like their sixth and seventh, you know, guys in their rotation that would be twos and threes and a lot of other rotations. So it's I don't know. They're they're one of those teams that they're so loaded that things can go wrong and they can still go win a World Series. They've already proven that.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Next up, number four on one of the things I'm most excited to see, Nick Kurtz. Can he continue to be absolutely ridiculous? Big homage. Or is he heading towards the sophomore slot?

SPEAKER_03 14:52

I don't think that he's gonna put up the same numbers that he did as a rookie. But that being said, the numbers that he was putting up were insane. MVP caliber numbers. If you prorate it for the entire season, he may have been in the running for the MVP with the type of numbers that he was putting up. So I don't think he puts up the same. I think he has a little bit of a regression, a little bit of a sophomore slump per se. And I do think his cards will take a hit for that. But a lot of people take card hits in year two. That's just as common as the sophomore slump, if not more common, for your cards to come down. Look at Jackson Churio last year, right? Like he didn't have a terrible season, but his cards dropped. Look at Julio Rodriguez back from 2022 to 2023. Same thing happened. Kurtz would have to put up some pretty gaudy numbers. He'd have to be number one, two, or three in the MVP race just to maintain his card prices.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

I agree. I I think that he remains a top 10 player, but not top five. That's my prediction for him.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

I mean, he's damn good. Don't get me wrong. Like, I think it's it's just the way that the hobby economy works. When you go into that second year and your prospect status is gone and you have that rookie of the year under your belt and you are the top rookie in your class, very high expectations, hard to meet expectations going into year two. We'll see if Kurtz can do it. I don't know. He mashes. Like, there's a lot of things to love about Nick Kurtz. I just don't know if it's fair to expect for him to be like come right back out the gates and be an MVP candidate in year two.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

I'm rooting for it. I just uh hit two Nick Kurtz oils in the last two weeks. So after not having any for the last year.

SPEAKER_03 16:27

It's weird, right? Like uh ever since the 2026 products have come out, I feel like the Kurtz, um the Kurtz, what's the term I'm looking for? I feel like Kurtz isn't as shiny anymore. You know, he's not that shiny new toy anymore. And he's just in his second year. But now all of a sudden we're thinking about Roman Anthony and Keggs in the 26 class. We're thinking about Connor Griffin and what he's been doing for his first Bowman prices and stuff like that. Like Kurtz all of a sudden is not the poster boy for the hobby, where he was for the back half of pretty much all the 2025 products.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Yeah, I agree. It's definitely taking some of that off of it. But yeah, there's only so much attention and focus where the hobby can go.

SPEAKER_04 17:07

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

But if Nick Kurtz has proven it, so if I had to put my money somewhere, it's on Nick Kurtz at the moment, especially because Connor Griffin's prices are absurd. Um, and Nick Kurtz has proven it. So if I were to say Nick Kurtz are one of those hot new rookies, all things being equal, yeah, I'm still in on his hype over the others.

SPEAKER_03 17:29

Watch out for those athletics, man. They're coming. They're coming. I mean, Leo DeVries is next. He's my pick to be the number one prospect in baseball this time next year. So we'll see. They got a lot of young firepower.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

The next thing I'm most excited to see. I'm not excited for opening day, but the next 161 days I will be excited for. Paul Skeens is opening against the Mets. Is it no, it is not going to be McLean.

SPEAKER_04 17:57

Who is it? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's that's fair.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Skeens McLean would have been awesome. But yeah, that's I understand why. Yeah. So he starts off with the rookie of the year. Next year he gets the Cy Young. What is in store for him this year?

SPEAKER_03 18:22

Oh, I think he could win the MVP. I think all it takes is an Otani injury, and all of a sudden, Paul Skeens is right there in the MVP race. He looks absolutely electric. He looked great in the WBC yesterday against Mexico. He's only getting better. He's built like a brick shit house. It doesn't look like he's going to have any injury problems. He's got that bulldog mentality. He's got some of the nastiest stuff in the game. He posted a sub-2 ERA last year. I think he does the same again. I have no reason to think not.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

When was the last time a pitcher was this hyped and actually has met the expectations each year so far? I know we're only two years in, but yeah, even like the last time I can think of a pitcher being this hype was Strasbourg. And obviously he was great, especially those first couple years, but he wasn't winning a Cy Young.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

You know?

