Low on Luck

Last season, there were about 9 rookies that were, in their own right, Rookie of the Year caliber players. These 8 position players (Devers, Hoskins, Andujar, Torres, Ohtani, Acuña, Albies, Soto) and 1 pitcher (Buehler) created a buzz surrounding both the game as well as virtually all Baseball card releases.

These 9 stars plus a few other respectable players highlighted one of the greatest rookie classes in MLB history. Furthermore, 2017 featured several big-name rookies, particularly sluggers Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger.

Though a reasonable part of this hobby has to do with luck, the past few rookie classes featured so many stars that it became a little easier to pull monster hits out of packs, both hobby, and retail.

I certainly had my fair share of luck when it came to 2017 and 2018 products, and a significant portion of that luck was thanks to the sensational rookies. Last year, in particular, was unbelievable in terms of the incredible cards that I pulled.

My luck in the past is a major reason as to why I'm disappointed with my wax purchases in 2019. Topps and Panini have featured the big 4 rookies (Eloy Jimenez, Vlad Jr, Tatis Jr, and Pete Alonso) in almost every product, but I haven't come up with a major hit or even a numbered card of any of these guys so far.

I'm not sure if the pack odds are making things more challenging or if my luck's run out, but 2019 hasn't been great as far as hits are concerned. Don't get me wrong, I still love the products that I purchase and the cards that I pull. It's just weird that I haven't had much luck when it comes to hits.

This hasn't stopped me, however, from buying retail and even the occasional hobby box, like I did with this blaster of 2019 Panini Donruss Optic.

The most important factor is what I think of the set and its design, but I also take into account whether I'll get my good luck back when I purchase a box of cards.

Now that Panini Prizm Baseball seems to be back for good, Optic needs to do a lot to impress me enough to purchase even a rack pack. However, I opened some Chrome at The National, and Heritage High # has never yielded anything worth mentioning, so Optic seemed like the best bet when I was at Target earlier today.

Part of the reason why I chose Optic is that I'm a sucker for chrome cards. Each year, I'm captivated by Topps Chrome not out of the possibility of pulling a big-name auto because then I'd be buying boxes of every single set. 

Rather, Topps does a phenomenal job with Chrome every year, no matter what the Flagship set looks like. Panini does the same thing with Optic, though I've never been too fond of any Panini Donruss base set.

If nothing else, the base cards allow me to add to my player collections and give me a chance to form an opinion on Optic, a set I haven't opened in over 2 years.

Unfortunately, when it came to that major hit/parallel that I've been chasing all year, I fell short once more. I was hoping, if nothing else, to pull one of the better Rated Rookies from this set, but the best I could manage was Ramon Laureano and Jake Bauers.

Still, the Rated Rookie logo is so reminiscent of the late 80s and early 90s Donruss sets, so these cards have more going for them than your traditional Laureano and Bauers rookies. 

As I mentioned earlier, with Prizm Baseball making its return, I have even less of an incentive to purchase Optic which is part of the reason why I bought this blaster. I wanted to give this product another chance to impress me before I commit to Prizm from here on out.

I appreciate that Panini featured Rated Prospect cards in this set, but I can get chrome prospect cards in Bowman's Best, one of my 2 favorite releases of the year. Though the price point between the 2 products is drastically different, so is the value of the cards.

I will admit that the inserts grabbed my attention, mainly because of how they add a much-needed break from the white borders of the Optic base set. The Mythical cards aren't too special; they're just pretty). 

The MVP insert set, on the other hand, showcases previous MVP winners on the team that they won the award with. Seeing Josh Donaldson on the Blue Jays reminds me of how dominant he was a few years back, just like when I saw someone pull a Pedroia insert from when he won the 2008 AL MVP award.

In addition to 6 regular packs with 4 cards each, the Optic blaster delivered an exclusive 3-card pink parallel pack. Maybe I'm tough on this set, but the pink refractors were the only part of this blaster that impressed me. 

I've always said that the best thing Panini can do is distract me from the fact that the cards are unlicensed. The pink parallels did this for me in the 2019 Optic set, and I'm sure there are plenty of other refractors that do the same in this product.

Unfortunately, I'm simply not willing to spend money on another Optic blaster, let alone a hobby box. Maybe I should've gone with the value pack ($10 for 16 cards) which promises 4 lime green parallels since I love these refractors so much.

Panini did a fabulous job with Prizm this year, and I can't wait to get my hands on some Chronicles. Even if I've been low on luck when it comes to hits, I've learned which products I want to purchase in the future while collecting cards this year.

As beautiful as the parallels are, Panini Donruss Optic just isn't one of those sets.

2019 Panini Donruss in a Nutshell

I initially had zero plans to recap or give my thoughts on the 2019 Panini Donruss product, but I've witnessed a few different bloggers share their opinions on the set over the last few days. Alas, I figured I'd join the party and summarize the set in a nutshell based on the blaster box that I opened last month. 

2019 is the 6th straight year that Panini has released their revived attempt at the Donruss brand, and it's become increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the set designs. I will say that this year's design has a bit more personality, and I'm fond of the throwback-style Donruss logo in the top left corner.

