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.

A Plethora of Prizm + My New Crazy Goal

Following a successful hobby box break of the newly-released product, I decided to move forward with my plans to open a few more packs of 2019 Panini Prizm. 

The 25+ parallels, the inclusion of retired players in the base set, and the sleek set design allows for me to look past the missing logos, to a certain extent, and appreciate these fabulous cards. I can only imagine how much more popular this set would be among collectors if Panini had the MLB license.

I went the retail route for my 2nd Panini Prizm purchase when I bought a mega box at my local Target. In addition to 10 base packs with 4 cards each, each mega box delivers 2 packs of exclusive pink parallels as well as 1 autograph (on average). 

It's also worth noting that I passed up the opportunity to purchase Bowman mega boxes that same day as I saw around 15 of them, appearing to be freshly-stocked, at Target as well. However, having already pulled the 2 biggest mojo cards, I didn't foresee myself getting lucky with a valuable refractor or autograph.

Besides, out of the 50 cards in a Bowman mega box, only the 10 mojo cards have a respectable chance of being valuable. I didn't want to take my chance on a few of the 10 cards out of 50 being sellable, so I went with Prizm instead of the highly sought after Bowman mega boxes.

With 10 base packs of 4 cards each per mega box, this purchase allowed me to inch closer towards completing the 300-card set. While some base cards, thanks to the irritating tier format, are more common than others, I was still able to find a reasonable number of cards that I need from the checklist.

For those of you who are not familiar with 2019 Panini Prizm, the checklist is separated into 3 different tiers; cards 1-100 are the most common, 101-200 are a bit more uncommon, and cards 201-300 are the rarest. 

This makes the problem of the coalition within Baseball card sets even worse, for I am already pulling duplicates of low-numbered base cards while I'm not even close to acquiring all of the cards #201 and above. 

Given the fact that every card in this set has over 25 different parallels, the last thing that Panini should do is divide the checklist into tiers and make cards less common than others. As a whole, this process seems extraordinarily unnecessary.

Surprisingly, despite the seemingly endless number of parallels within this set, I still managed to pull not 1 but 2 duplicate refractors in my mega box break. Having already pulled A.J. Pollock and Nicholas Castellanos red parallels in my hobby box, I quickly listed these cards as a 2-card lot on eBay. 

Nonetheless, given that there are over 8,000 total parallels within this set (26 times 300 equates to roughly that number), I really shouldn't have ended up with 2 after breaking 1 hobby and 1 mega box.

Thankfully, the same can not be said regarding the blue parallels as I pulled 2 that I didn't pull in my initial Panini Prizm break. Both of these refractors are well-crafted, especially. as far as non-numbered parallels are concerned. 

Nonetheless, the more packs that I open, the more certain I am that the blue parallels are my favorites. There's something about the bold color of the blue refractors that pops more so than the red cards. 

Although I can get a sense of how common the cards are if I open enough packs, I do wish that Panini would include pack odds just as Topps does. That way, I could get a better idea of how common or rare some of these parallels really are.

The silver parallels, seemingly rarer than the blue and red refractors, are highly desired in Panini Prizm Basketball and Football, as far as I know. They must hold some sort of value or significance in the Baseball product as well, for each hobby box explicitly states that 3 silver parallels can be found per box on average.

Because the Prizm mega boxes are roughly 1/3 the cost of a hobby box, it stands to reason that one would find 1 silver in this retail-exclusive box. Those odds appear to be correct, for I pulled 1 silver in my break; an Ozzie Smith card, a member of the 3rd and rarest tier. 

As I mentioned earlier, each mega box delivers 2 4-card packs of exclusive pink parallels, 1 of the many refractors within this insane product. Upon seeing these parallels, both in-person and on the computer, I'm beginning to wish that the pink refractors were featured across all Prizm formats, not just mega boxes.

While colors like red and blue have become increasingly common parallel colors in Baseball card products, pink is something I haven't seen in any set beside the rack packs of Topps Chrome. 

Panini products, including Prizm, desperately need bright, bold, and colorful cards to distract collectors from the fact that they cannot use team logos, uniforms, or even team names. 

The pink-bordered cards, in my opinion, do a superior job at covering up the logoless uniforms than both the red and the blue parallels.

Similar to the pink parallels, the Carolina blue refractors are exclusive to the mega box format of the 2019 Panini Prizm set. However, unlike the pink-bordered cards, the Carolina blues don't come in a designated pack or 2. Instead, they are incorporated throughout the mega box base packs.

While I appreciate Panini's effort to include a wide variety of different parallels, I feel like they could've chosen a color besides Carolina blue given the fact that there are 2 other blue parallels within the product (blue and hyper blue prism). Instead, an orange parallel or gold mojo would've been a better choice.

Going into this box break, I didn't know what to expect as far as serial numbered parallels are concerned. I've since seen mega box breaks in which collectors have pulled 0 or 1 numbered refractor, so I'm grateful to have landed 2 in my box break.

The blue mojo Eddie Rosario is a beautiful card of an underrated player, but the high print run of these cards is beginning to make them a bit less special. My personal favorite would have to be the neon orange donut circles parallel of Travis Shaw, serial numbered out of just 150 copies.

Come to think of it, I'd have to say that the lime green and neon orange donut circles cards are my favorite parallels of the entire Panini Prizm set. The cards themselves are busy and beautiful, and the respective print runs, 199 and 150, are perfect as it allows me to cherish and appreciate these gorgeous refractors much more.

While each mega box technically "averages" 1 autograph, I've never seen or opened Panini product in which you receive less than the average number of hits. My 2019 Panini Prizm mega box was no exception, for I landed a Carolina blue autograph parallel of Ty Buttrey, a reliever for the Angels.

Although the autographs are undoubtedly beautiful, I have no intentions to collect or even keep these cards unless I land a big name (Vladdy Jr or Tatis Jr, most likely). Therefore, I quickly listed all 4 autos that I've pulled from Prizm thus far on eBay in an effort to make some money back on this set.

I did fairly well with this mega box break even though I didn't pull anything insanely special. I had a ton of fun opening the packs and familiarizing myself with the wide selection of different parallels. 

I enjoyed this box break for all the reasons that I enjoyed the hobby box; the cards are beautiful, the parallels are crazy, and it's an incredibly enjoyable set.

Thus, it is for all of those reasons that I've decided to attempt the unthinkable and nearly-impossible. I haven't enjoyed a product quite as much as 2019 Panini Prizm before in all the years that I've been collecting, so I've decided to build a "master set" of sorts for this sensational product.

While this won't include inserts or autographs, I intend to build the rainbow for every single card in the 300-card set, excluding parallels numbered to 10, 5, and 1. 

More information on this unimaginable mission can be found on the new 2019 Panini Prizm project page, located near the header of my blog.