2017 Bowman Draft Baseball Preview

Topps’ Bowman brand is always about the up-and-coming rookies and young baseball prospects. And as it highlights the players chosen in this year’s draft with their first MLB-sanctioned cards, 2017 Bowman Draft Baseball is approaching this year’s talent in a big way.

More to the point, in a jumbo way.

2017 Bowman Draft Configuration

Topps will be offering collectors two kinds of boxes of Bowman Draft Baseball when the product is released in early December — a regular jumbo box, and a super jumbo box. The regular jumbo will have 12 packs, with 32 cards per pack for a total of 384 cards. On the average, each pack will contain 23 base cards, seven chrome base and two chrome base refractor parallels. Topps is promising three autographs per box.  Expect pre-sale pricing to open at around $125.

The super jumbo box will have five packs per box, with 120 cards per pack. The jumbo pack breakdown: 78 base cards, 33 chrome base, eight chrome base refractor parallels and one autograph card. A super jumbo box will yield a staggering 600 cards. Topps is promising five autographs per super box; price range will be in the $175-$200 range, depending on the retailer.

2017 Bowman Draft Base Set

Just like the regular Bowman set, Draft Baseball will have paper and chrome cards. Each will consist of 200 base cards, focusing on 2017 draft picks and other prospects. With the amount of base cards per pack, proper collation should allow many collectors to complete the paper base set. The chrome set, as always, will be a little bit tougher.

Paper card parallels will be issued in silver, purple (a new addition), blue, gold, orange (limited to jumbo boxes and numbered to 25), red (numbered to 5) and 1/1 black. Chrome parallels will include hobby jumbo exclusives like Sky Blue and Orange (numbered to 25). Other parallels are in purple, blue, green, gold, red (numbered to 5) and 1/1 SuperFractors. An additional parallel is called Bowman 70th Logo.

There will be image variations to chase but we won’t know more about that until the product arrives.

Autographs

Autograph cards continue to be the lure for collectors who buy Bowman product. As a collector, it is great to open a pack with an on-card signature, and this year’s draft picks will have their autographs hard-signed on their cards in the Chrome Draft Pick Autographs set.  Parallels will include regular refractors and those colored in purple, blue, green, black (numbered to 75 and a jumbo box exclusive), Bowman 70th Logo, gold (numbered to 50), orange (25 and another jumbo box exclusive), red (5) and 1/1 SuperFractors.

The Class of 2017 Autographs will be a case hit in both jumbo configurations, with subjects limited to first-round picks from the 2017 draft. All-America Game Autograph cards return again. These cards include signatures from players when they were in high school, which in some cases might have been several years ago. The cards were signed during All-America high school showcase games. There also will be 1/1 gold framed parallels.

Inserts

Inserts will include one old standby and two new subsets making their debut in 2017. MLB Draft History will pay tribute to the early playing years of retired baseball legends. There also will be hard-signed autograph variations numbered to 99 or less. Bowman Defining Moments is self-explanatory, as the insert recalls the play that sparked a memorable career; there also will be autograph variations (hard-signed) numbered to 99 or less. Recommended Viewing shows off two prospects from the same franchise.

Finally, the jumbo boxes will have Top of the Class box toppers. These are large chrome cards that will be numbered and limited only to 2017 draft picks. There will be parallels, too: gold refractors, numbered to 50; red, numbered to 5; and 1/1 SuperFractors. There also will be an autograph variation in an orange parallel version.

2017 Bowman Draft baseball is scheduled to be released the week of December 6.

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About Bob D'Angelo

Bob has been a sportswriter and copy editor for more than 35 years and a blogger for a decade. He is celebrating his 50th year of card collecting, and still counts his 1965 Topps Mickey Mantle as his favorite. You can reach him at [email protected].