Topps has issued their first World Baseball Classic cards that can be found in packs this past week. Last week Topps released the 2017 Bowman set. This set includes a 150 card "Paper Prospects" insert set (which is 50 cards more than the 100 card base set) that features top prospects of the MLB teams. It also contains five cards of players on their WBC teams. Four of the five players are from Samurai Japan - Takahiro Norimoto, Tomoyuki Sugano, Yoshitomo Tsutsugo and Tetsuto Yamada. The other player is Korean pitcher Yang Hyeon-Jong.
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| 2017 Bowman "Paper Prospects" #BP97 |
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| 2017 Bowman "Paper Prospects" #BP98 |
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| 2017 Bowman "Paper Prospects" #BP62 |
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| 2017 Bowman "Paper Prospects" #BP56 |
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| 2017 Bowman "Paper Prospects" #BP141 |
There is a "Chrome" version of each of the cards as well as various different color parallels - blue, red, yellow, orange and gold.
It's a bit strange that the only WBC cards in the subset are from Japan and Korea but most of the potential prospects from the WBC who aren't in MLB organizations are from Japan and Korea.
It's kind of odd though that the first WBC cards that Topps has issued this year (other than the Topps Now and TBT cards that could only be bought on-line) are part of a larger subset rather than a subset dedicated to players from the tournament. It will be interesting to see if this continues in other sets the rest of the year.