SPEAKER_03 19:12

Maybe like a Tim Lindsacum. You know, he came out and he won back-to-back Cy Young's. And but everybody kind of in the back of their mind was how long can this last, this little 5'9, 175 soaking wet guy with these crazy mechanics.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Yeah. Yeah, they never thought Tim Lindsacum would go down as like an all-time great. And he's one of my all-time favorite players ever, Tim Lindsacum. He was just so much fun to watch. But yeah, Skeens, his hype and actually meeting it has been.

SPEAKER_03 19:39

Well, as a Mets fan too, like as I'm thinking about these more recent super hyped pitching prospects, you know, you had the big three, right? You had Matt Harvey, Thor, and DeGrom. And two of those guys definitely did not live up to the hype.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Yeah, de Gram's been so awesome. That that was the first couple years, though, when they were living up to the hype. The Dark Knight. Like it was He was good. He was my favorite of the three. Yeah, he was so much fun. And then, you know, let's not bring up 2015. Let's move past that. Because I would like to move past it eventually.

SPEAKER_03 20:12

Eventually, like you still go to bed and have nightmares about it.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

I still I think I have this argument at work all the time with a couple of other Mets fans. I still think it was the right move to leave him in. I know hindsight being what it is, it of course wasn't. But at the time, that's your ace, that's the guy. Yeah. The mystique of Matt Harvey there.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

Yeah, yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

And just what he did and how dominant he was, and how he's like, I want the ball, I want to finish this. It felt like his World Series moment, and it of course, uh, history did not go that way.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

Oh, we don't have to talk about that anymore.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

No, no. Yeah. Let's put that in the show archives, never be touched again.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

Sore subject.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

All right. Number two, I want to talk about the defending, reigning, back-to-back NVPs, Otani and Judge. Are they going to continue to stay at the top of their game?

SPEAKER_03 21:14

Man, it's their awards to lose. I think, you know. It's hard to think that somebody could, if if they stay healthy, it's hard to imagine anybody having a better season than them in e in either league. You know, Judge didn't even have a fully healthy year last year, and Cal Raleigh ends up hitting 60 bombs, has an unbelievable year, doesn't even win MVP. Otani didn't pitch most of the year, the man still wins the MVP. Otani back healthy, pitching again. There's no reason to think that he's not the major front runner. Same thing with Judge. Like he's so far and away the best hitter in the American League. I see no reason that those things are going to slow down this year. It's going to take an injury.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

So uh to bring this for Full circle back to the hobby. Of course, I'm assuming this year they're going to do the MVP buyback program again. Who do you think are some dark horses? Who do you think are some dark horses to maybe dethrone them that maybe people can chase for the MVP buyback? For those that don't know, Topps is a program where$20 for a base card out of Topps Chrome, they give you$20 per base card if you you can either send it back into some places or you can go to your LCS to trade it in and you get$20 credit. Of course, Otani and Joach have dominated that. Parallels get you more money. Who are some of your dark horse candidates for that?

SPEAKER_03 22:38

In the NL, I really like what I've been seeing from Mookie Betts. I think he's a guy that could immediately get right back into that conversation, especially playing in LA in that powerful lineup. He's going to put up some really scary counting numbers. If he could stay healthy and if Otani takes a step back, I could see Muki immediately jumping into that conversation rather quickly.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

I think that unless Otani gets hurt, if Muki even has a great season, I think Otani's just gonna, no matter what he does, he's gonna have to be taking some votes away from Muki. That's what I think is gonna happen. So for Mookie to really have that shot, I think Otani would have to get hurt, which nobody wants to see. I don't care what fan map or what team you are, nobody wants to see that.

