Topps Locks Down Minor League Baseball
Posted by houstoncollector on November 30, 2009
In a bit of news that … isn’t as surprising as I might have thought originally, Topps has announced that they’ve received the exclusive rights to produce baseball cards for Minor League Baseball. They’ll have the rights to the team names and logos, as well as the Pro Debut logo, with the first set going to be 2010 Topps Pro Debut Series 1.
Here’s what I’d love to see: Topps Pro Debut Series 1 and 2 replacing Bowman and Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects. There’s little to no need for Bowman and DP&P with this license, since now Topps Pro Debut can be THE home of the pro debut, blah blah. I’d like to see series 1 and 2 have 2 chrome cards per set, say 1-110 and 330-440 or so. Then release Topps Pro Debut Chrome sometime in the summer with cards 111-329. Remove the ‘RC’ cards from Topps PD Chrome and Series 2 Chrome. Drop Bowman entirely.
What I’m afraid we’ll see: Topps Pro Debut Series 1-3, Topps Pro Debut Chrome, Bowman, Bowman Chrome AND Bowman DP&P. And all seven of the sets will be littered with prospect autographs that’ll never pan out.
I’m not against this move by any means, and I admit that none of us know what Topps is going to do with this. Given that they own baseball entirely now? Here’s what I’d do for products in 2010:
Base (3 series), Pro Debut (2 series), Chrome (base and Pro Debut, seperate sets), Topps Heritage (2 sets, counting high numbers), Opening Day (with some Minor Leaguers too?), Allen & Ginter, Attax, Finest, Triple Threads, Sterling (2 sets). That gives you 2 entry level sets, 7 lower-end, 4 mid-range, and 3 high end sets. I’d drop Ticket 2 Stardom and Unique, and would possibly drop one of the Sterlings. Anyone else have ideas?
Houston Card Collector 
Paul said
I wish Just Minors was still in the game. They were the best company at designing Minor League Baseball sets, but they didn’t have the best distribution.
I’d keep Bowman around and have it become the Pro Debut brand. Otherwise, I think your ideas are pretty good but I’d defer to someone who actually collects the high-end stuff on that segment.