2019 Singles and Red Sox Cards; Card Show Recap #24 Part 2

After I landed a superb deal before I even took a step into the main room of yesterday's Baseball card show, stopped by the booth of the show's case breaker as I do virtually every time I'm there. Per usual, I struck up a conversation about the new releases while shuffling through stacks of 2019 singles.

I haven't had as much time as I would've liked over the last few weeks for any Baseball card organization, but that changed over the weekend thanks to an extra day off today.

This free time allowed me to add 15 new player collections to my tiers list, including many last year's rookie superstars. The last of the PCs were made official on the online inventory earlier today, but I still made some purchases for the new player collections as yesterday's show.

The Juan Soto Obsidian card is going to stay with the collection of 2019 Panini Chronicles that I have amassed, but the Leather & Lumber die-cut above will go straight to the new PC.

Panini revived this release earlier this year, but the price point and the number of cards per box had no appeal to me whatsoever. That said, I've picked up a handful of die-cuts from the various insert sets because of how reasonably priced the singles are.

On a separate note, you can't go wrong with the combination of Yankee pinstripes and a silver border, much less of Miguel Andujar, last year's AL Rookie of the Year runner-up.

Baseball fans have been quick to forget about the 24-year old, who missed most of 2019 due to injuries, but I foresee him coming back strong in 2020.

The 2nd duo of cards is very similar to the first in that there are a Leather & Lumber die-cut and a Topps Archives parallel. The major difference is that I've been collecting cards of Randy Johnson and Starlin Castro for years whereas I only made Soto and Andujar official the other day.

While I admire Panini's boldness in creating a surplus of insert sets for the Leather & Lumber release, sometimes, simplicity rules, and that's exactly the case with the 2 cards above.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Benchmarks die-cut is a great card, but there's something about the purple parallel Starlin Castro card that I love. Maybe, it's the combination of the green background with the dark purple border.

Because the card shows I attend are only 30-45 minutes outside of Boston, vendors usually make an effort to sell Red Sox singles no matter what else they feature at their booths. In addition to selling base sets and singles from all the new releases, this vendor has stacks of Red Sox cards at his table every time I visit the show.

Whether I'm looking for a superstar from today's team (Martinez; please stay) or the past (Garciaparra), I can always count on there being a wide range of inserts, parallels, and numbered cards priced fairly.

Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers were responsible for carrying the Red Sox offense as well as the entire team throughout the 2019 season. As disappointing as they were, who knows how much worse Boston would've been if not for these 2?

Because of their respective stellar seasons, I've been taking virtually every chance I get to boost the Bogaerts and Devers player collections; this includes a fabulous Xander Finest reprint from 2014 or a rookie card of the 22-year old from 2017 Topps Inception.

In addition to a brand new rookie class (no more Ryan O'Hearn or Cedric Mullins!), I'm excited about 2020 Baseball cards in that there will be cards available of guys like Fernando Tatis Jr that aren't rookies.

I've been picking up Tatis Jr singles whenever I can since I firmly believe that he has the most potential out of everyone in this years' rookie class. Once 2020 rolls around, however, I'll be able to add numbered cards to my collection without breaking the bank.

Until then, there are a few more releases in 2019 that I'd like to get my hands on (Update, Gallery, Bowman's Best), so I'm going to get my fair share of O'Hearn's and Mullins' in the meantime.

The light at the end of the tunnel, however, will be the first 2020 product where there won't be an RC symbol next to Tatis' name. Then, I can officially begin "super collecting" the 20-year old phenom.