The no-logos almost go hand-in-hand with Panini products, and I've honestly grown accustomed to the absence of team names and logos. Truth be told, my main problem with Panini Donruss has never been the fact that Panini doesn't have the MLB license. Rather, I have issues with the product itself.

As I alluded to earlier, I purchased a blaster box of 2019 Panini Donruss last month, a decision that didn't seem right from the start. There's far more value, oddly enough, in the value packs rather than the blaster box.

I could've gotten far more cards for the same price had I bought 4 value packs instead, but the promise of 8 exclusive parallels in the blaster appealed to me, so I bit the bullet and tested my luck in an effort to sample what this product has to offer.

The set design is probably the best that we've ever seen from this product, but that's not saying all too much. It's more of a modern take than what we've seen in the past, thanks to the diagonals in the top left and bottom righthand corners, but the respective team colors are still profoundly featured. 

I realize that Panini can only use the city name, but I'm struggling to understand the reasoning behind the faded city name and position at the bottom of the card. If Panini can't mention the actual team name, the least they can do is make the city name and player's position a bit more noticeable.

Like the 2018 release, this year's Panini Donruss set is variation-centric as they tend to fall at roughly 1 per pack. However, unlike the helpful hint (white baseball vs black baseball) that indicate which cards are variations in 2018, no such indication exists on this year's card backs.

Because of that, I've been relying on the COMC set checklist when adding some of these cards to my online PC inventories. Cards that seem like regular base cards, as it turns out, are actually variations.

All it would take is a subtle change, but I wish that Panini would've done something similar to what they did in 2018 as it pertains to distinguishing the variations from regular base cards.

Card backs have always been a major weakness of Panini, but I actually like the ones from this year. The orange/yellow color is reminiscent of the card backs from the classics cards in the 2018 Chronicles set. 

As always, Panini could have utilized the space much better, and I spot a couple of places in which they could include a little detail to separate base cards from variations.

This year's Diamond Kings cards are in the style of the 1985 Donruss set as Panini continues to recreate the Donruss base sets from the 80s as part of their product, beginning with the inaugural release in 1981.

The '85 Donruss set is extremely underrated, for it makes excellent use of black borders which can be a daunting task. While Panini did a stellar job with these cards, the card backs could very well be some of the worst that I've ever seen in my life.

Starting in, I believe, 2015, Panini made an effort to recreate previous Donruss base set designs initially released in the 1980s. This year, it's 1985's turn, meaning we finally get to see black borders on Baseball cards once more. 

While they weren't perfect in recreating the set, I do appreciate the effort and, nevertheless, I really do cherish these cards. I didn't end up with any major names, or, come to think of it, any guys that I collect, but I included a few of the nicer ones above.

Even though this year's rookie class isn't too strong, 90% of the '85 cards that I pulled were rookies, including 2 different ones of the same player, the April 2019 AL Rookie of the Month, Brandon Lowe.

As promised, I received 1 8-card pack of blaster box exclusive parallels. However, I soon noticed that there were 2 different types of parallels featured in the pack. I won't go over each and every card that I pulled, but I will give an overview and show the highlights. 

The first type was a holo purple parallel, a cross between the rainbow foil cards of Series 1 and a traditional parallel card. I pulled 4 of these but didn't end up with anything notable. 

The highlight was likely an '85 card of a player I can't seem to remember more so because of how much I like the '85 cards rather than how cool the purple parallels are.

It's not that I dislike the purple foil parallels. Rather, I just didn't end up with any cool cards. The 2nd group of exclusive cards, the rapture parallels, were definitely my favorites.

From the moment when I first laid eyes on these distinctive rapture parallels, I was incredibly impressed. Here, there are a creative and interesting group of parallels available as a retail exclusive that totally distracts me from the fact that these cards have no logos. 

I'm not sure if these rapture parallels exist for base cards in addition to inserts, but the 4 cards that I pulled were all some sort of insert card. The Dominators of Miguel Andujar is perfect for the parallel while the Kershaw is an excellent PC addition. 

However, it was the Juan Soto Nicknames card that gets my vote for not only my favorite parallel but the best card of the entire blaster box. Because I opened the exclusive parallel pack first, the Soto insert parallel was the very first card I pulled. 

From that moment on, nothing else could match this colorful, inovative, and interesting card. I guess that's part of the reason why some elements of this product disappointed me; it started off on such a high after I pulled the Soto card.

All in all, I wouldn't rule out 2019 Panini Donruss entirely. There are some fabulous elements, like the 1985 cards and these funky parallels, but Panini missed several opportunities to make this set more user-friendly. 

I fully expect to see 2019 Panini Donruss in the dime bins for months and even years to come, and I won't stay from it completely. 

I'll just have to remember to check every single card that I buy online to see if it's some sort of variation or not.

My First Non-Baseball Post

As someone who has always focused solely on Baseball cards, I've never ventured out and explored the products available for other sports. In addition to the MLB, I follow the NFL and NBA quite a bit, though not as much as Baseball. 

