I haven’t done a Pack v. Pack in a while so I think it’s time to get into one again. I was at Target looking for other things (seriously, I wasn’t looking for cards… no really!) and I was in the check out near the cards and saw these two guys all by their lonesome on the shelf next to each other.
I kind of figured they are like family and this is a time for family. Hopefully it’s a time when you get along with your family but that isn’t always the case. There’s bound to be some cousins, like these fellas, that don’t get along. Or maybe they get along but they get a bit too competitive. The next thing you know the egg nog flows a little too much, there’s an amateur wrestling match on the living room floor and the tree collapses…. None of this has actually happened to me or my family by the way.
Anyway, let’s get into our “friendly” or “family” game and see who comes out on top.
Pack 1 – 2018 Topps Series 2 Jumbo
This was one of the barest packs I’ve gotten as far as All-Stars go. Especially for a jumbo. I would think that there’d be a few, and that’s literally all I got. I’m not counting the Stanton/Judge as two either. And I feel like part of me thinks calling Keuchel an “All-Star” is a little generous. Sometimes those in-between guys balance out though. But what I’m showing is here is all that I got from a base perspective. I did get a Cain and a Beltre you’ll see later.
The “Star” level seemed a little light two. These three, plus the DeJong “Future Star” below are what I considered that level. Encarnacion could be close as far as the “All Star” level, and I considered it but in the end left him here. There were a few others that I considered here but couldn’t make the case for them in the end.
Rookies, Future Stars, and the Rookie Cup are all a lot easier to determine. Heck, they are stamped that way so it takes the thought out of it for me. DeJong was my only Future Star/Rookie Cup and then my rookies were Kingery, Frazier, Sherriff, and Caratini
There were two inserts and two parallels in this pack. The inserts were the Frazier and the Beltre Legends in the Making that I alluded to earlier. As far as parallels I do like the Maurer rainbow parallel because I think that goes well with the design this year, but the other is great. The Cain parallel is numbered to 50 and that really carries this pack. Something like that can really put a pack over the top.
Pack 2 – 2018 Topps Update Jumbo
Pack two from 2018 Topps Update was chock full of good players. Of the three above I like the Verlander because it’s a record breaker-type of card. I usually like cards that provide some kind of nod to an achievement or record. I also like the Indians card because I think a lot of these cards came out great this year. And remember, that one counts as one “All-Star” so these packs evened up already in that regard.
There were nine total All-Stars in this pack. One of them I’ll reveal later on. This pack included the three above, a Jose Ramirez (individual card), Realmuto, Freeman, Machado, JD Martinez and then that one we’ll wait on.
I will say that a lot of these “Stars” I would be on the fence with. I think sometimes I have a hard time saying a rookie is an All-Star even though I know they look like they will be. But you just never know what is going to happen in a career and they could be one-hit wonders so-to-speak.
In this pack I had the three above, plus Bauer, Acuna (two of them), Ohtani, and Torres. A few of those guys we’ll highlight in the next section.
Another one I’ll highlight here are cards for my favorite team (the Mets) that I give points to. This was the only Met card of both packs and it was a guy who didn’t start or end the year on the team… Jose Bautista.
I like getting rookies as much as the next person. But I don’t like the double rookies. The “Rookie Debut” is being used to create yet another card to max out the rookies. From a Pack v. Pack game perspective it benefits this pack though.
The rookies continued with Ohtani and Torres. I also got the Salute card for Mike Soroka which doubles as an insert. The total rookies for this pack were at eight and included the 5 immediately above, plus Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Shane Carle, and the insert of Francisco Mejia.
The Jeter insert is the mystery All-Star from above. He’s not in the Hall of Fame yet. That’s my only way to distinguish that level (think if I considered Harold Baines there or something like that…).
But the gem here is the Short Print Variation of Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman. I don’t think that put this pack over the top, but it didn’t hurt. We’ll need to see if this can match the parallel numbered to 50 for the other pack.
The Final Tally
I have a feeling going into this there just more power to that second pack so let’s take a look:
Pack One (32 pts)
- Parallels: 2 (2 pts)
- Parallel #’s to 50: 1 (10 pts)
- Inserts: 2 (2 pts)
- Stars: 4 (4 pts)
- All-Stars: 4 (8 pts)
- Rookies/Future Stars/Rookie Cups: 6 (6 pts)
Pack Two (46 pts):
- Inserts: 3 (3 pts)
- Short Prints: 1 (3 pts)
- Favorite Team: 1 (1 pts)
- Stars: 8 (8 pts)
- All-Stars: 9 (18 pts)
- Hall of Famers: 1 (5 pts)
- Rookies: 8 (8 pts)
I guess the nature of the Update series these days is that it contains All-Stars, at a minimum Stars who left their teams and really a way to get all those rookies in packs. The Short Print Variation of a HOFer doesn’t hurt though.