Collect call: 2011 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects baseball

Posted Dec 4, 2011 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated Dec 4, 2011 at 07:02 PM

This is the time of year when baseball fans — and baseball card collectors — look to the future.

Yes, it’s the hot stove league, and in addition to trades and free agency, rookies and prospects enter into the discussion.

That’s why it’s the perfect time for Topps to release its Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects set. The formula and design have stayed consistent, but this year there is a new twist as members of the 16U national team are included.

The hobby box is adorned with a fantastic, expressive shot of Mariners pitcher Michael Pineda. However, Pineda is nowhere to be found in the set, an omission that has occurred at least twice to my knowledge, once with an Allen & Ginter set.

A hobby box contains 24 packs, with seven cards per pack. Two of those cards are chrome cards — a rookie and a prospect. There are 110 base cards, 90 draft picks and an additional 20 cards depicting members of the 16U national team.

A strange quirk involves the prospect card of Kolten Wong, who is listed as card BDPP90 on the checklist but has the number BDPP91 on the back of his card. I didn’t get the national team card of William Abreu, who was supposed to be card No. BDPP91 (the chrome parallel card is No. 91), so I can’t say with 100 percent certainty if the number was repeated or if he is No. BDPP 90. If I had to guess, it would be No. 91.

The box I sampled had 47 base cards, 60 prospect cards and 11 of the 16U national team. There were 22 chrome parallels of the base set, 22 of the chrome prospect parallels and two chrome parallels of the 16U national team players.

Rays prospects in the set include outfielders James Harris and Mikie Mahtook, third baseman Tyler Goeddel, shortstop Jake Hager and pitcher Taylor Guerrieri.

Of note is a first-year card of Dante Bichette Jr., the 19-year-old son of the former major-leaguer who is a New York Yankees prospect. I recall the senior Dante Bichette playing for the 1986 American Legion national champions that represented Jensen Beach Post 126.

That South Florida squad was managed by former major-league pitcher Bob Shaw and that year played its home games 20 miles south of Jensen Beach near Bichette’s hometown of Jupiter. The newspaper in Stuart I worked for covered them that season, and Post 126 would go on to win the southern regional in Anderson, S.C., before winning the World Series tournament in Rapid City, S.D.

Another player on that Post 126 team who made it to the majors: pitcher Joe Grahe, who played seven seasons in the major leagues after starring at the University of Miami.

Nice trivia, but it also makes me feel old.

Now, back to the product.

There is one Bowman Chrome autographed card in every box, and the box I sampled was no exception. This one had a little bit more sizzle than normal, since it was a refractor card of Cubs prospect Daniel Vogelbach, numbered to 500. Vogelbach, from Bishop Verot High in Fort Myers, was listed at 5-foot-11 and 280 pounds when he posed for his card. He has since lost 40 pounds, but his hitting still evokes memories of Prince Fielder.

It’s an on-card autograph (no sticker here), and that is definitely a plus.

There was a second refractor card in the box, a chrome prospects card of pitcher Joseph Musgrove, numbered to 199. A third card was an aqua parallel card of pitcher Chance Ruffin, numbered to 499.

The biggest prize in this set is bound to be Nationals prospect Bryce Harper, and there is a 1 of 1 red parallel autographed relic card that is bound to be a most coveted card. In addition, there are green autograph relic parallels numbered to 5, with gold versions numbered to 25 and blue to 50.

The card designs are simple, but the black borders on the base set and prospects means that collectors must be wary of chipping. Many of the prospect cards have facsimile autographs on the front, beneath a photo that leans toward action shots but still has many stock head shots. It’s not a negative thing, however.

Again, a solid year-end set. While there are not a lot of sizzle cards, this set contains plenty of potential. One never knows if a player is going to be a star or a bust, but this Bowman set gives collectors a chance to grab a rookie or prospect card.