I've spent the last couple of weeks concentrating on MLB predictions, so I hadn't thought to write my first ever non-Baseball post until today. While purchasing some dime cards at my LCS a couple of Saturday's ago, I, for the first time in my life, purchased a box of Basketball cards.

The card shop had a mega box of 2017-18 Panini Donruss Optic available for a reasonable price. The high-caliber rookie class of this season along with the promise of 10 packs and 4 cards per pack captivated my attention. 

I have some knowledge of the Panini Donruss Optic and Prizm products, so buying this mega box as my first Basketball card purchase of all-time made logical sense. Not only is it always exciting to open packs of cards, but I was also ecstatic to see what Panini cards would look like with licensing rights.

I've always believed that Panini is capable of doing an excellent job with their products, especially if they can show team logos and names. This helped to make this box break even more exciting even though I didn't necessarily know what to expect from the box.

The base set, although visually appealing, isn't the focal point of the '17-18 Donruss Optic set. As far as the mega boxes go, the set focuses more on the Rated Rookie cards that appear at least twice per pack. By the end of the box break, I only ended up with around 7 veteran base cards. Rated Rookies, for comparison's sake, appeared over 20 times.

Although it's not a drastic departure from the base set design, the Rated Rookie cards make up a significant portion of the set. Like Topps Baseball card products, the value lies with the rookie cards and any colored parallels that you can pull. 

Fortunately, the red and yellow parallels in these mega boxes fall at approximately 2 per pack, so I was able to get a good look at the different cards that this product has to offer. Before I get to the parallel cards, I'll preview the different insert cards available in this set.

Centered around the theme of "Kings," this set features a couple of different subsets which explore that theme.

The most common of these inserts are the Court Kings cards, resembling the original Diamond Kings cards from the original 80s Donruss sets. If these cards are anything like the DK cards, 1 player per team should be represented in this insert set. 

Out of the 4 insert cards that I pulled, Ben Simmons is definitely the best name even though this card isn't (technically) from his rookie season. Kawhi Leonard's not as hot as he used to be back in San Antonio, but he's been playing pretty well, trying to lead the Toronto Raptors to the Eastern Conference Finals. 

While Court Kings seems to focus on the best players in the game, Rookie Kings honors the best rookie players from the '17-18 season. In a rookie class that featured guys like Jayson Tatum and Donovan Mitchell, John Collins wouldn't have been my first choice.

However, the 21-year old from Wake Forest is almost averaging a double-double with 19 points and 9.5 total rebounds in just his 2nd NBA season. He, along with Trae Young and their future 1st round draft pick, represents the future for the Atlanta Hawks organization.

The final of the 3 insert sets, Hall Kings, commemorates NBA legends that have been enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame, located roughly an hour and a half away from me in Springfield, MA. Although my knowledge of the NBA is somewhat limited when compared to the MLB, Julius Erving is a name that I certainly recognize.

Over the course of his 11-year NBA career for the 76ers, Erving accomplished a ton of different feats, including an NBA MVP in 1981 and a championship in '83. And while the 3 "Kings" sets look a bit too similar for my taste, I appreciate the fact that each set has its own set theme.

The holo parallels, appearing at roughly 1:5 packs, are more desired in the Panini Prizm product where I believe they're called "silver parallels." In Donruss Optic, however, they're not as sought after nor are they all too common, for I only ended up with 2 total; 1 veteran in Jimmy Butler and a Rated Rookie, Frank Jackson.

As I previously alluded to, the mega box-exclusive red and yellow parallels are the main attraction of the 2017-18 Panini Donruss Optic mega boxes. Averaging out at around 20 per box, these cards fall at roughly 2 per pack and feature all the big name rookies from 2 year's ago.

One of the bigger names from the '17-18 season, Lauri Markkanen was one of the many players that I desired out of this mega box. Along with his red and yellow Rated Rookie, I ended up with 19 others.

Obviously, not every rookie is a huge name or a top draft pick, so the majority of the red and yellow parallels that I pulled were lesser name players. This didn't upset me all too much, however, as I was able to land a couple of Boston Celtics, my favorite team.

Following a stellar season last year, expectations were high for the Celtics after LeBron's departure from the East. The pre-season predictions had Boston reaching the NBA finals with ease, but the road has been unexpectedly difficult. 

Now, with the Celtics currently occupying the 4 seed in their conference, it's going to come down to how well this team is able to perform as a whole once the playoffs come along.

Even with their being 20 red and yellow rookie parallels in this box, I wasn't able to land a prized Donovan Mitchell or Jayson Tatum Rated Rookie card. Still, that didn't stop me from landing cards of other talented rookies from this monster of an NBA draft, including the 2nd overall pick, Lonzo Ball.

The best rookie of the entire box, like Lonzo, also plays for the Lakers. However, unlike Lonzo Ball, he wasn't one of the top NBA draft picks coming out of college.

Aside from it being the best rookie card that I pulled from the mega box, this Kyle Kuzma Rated Rookie card will go down as my favorite card from the entire box. The parallel which is already extremely colorful is further enhanced by the bright Lakers jersey. 

Although non-numbered Optic parallels don't hold a super high value, I'll always associate this card with my first, but possibly not last, Basketball card purchase of my life.