Shiny Luck

A look at the new 2022 Panini Prizm baseball set from a @mikeyBcards group break. 

 

Panini's Prizm set is always one of the most anticipated releases of the year... except in baseball, of course. The lack of a league licensing agreement leads to logo-less cards and tends to turn a lot of people off, among those who aren't already pro-Topps and anti-everything else just for the sake of following the most iconic brand. I still think they produce some decent looking baseball cards, and they often can be found at a more affordable price than other options.

I signed up for a group break over at Mikey B Cards for a bunch of Prizm boxes. It was my second break with these guys and they seem to a pretty solid job at what's usually a thankless task. It also helps that their prices are extremely competitive.

Even though this is technically the first 2022 Prizm product, the design follows the template from the 2021 NFL and 2021-22 NBA sets. This was initially a bit confusing to me, because the design is extremely similar to last year's design. In other brands that span multiple sports, the baseball design is often the template that is followed, but that isn't the case here.

Prizm is known for its "silver" parallels like Nootbaar's card here. In other sports, these can be very expensive. The silver parallels originally were among the most common variants available, but apparently due to their demand over the years, Panini has made them a bit more scarce.

I ended up with three blue parallels in the break (versus the one silver). Adam Wainwright is really working the geometry here.

I'm already started to get sad about the prospects of no Yadi cards in future releases. I'm sure he'll end up being a featured retired player in certain sets at some point, but I don't think he's ever been a big autograph signer. If this is it for him in the baseball card world, he's had a good run.

Prizm has inserts, of course, because this is a Panini product. I think this is where the lack of an MLB license really hurts, as none of these designs really do it for me.

I think I like the Star Gazing card, but the giant stars and large font don't leave a lot of room for the player.

This break turned out to be a very successful one for this Cardinals fan. This is a silver parallel of Dylan Carlson's Debut Signatures autographed card. I am hoping that Carlson's offense takes a big leap forward next season, because I like the other things he brings to the field.

Lastly, here's a pair of Juan Yepez autographs. Yepez was the almost-hero of Game 1 of the Cardinals Wild Card round. That game came to an extremely painful end, and the ramifications were felt in the team's listless loss to close out the brief series the following night. Rough!