SPEAKER_03 23:17

Another guy in the NL, you know, that could immediately, he's already shown shown the ability to put up MVP numbers, although now it was a few years ago and early in his career is Fernando Tatis Jr. But in the WBC, he looks like he's got a different kind of energy. Maybe that carries over into the MLB season. That's also a really good lineup. I could see Tatis putting up some gaudy numbers if he stays healthy too.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

I would love that. In the NL, the two guys I want to see, which yes, I'm a homer, so that's what you can say about these two. But they've proven that they can be in that conversation. Lindor and Soto, I think.

SPEAKER_03 23:54

Yeah, totally. Yeah. Those guys too. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Soto was top three in the voting. Lindor two years ago, he was right there as well.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

Well, especially if Soto steals uh 30 bags again. Jeez.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

It'll be interesting what that new lineup does for them, too. So we'll see how that works out. On the AL side, give me the homer pick. Yeah, yeah, I'll give you a homer pick. Julio, right? Yeah, that's that's what I was thinking.

SPEAKER_03 24:22

All he's got to do is start the season hot. Um, he's been right there. You know, if you break it down just by halves of the season, he's he's been second half MVP a couple times already now. He's just got to have a good first half and not get too far behind.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Julio was my pick as my uh dark horse guys. I I don't think any of these guys are really dark horses. It's just they're always in the mix and with a league that has Judge and Otani in it, you know that there's not much uh not much you can do when you have generational guys like that.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

Totally. Yeah. I want to say Roman Anthony, but his rookie rookie card prices are already gonna be so high that it's like I almost I don't want him to win MVP because that's such a waste of a buyback to have somebody whose cards are already just on their own merit pretty valuable. It's more fun when you have somebody come in and and win that MVP buyback whose base cards wouldn't be valuable otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

The only other guy is of course Bobby Witch you in here. Again, not a dark horse, but always worth keeping an eye on him, especially with all these eyes on him for the world baseball classic. Even Skeens is loving it. I don't know if you saw those and all the memes coming up of him loving Witt over Olivia.

SPEAKER_03 25:42

Yeah, those are funny. And Scoobyl, too. Don't don't count out the pitchers. I mean, he's in a contract here, and you know Detroit's gonna get their money's worth with him in the last year of team control here, so you could see Scoobyl put up some pretty, pretty crazy numbers this year as well. He's probably pitching pissed off too, because a lot of America doesn't like him very much for him bowing out of the WBC.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Yeah, I just, yeah. I agree. Um, all right. And my number one thing to look forward to this season, we've already mentioned his name a few times, Connor Griffin. Everyone wants to see what this hype machine can do. He is the rookie to watch this year. First thing we want to know, you think he makes the opening date roster?

SPEAKER_03 26:28

I don't think he does. I don't think he does. I don't think he's put up the spring training numbers to uh to merit that. And I think they're gonna wanna they're gonna wanna bring him up when he's really ready. Start him out in triple A, let him go off for a little bit, get his confidence up, and then bring him up.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. Everyone is just so excited to see him. So what that means for us is are we going to see him in series two? You think we'll have to wait for update?

SPEAKER_03 26:56

I feel like they're gonna put him in update.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

You know what I love that they do? They haven't done this for a little while. They did it back in the Julio and Wityear. And uh Torkelson too, who's been right. Yeah. Um, they they had their short prints in series two. And then there was the mess in Topps Chrome that year where they forgot to put them in, even though they announced them and had to do the silver packs. But that would be really cool to see. I love those short prints, and I've been waiting for them to do it again. Of course, we'll have to see when he makes his debut. I think the cutoff for update, I don't know the cutoff for series two. Update, I believe, is June 1st. I know that there's like a date in there.

