Series 2 and 2023 Topps question

 Yesterday while at Wally World, I finally spotted some Series 2 cards in the wild and was able to purchase a blaster. Then, my wife went to Target today, and although I didn’t tell her I wanted any more, she found some at Target and got me 5 loose packs. I think I’m good with Series 2 right now. Kind of don’t want to jinx my run of having more Series 1 that 2, and plus, if any luck is in the future, the complete set will be in stores at the end of July and I’ll have all of the Series 1 and 2 cards (so long as the idiot flippers don’t get to them). 

The blaster on Friday was pretty fun. I got a few Rays, no Tigers, a huge batting helmet manu-relic that I don’t know what I’m going to do with, and some fun inserts. 

That Senzatela card is shiny!  Ill have to pick a day for Ohtani and try to win a parallel. I think I have decent odds. Might have to wait until a week or so after the All-Star break. Don’t want to do it the next few days because the All-Star Game has to be close, and after the game I’m not confident with a player finding their swing again so quick after being off for a few days and possibly participating in a HR derby. The Robert Luis card is very thick. Probably like 4-5 regular old jersey cards thick. No way that is fitting in a page or a sleeve. I’ve never really liked many-patches or the White Sox anyways. The pale hose are just another team to prevent my Tigers from winning the Central. The Arozarena card is a Chrome version and looks great. I do have a problem that those inserts (and the ‘52 Topps ones last year and Turkey Reds the year before that) have Chrome versions. Why can’t they just put those inserts in Topps freaking Chrome??  I don’t need a Chrome version of an insert next to my base Topps cards in my binders, then a few Archives cards, and then a few Topps Chrome cards next to that (I sort my cards by years, alphabetically by set name). It would just look silly, and then anyone looking at them would be like ‘why don’t you put all of the Topps Chrome together?).  Kind of like how Bowman has Chrome cards in packs and then an actual Bowman Chrome set. Kind of pointless. Back to the cards, the Baz and Lowe cards might be worth something in a few years. More importantly, if they are, that will probably mean they are producing good numbers for the Rays. I hate how good the Yankee$ are playing right now, but hopefully something will happen before the end of the season and maybe they will play a sharp Rays pitching staff. Perhaps Cole will get an injury and miss the postseason, maybe combined with one to Judge or Stanton. Maybe a PED suspension. Whatever. I don’t care. Then the Rays will have McClanahan as a #1, Rasmussen as a good #2 hopefully with a little more experience under his belt, Baz as a #3 with great potential, slot a healthy Kluber as #4, Patino healthy as another option. Maybe Glassnow will be able to ramp up his coming back from surgery and be available as a starter or the very least a bullpen option. If the right things happen, the Rays could make noise in the playoffs, and certainly have a nice 1-5 rotation next year with say McClanahan, Glassnow, Rasmussen, Patino, and Baz 1-5, with the potential for the back 3 guys to develop into #2 type guys, and perhaps Baz becoming ace material. 

The cards I got today packed the same kind of punch as yesterdays. 

Got a few Tigers with Skubal and the team card. I don’t know why, but I confuse Skubal and Turnbull and can never remember which one is which. I need to watch more Detroit games. The Haase card is a rainbow. I kind of wish they would’ve just gave him the catcher job and let him hit 20-30 HRs and let his game calling progress instead of signing Barnhardt and letting him hit .200 but call a good game to AAA guys replacing injured guys. Tigers may have been in the playoffs hunt this year without the injuries, but they would’ve been there without Barnhardt, and you would’ve gained 20 HRs at least from Haase and opened up a corner OF spot. I got another Franco card (I guess it’s good business by Topps to put the guy selling the product on 15 cards in the base set. Expect 8 more in Update), and cards of KK and the other Lowe. I pulled a Gold card for the 1st time this year of a Twin (their names don’t matter. They are just another team trying to take the Central from Detroit), and a Green card of Nick Ahmed. I think I did pretty well in the parallel department with Series 2 so far. I got 3 favorite players with Paul DeJong, Casey Mize, and Michael Taylor. The last 2 cards are HR Challenge cards of Matt Olson and Jose Ramirez. I actually pulled an Olson HR Challenge card out of series 1 picturing him as an Athletic. I wonder if I choose the same game for both cards if they both will picture him with Atlanta. Should I choose the same game and double or nothing with 1 to try to get the lower numbered parallel or do I try 2 different games?  All told, I have 4 chances to win with 4 HR challenge cards (2 Olsons, Ohtani, and Ramirez). 

With series 2 being out for a few weeks, that puts questions in my head. The past 2 years, we would be coming upon the first images of the next years Topps set. With Fanatics running everything, I would find it hard to believe that the 2023 base designs would arrive this early, but you never know. I think maybe sometime in October or November would be realistic, but you can be sure I’ll periodically do a 2023 Topps search on Google to try to find it before it hits the blogs I read.

Hope you enjoyed my series 2 pulls. If you see anything that fits your collection, reach out to me. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy