First Look: 2015 Bowman baseball cards
By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor
Bowman is getting bigger.
Topps revealed the first looks at 2015 Bowman baseball cards on Thursday with one new inclusion that could pique the interest of prospectors — a deeper lineup.
Bowman will now include 150 Chrome prospects when it arrives on April 29 and as many as 60 players will sign for the one-per-box Chrome prospects cards.
The basic set also will change with 120 veteran cards and 30 rookies — each with nine parallels Silver, Purple, Blue, Gold, hobby-only Orange (/25), Red (/5) and 1/1 Black cards going along with 1/1 White Ice and Silver Ice versions.
Parallels for the Chrome and Chrome prospects will include standard Refractor, Purple, Blue, Gold, hobby-only Orange (/25), Red (/5) and 1/1 printing plates and Superfractors. There also will be Wave Refractor Hot Packs inserted into boxes.
Among the insert card sets will be Bowman Scouts’ Top 100 — a prospect-ranking set — with diecuts, diecut Orange parallels (/25) and 1/1 Superfractors. Also to be found will be The Farm’s Finest Minis of top players with nine parallels (Purple Shimmer, Blue Shimmer, Gold Shimmer, Orange Shimmer, Red Shimmer and Superfractors … and also autographs for Orange, Red and Supers). There will be Rookie Recollections cards with the 1990 Bowman set getting showcased with Refractor, Gold, Red and Super versions to be found.
Other autographs in this one beyond just prospects will be found in five sets. Chrome Rookies will have six versions (Refractor, Blue, Gold, Orange, Red and Super), while Sophomore Standouts will have Gold, Red and Black versions. Also to be found are Dual autos, Bowman Black autos and All-America Game autos. Serial-numbering on many of these sets was not announced.
For memorabilia cards, there will be Futures Game Relics limited to just 25 numbered copies.
Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball and Beckett Sports Card Monthly magazines. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.
It seems like almost every set is trying to go with a futuristic design and I don’t like t
Why would we get more excited about a deeper prospect checklist? It sounds worse. Only a small percentage of prospects actually make any sort of career in the big leagues and Bowman usually does a good job of covering their bases. By adding more low rank prospects just wastes more paper and makes our odds longer of pulling players that will be relevant.
So, there’s 40 more minor league prospects but 70 fewer major league players in the set. That doesn’t make me happy. Was there any breakdown of how many base, prospects and chrome per pack?
I agree with previous posters. A deeper line up of prospects just means worse odds of getting a solid prospect. There just aren’t that many legitimate prospects at any given time to get excited pulling an autograph of the 60th best prospect.
Does this mean that Rodon, Toussaint, and other top draft picks won’t be in the 2014 Bowman Draft auto checklist? If so then that totally ruins both products because by that time the excitement of the 2014 draft is gone. However if not the design looks promising and another pretty good auto checklist is waiting for us!!
Thanks Chris. This looks really nice. As usual, I’ll do a box or two (or 3 or 4), swap for any Phillies, then hold the rest for a couple of years to see who pans out. I just hope that the players pictues are not the same as in other products. At least give us that with all the parallels (which I like) in this and other products.