SPEAKER_03 27:37

I think what it might end up happening is that Griffin gets the kind of similar to a Paul Skeen's treatment where like in Topps Chrome he gets a rookie auto, but he's auto only. And then his base, his first, you know, his flagship rookie card ends up being an update.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Yeah, I I think it I think series two is gonna be tough. But yeah, hopefully update. And yeah, I just feel like Topps doesn't love to do that because it really like crunches like the amount of cards that they can get for such a hyped up player because he's gonna sell boxes. Him on his like like skiing sold boxes. It's gonna be people hunting for him unless something goes crazy, you know, with his hype.

SPEAKER_03 28:16

You're gonna try to get him in as soon as they can.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Yeah. Next thing I want to talk about is what we want to see from the 2026 Topps hobby year, maybe a little hobby wish list. What new innovations would you like to see out of Topps this year?

SPEAKER_03 28:32

Well, I'd I'd like to see innovation. You know, I think in 2025, when it comes to Topps products, not talking about Bowman, but when it comes to Topps products, rookies, veterans, legends, there hasn't been a whole lot of innovation. You know, back in 2022, you had Cosmic Chrome come around, which was really awesome. In 2024, you had the makeover of Topps Black and White, which was pretty awesome. In 2025, I can't think of one product that was materially better than it's been in previous years, or a brand new product that was really good value. I think it's important for Toffs to continue to innovate and put out some product like that where customers can look at the original sticker price and be like, oh, I finally get to win. I get to have a positive return rip at least one of these times as I'm shelling out all this different cash for all these different releases throughout the year. So I'd like to see them do something a little bit new, different, and value first and foremost. We'll see.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

So I had this idea for new parallel, and you might hate it. I might just cut it from the episode because it could be terrible. But I thought it'll be really cool for something like Finest or where you can get into like some goofy ideas. I'm about to say it out loud, and I feel like I don't like it as much as I did. Do it. So I think like a chess parallel, like a more common, like you have like you know how they did like the Monopoly for Panini? So like chess, like you'll have like pawns for like a more basic one. It kind of like the cosmic line of planets where it gets rarer as you go down the line. A king would be a one-on-one, like queen, you'll have like out of five or something, and then all it doesn't even have to be numbered, could just be SP. I think it'll be cooler to just stand on its own like that. But I feel like a chess piece parallel would look really cool. It could pop and it would actually make some sense.

SPEAKER_03 30:23

The planetary pursuit concept has been so successful, you gotta think that they're gonna take that and try to apply that in some other some other product. And I hope that they do, right? This concept of it's one line, the parallels aren't your typical numbers, the parallels aren't numbered, but they get more rare, and there's you know, nine, ten different parallels. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

So what do you think about my checkmate parallels?

SPEAKER_03 30:47

I'd be a buyer.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

It'll be fun to try to get the whole set too.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

We need somebody, yeah. I'm trying to think. Brent Rooker would be really good for that, right? Rook. Do we have a Hunter Bishop? No, he can't quite make it. There's got to be somebody else, though.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Seaver King.

SPEAKER_03 31:04

Seaver King, yes. Patrick Queen. Nope, that's football.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

And yeah, I'm surprised we don't have a night. But that that's my idea. That is my small innovation idea that I thought about. So, not so much looking towards the future, but looking towards the past a little bit. What product would you like to see them bring back?

SPEAKER_03 31:23

I thought 21 Rookie Cup was really good. I would love to see them bring that back. Um, there's the ones that we've talked about ad nauseum already, Stadium Club Chrome, bring it back. That's a no-brainer.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Rookie Cup, uh, I hit a one-on-one out of a one-on-one auto, and I was so psyched.

unknown 31:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Ended up not being so great.

SPEAKER_03 31:43

It was Evan White. It was a great product, right? Because it was niche. There wasn't a lot of hype around it. The structure of the product was great. The price point was really good for the for the print run and for the value of the cards that were.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

50 bucks, I think, right?

SPEAKER_03 32:00

Why not make one or two products like that every year? I was really disappointed not to see anything like that come out this year in tops.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

They used to have, and it was one of my favorite products was archive snapshots.

