The New Kids

A #CrackinWaxMailDay from @CrackinWax serves up some Bowman Draft youngsters. 

 

Let me just say that I don't get the adoration for Bowman Draft from certain corners at all. It's the third prominent release using the same Bowman design each year, and by this point we're all a bit sick of it. It does tend to feature the first cards of the latest draft class, but... let's face it, this is a prospectors set and nothing more. I did buy into a Bowman Draft break from Crackin' Wax despite my general apathy towards the set because it's my burden as a team collector. Let's check out these cards on the already familiar design.

People tend to only care about the "1st" cards in the set, so we'll deal with those... first. Austin Love was a third round pick, one of the traditional college pitchers that the Cardinals tend to pick.

The 2021 draft was far enough off in the distance by the time these cards came out that none of these guys have names that rang a bell for me. McGreevy was the Cards top pick, but again... college pitcher. Prospectors hate pitchers. I'm apparently not going to get rich off of a stack of Michael McGreevy Bowman 1st's.

Ryan Holgate was a "Competitive Balance Round B" pick, which is sort of like the old "sandwich pick", except that he would be more like something that fell out of the sandwich or went on the side of the plate, like a bag of chips perhaps. Round B happens after Round 2, where Round A occurs between Round 1 and Round 2. I'm not sure if this strange draft structure will continue when the next CBA is agreed to, but that's what we had for 2021.

The Cardinals 2nd round pick, Joshua Baez, didn't make it into the set. I have no idea how Topps decides to make the checklist for these sets, but I know that not all of the top draft picks end up in the mix.

Of course, the Bowman Draft set is not all about firsts. Here's the rest of the team set. Jordan Walker was last year's top pick. Ivan Herrera is quickly ascending the Cardinals prospect ranks. Malcom Nunez made his debut in Bowman Chrome this year.

As usual, there are Chrome versions and refractors of each of the players in the set. Here's one of the refractors.

Bowman Draft also has inserts this year, which surprised me a bit. I didn't end up with any of the inserts, however. At the prices that Bowman Draft usually commands, I don't anticipate buying any more of the stuff, but at least I've got a good chunk of the team collection down.