2019 Bowman Chrome Hobby Box Break

It's that time of year! The time when I randomly get an email from UPS telling me that a package is going to be delivered to me in a few days, and I start to wonder what the heck it is. I ponder for a minute and then I remember that it's the box of Bowman Chrome that I pre-ordered months ago. It's become somewhat of an annual tradition for me: Sometime in the summer I pre-order one box of Topps Chrome and one box of Bowman Chrome, and it becomes a nice little surprise a few months later.

This year, Bowman Chrome took a different route with Hobby: 

• A standard Hobby Box is referred to a "Master Box."
• The Master Box contains two Mini-boxes (broken out in the two pictures below).
• Each Mini-Box contains 6 packs, 5 cards per pack, one auto.
• 12 packs total, 60 cards, two autos.

The cover artwork features a man who crushed his 50th home run last night. And Fernando Tatis' son.

On to the highlights:

Sam Hentges Chrome Refractor /499. Hentges is a 23-year old lefty who spent the year in AA with the Akron Rubber Ducks, the AA affiliate for the Indians. He finished the year with 5.11 ERA. 

(L) Tommy Wilson Purple Refractor /249. Similar story to Hentges. 23 years old, spent the year with the Mets AA affiliate, the Binghamton Rumble Ponies. 4.96 ERA.

(R) Garrett Whitlock Purple Shimmer. #27 Prospect in the Yankees system. 

Brandon Bielak base auto. #11 prospect in the Astros system, and seems to have some good upside. 11th round pick out of Notre Dame in 2017. He was pitching in AAA this year, so his arrival may come sooner than later.

Blaine Knight Refractor Auto #/499. #16 Prospect in the Orioles system. This 23 year old weights in at a whopping 165 pounds, so he could certainly add to his 6'3 frame. He was a third rounder in the draft this year and from what I've read, a live arm.

So there we have it. Overall, this was a fun break. All of these cards will be going directly into storage and I'll revisit them down the road. Unless you hit a unicorn, that's the attitude you have to have with Bowman Chrome. Store them away and revisit in a few years. Patience is a virtue in collecting. I've learned that the hard way, like the time I flipped a Giannis rookie relic in 2014 just to reimburse the cost of the repack I found it in. Man... what I would give for a 5-year rewind with that one.

2019 Topps Chrome Hobby Box Break

A few months back, I placed a pre-order for one 2019 Topps Chrome Hobby Box and one 2019 Bowman Chrome Hobby Box. This has become somewhat of tradition for me. I always place the order a few months in advance, I forget about it, and I'm usually pleasantly surprised when I get a UPS notification about a package shipping.

The Topps Chrome box just showed up yesterday and I was able to dive right in. 

My card collecting peak was 2013-2015 and for that reason, I really miss full borders on Topps Baseball cards. Starting in 2016 they moved away from borders and now they take the images right to the edge of the card. Minor complaint, just a matter of preference.

In the spirit of being picky, the Last Name-First Name format is an interesting call. I can't recall the last time that Topps went this direction. Not something I really care about, merely an observation. 

Overall I'm a fan of the base card design. It's clean, and there's half of a border. We'll take it!

Kicking us off is one of the most promising young pitchers in the game. Man, I hope this kid pans out and recovers well from Tommy John. There's no reason to believe he won't. I've found myself pulling for the White Sox because I really want all of these prospects to pan out. They committed to the rebuild 110% and it would be nice to see that pay off.

I was lucky enough to pull three Pirates - and they're all over the map. This is only my second Colin Moran card, the other is his rookie auto from 2013 Bowman Chrome when he was donning a Marlins jersey and a clean shave. Kevin Kramer is still in the wings as one of the next-up AAA prospects and will likely be up next year. 

My two autos, both Rookies. Certainly nothing that will blow me away - but this box wasn't a total loss. Ryan Borucki is a new name to me. As a Pirates fan I very rarely catch any AL baseball unless they're on national TV... hence why I haven't seen a Jays game all year. Brad Keller is more familiar to me because I've streamed him a few times on my fantasy baseball team. He's been acceptable or better for KC and seems to have a future in the MLB. I'll hold onto these two and hope for the best.

These two are arguably bigger "hits" than the two autos. Full transparency, I actually had no idea that the card on the right was a refactor until I took this picture. Nailed it!

Really happy to see the Polar Bear show up twice. I'm pulling for this guy and hoping he's here to stay - I'd hate to see a sophomore slump. The Mets are starving for a bonafide slugger like him. 

Anddd this is officially a Mets box and that's quite alright because this a sweet card. You have to love when a parallel color blends perfectly with the team colors. Nothing like black or gold parallels for the Pirates, blue parallels for Dodgers/Rangers, red parallels for the Cards, etc. etc.

This card is the perfect example. It's numbered to 25, and according to my research, this is a photo variation.

Overall, a nice little break. Thanks for reading!