SPEAKER_04 32:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

That was$25 for a box, guaranteed auto. A lot of old players and new players. And I would always go all in. I would buy up to the limit, and I would tell people, can you order these for me so that I can have some extra? And I have hit some nice stuff out of that. I hit a trout auto. This is my first ever when I want to hit a Trent Grishom Black Auto Redemption. And there's a big uh Grishom collector on on Twitter that I that I was able to sell it to eventually. But yeah, Archive Snapshots was one of my favorites, and that was the one that I hit the Griffey senior, and I was thinking it was a junior. Hit a nice Torkoal. Oh, I hit those two uh big dumper autos out of 10.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

That's right. That's right. Thank you for that. So you're welcome. One of the nicest racks I've ever gotten. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

So I don't know if we've ever talked about that on the show. A couple years ago. Was it a couple years ago? No, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 33:10

It was, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

When I first started breaking with uh Bert as uh Grand Salami, I was like, all right, hit me a gold auto and I will give you this card for free. Because he expressed he expressed interest in a while ago when he was looking for big dumper cards, and I had two of them. They were two gold autos, big dumper out of archive snapshots, and it has like those cheesy 2000s photo shoot, like school photo shoot backgrounds of like lasers and stuff, and it was hand numbered to 10 uh two. And at the time it was like a what a$40 card or something, maybe he didn't hit me the gold auto or a gold card, but I said, you know what, I'm just gonna send it to you anyway. So I sent it to him, and then of course, big dumper becomes big dumper.

SPEAKER_03 33:59

Well, you have another one, and you just got a jam on it, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Yeah, just got a PSA 10 on it. Literally just got back this week. So I'm very happy with that. I'm still happy to have sent that to you.

SPEAKER_03 34:09

That's good cardma right there.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Yeah. Well, who knew that uh a couple years down the line that we would be starting a podcast together? Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 34:18

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

One other thing I know you wanted to bring up for the things that you wanted to see brought back, Bowman offshoots. You want to talk about that a little bit?

SPEAKER_03 34:27

Yeah, I mean, um, that's been a really interesting thing to see in unfold since Fanatics has taken over, is kind of the reduction in the Bowman offshoot brands. Because you know, thinking back to 2022, we had Sterling, we had Best, we had Platinum, we had Inception, we had Transcendent. There was tons of different Bowman offshoots. Uh, and in 2025, we have just one of those remaining, and it's Bowman's Best, which is great. But at the same time, you gotta think Fanatics is thinking about how they can they know how big prospect cards are in baseball. You gotta think that they're in the lab trying to figure out what to do next with prospects. I'm very intrigued to see what we see in 2026 because I don't think it's just gonna be nothing. I don't think they're just gonna, you know, continue to roll with the three flagship releases and Bowman's Best. Like they're gonna they're gonna, I don't know, maybe if it's in a little bit more of like the tops now. I doubt it because minor league baseball doesn't have very much hype and people want to see the cards in their major league team uniform, right? Pro debut doesn't do all that well. Um, so I don't know. It'd be interesting to see.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

I feel like it could also have to do with the fact that they ballooned the Bowman product so much, print run wise and auto-wise, because Bowman draft now has the megas. You have the delight boxes, so that adds on so many extra autos that these players, even if they're stickers, they still have to sign them. They don't have as many products to spread it out against if they're putting them all into these.

SPEAKER_03 36:13

And I think by eliminating a lot of these offship, offshoot Bowman brands, they've kind of that's been one of their levers that they've pulled to try to elevate those case-hit SSPs and flagship Bowman, but it hasn't worked that well.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Well, it's worked on me. I was changing those garbage pail kids like crazy.

SPEAKER_03 36:33

Yeah, the garbage pail kids were great. I guess I just get stuck on the spotlight.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Spotlight I love. I love the final brand card.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

Really? That's it for how rare that card is? And how premium of player JJ is right now? Doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Yeah, it doesn't make sense. I really got to stop chasing those and just start buying them in secondary. That that's gotta be the move.

SPEAKER_03 37:04

Um like you have to figure out how I think they've done a really good job, it seems like, on the top's chrome basketball space. Maybe it's just like maybe it's just a collector thing. Like basketball and football guys just love those case hit SSPs, and baseball don't. Like we'd prefer a first Bowman Auto, and there's lots of different parallels to chase of those.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

All right, so for our final segment, we will bring back our buy-sell hold this week. We have a prospect, a rookie, and a vet to go over. We will start with our prospect, someone who is projected to make the opening day roster, and hopefully we'll be able to see him in series two. Of the Mets, I am talking about Carson Benj. How are we feeling about Carson Bench?

SPEAKER_03 37:48

I feel like I should ask you first. I was reading today that he's 100% locked to make the opening day roster. Is that true?

SPEAKER_01 37:55

I mean, it seems like it's his spot to lose, unless, you know, something starts to play every day. I I would like him to. I feel like that's what you got to do with these guys. I don't like them sitting around and you know, just if you're gonna make them sit every other day or something, for me it's just keep them in triple A. If they're like a big prospect like this, someone that you should be high on. I don't think it does them that much good. If you're gonna bring them to the show, let him play.

SPEAKER_03 38:22

In that case, he's a sell for me. I'm always an advocate for the call-up sell pretty much on anybody unless I'm extremely high on that prospect. I think back to Brett Beatty and how fast his cards plummeted once he debuted. Gives me, you know, Carson Bench, probably a better prospect than Brett Beatty, but not by that much. So being with the Mets, it just makes me think about that situation. I'd probably sell. His cards are are pretty high right now, you know. Uh yeah, that's where I'm at.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

As a baby holder, I can't say you're wrong. I still have my babies. And I'm still holding out hope on him. But, you know, that that's a PC card for me. So that has nothing to do with buy, sell, hold. That's just stay in the PC. Yeah, I I can't disagree. It's just time to sell. By the time this show comes out, maybe they would have already announced him. I don't think that they will until a little bit later. But once they make that official designation of him being on the major league roster day one, that's when I would sell, if not opening day, when people are seeing him, when you got so many eyes on him, when you see Paul Skeen strike him out three times. Yeah, right. So do it just before that, because he's up against Paul Skeen's day one. That's a tough ass for any player, let alone someone making their debut.

SPEAKER_03 39:41

Look for that debut. I have a somewhat big Carson Bench card to sell. Do you want to buy it from me?

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Send it to me. I doubt it. I just said I'm a sell on him, but I don't have any really nice ones. I have uh some pro debut autos, which are nice.

SPEAKER_03 39:55

You know what it was actually? I got this as a surprise from Topps because we had uh the card that I had was a Xavier Isaac out of 2023 Bowman, true first Bowman Gold Auto. And Xavier Isaac hasn't signed for a long time. Finally, I gave up on it, and I just pressed find me a replacement, and they sent me back a Carson Benge Bowman's Best Black Auto. I thought it was a fine return. I'm gonna sell it.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

I'll trade you a dumper out of 10.

SPEAKER_04 40:25

I'm gonna take that.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

All right, our next guy. Honestly, I'm gonna let you lead on this one, really, because I don't know that much, and I want to hear what you have to say. Samuel, Samuel Basal. How are you feeling about Samuel Bisayo this year? That is our rookie that we're gonna talk about.

SPEAKER_03 40:41

Samuel Basayo is one of the best hitters, one of the best hitting prospects in baseball. He came up last year and he had a tough, tough go of it. He did not put up very good numbers and is limited at bats. Obviously, Baltimore has Adley Rutschman at the catcher position, but I think between catcher and DH, you're gonna see Basayo get a ton of at-bats. He's been a little bit banged up in spring training. I know he had that scary moment behind the dish where he got he got hit pretty good and he looked like he went down pretty hard. But I think Bisao as a hitter is is still one of the best prospects out there. I think his prices have ducked after his performance last year and maybe some of the injury scares in spring training to a point where I feel like he's a he's a very solid hold. I wouldn't go as far as to say bye. However, I do think we may look back on these 2026 rookies and think, wow, those Samuel Bisayo pick your player spots were pretty cheap. In the same way that I thought about Junior Caminero in 2024. Like, wow, why is Junior Caminero so much cheaper than Ellie, Yamamoto, Chorillo, Langford? Like I think we might be saying the same thing of why was Pasayo so much cheaper than Keggs, Roman Anthony, Mizurawski.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Okay, that's fair. Hopefully he is that guy, and hopefully people can use this and be able to actually apply it. And if you ever do have any success about our buy, sell hold segments, we would love to hear about it. You know, just make us feel good, have a little hobby W for someone. They're hard to come by. So if you ever get one, we love to hear. The last one we're gonna talk about is our veteran, not just a veteran, he is the veteran. We are going to talk about buy, seller, hold on Shohei Otani.

SPEAKER_03 42:28

We're finally doing Otani. Wow, tough one.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

I'm gonna tell you where I'm at. I am going to answer D, all of the above. I don't think there's a wrong way to go. Because every time, I think I've said it like about once per episode. Every time you think his prices can't go any higher, they just keep going higher. So if you want Otani now, you better buy. If you want to sell, I can't blame you because his prices are absurd. I can't understand they're going any higher, but they keep doing it. And if you want to hold, you know, he's one of the he is the premier baseball player of this generation right now. It's something that can be a forever PC item. Pass on to your kids. Hopefully they can sell it. But yeah, I am deep all the above. I don't care what you do with Otani, what you do with his cards. It's just you really, I don't feel like you can go wrong selling, you're gonna make a ton. I sell and hold. Yeah. Yeah, I I know that advice does not help you that much. But yeah, I just I can make an argument easily for all three of them. He is he is a unicorn in the game and in the hobby world.

SPEAKER_03 43:41

I kind of agree with you, but maybe I'll go a little bit, I'll go a little bit more multifaceted in like I agree, buy, sell, hold, but depending on the card, right? So I think it's buy cards that as the years go by will remain the most desirable cards. I'm thinking. About Bowman rookies, Topps Chrome rookies, high-end dynasty things like that, you know, rookie cards, not third, fourth, fifth year angel cards, stuff like that. Go after the stuff that as the years go by are going to be the most sought-after cards. I think right now is a really good time to sell a lot of your other Otani cards, your base inserts and your high-numbered non-auto parallels and things like that, you know, third, fourth, fifth, sixth year, seventh year, maybe not your Dodgers first-year cards, but definitely like the second year cards and on and on. Like those cards are demanding a pretty high price, especially in a PSA 10. I'd look at all those cards, look to grade them, offload them, and keep the ones that you think as the years go by will remain in super high demand. Because Otani cards are not scarce. There are a ton, a ton of Otani cards in the last in his in his career, right? Like some of the numbers that some of his more common stuff is doing to me seems a bit outlandish at this point.

SPEAKER_04 45:16

It's absurd.

SPEAKER_03 45:17

I don't think they're gonna create even like 20, even you know, if he goes down as the best baseball player of all time, which a lot of people have already anointed him, like 50 years from now, I don't think a lot of those base cards are gonna be what they what they're going for today.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

There's no way. I agree with you there. And actually, for full transparency, I am selling a bunch of Otani cards right now. I just got back a PSA order. One of the cards that stood out to me in the price and the absurdity of it. I got a Bowman Chrome Sapphire base, PSA 10 of Otani. I was like, all right, that's cool. That's a couple hundred dollar card for Otani. That's a lot of money, unlike any other player that's not a rookie. The last sale was for over$800. I am selling that card. It is a base card. Yes, it's Sapphire, it's a premier product, but over$800 for there's no rookie card that does that for a base. It's it's absurd. So yeah, I'm selling that today. I just sold a purple tops black and white PSA 10 for$425.$429. That was the exact price. Um, and yeah, it's just it's crazy. Like that, that is not a card 20 years from now that it's gonna stand out in any significant way. And there are some cards that are creeping along where all of a sudden people just love those cards. The Otani flamethrower out of finest, that insert. I actually got a PSA 9 on that. I sold it for$195.

SPEAKER_03 46:43

The Aces out of 23 tops. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

The Aces is a big one. The Stadium Club out of like 23, or maybe it was 21 tops. 2020. Stadium Club Chrome. Yep. So some of these cars they just pick up lights of their own. So they do.

unknown 46:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

Well, I mean, today was a great example. We did a seven years of Bowman's Best break, and we opened a case of 2019 Bowman's Best. I pulled a refractor, just a base refractor, and and Bowman's Best refractors are very common. It's only a hundred-player checklist, and there's a refractor every box or every every pack. And I'm sitting there like, oh, that's probably a decent card. And Pack to the Future, who works for Blaze Online now and is very sharp in in terms of cards, comps, values. He's like, that's probably that's a$250 card in a PSA 10. And I was like, no way. And I, what do you know? I looked it up and it was. Can you believe that? Second year money refract, just a base unnumbered refractor out of Bowman's best in an angel's uniform.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

Like, I don't know. So full transparency, I'm selling, but I can't blame you for buying or holding. You know, it's the reason why these cars do so much is because there's so much market movement. There's so many people buying and selling.

SPEAKER_03 47:57

And that's right. There's that's a great point. That's a really good way to think about it, too. Like across the years, there's just not gonna be as much commotion as there is now in this economy around Shohei.

SPEAKER_01 48:11

And then there's there always seems to be that guy that you think is gonna end up being like that greatest of all time, that goat. Before Otani, everyone thought that about Trout, and his cards have really, really lowered from where they were. They've really taken a hit. And he's still an all-time great player to me and to most people. Before that, I would say probably Albert Poohs. I wasn't collecting cards around the time where his market was there, and it was a totally different card landscape, I'm sure. But there always seems to be that guy where right now you're looking at that and you're saying, I'm watching the greatest player of all time. And at the time it's really fun to watch, but looking back 10 years later, like, oh, if only this happened, you know, if only so and so, if only he didn't get hurt, if only the end of his career didn't, you know, fall off at this point. Otani again is unique in a lot of different ways. So I don't see that affecting him as much as interviewing as well.

SPEAKER_03 49:12

Yeah. If his career ended today, like his cards all time would still maintain quite a high value.

SPEAKER_01 49:20

Even if two-way players became a thing where you start seeing it from other places, I don't think we really will, just because MLB has not been embracing it that way still.

unknown 49:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

But he's still gonna be known as like the innovator, the one that really did it first, that set it off. So I don't really see that affecting things as much. But yeah, you just you just never know. Because people, you know, even five years ago would have told you trout cards are are just something to buy and his prices are never going down. That's just the point I wanted to make.

SPEAKER_04 49:52

Well said.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

All right. Well, thank you so much, everyone, for listening to another episode. Bert, any uh anything else you want to say?

SPEAKER_03 50:01

No. Looking forward to Bowman's Best tomorrow. Good luck. I guess as we we post this episode, I hope everybody's pulled some nice Bowman's Best stuff.

SPEAKER_01 50:08

Yes. So, Brett, if you're listening, I know that you've said that you listen. I am in your break tomorrow.

SPEAKER_03 50:16

Connor Griffin Superfractor.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

No, not not his, not his. Well, that's somewhere else. I would like to see that somewhere else. You know what if Brad pulls that good for him and good for.

SPEAKER_03 50:24

I'm in Red's break too. I have Thomas White, so I'll take a Thomas White Superfractor auto.

SPEAKER_01 50:29

I have a Thomas White red auto, but it's the insert. The VIP. Wow. That's uh that's in my PSA pile right now. About to go up. Nice. So I'm very much on that train. How's that oblique doing? Do we know?

SPEAKER_03 50:45

I hope it's going good.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

All right. Well, I think that's enough for tonight. Thank you so much, everyone. Good night.

SPEAKER_03 50:52

Good night, everybody.