2017 Panini Contenders Draft Picks baseball offers collectors the unique opportunity to nab cards of the stars of yesterday and tomorrow in their collegiate uniforms.
Most of the MLB players from the United States played baseball at the collegiate level for at least one season before signing with a team and beginning their minor league careers. 2017 Panini Contenders Draft Picks Baseball capitalizes on those moments for collectors.
This year’s product comes 18 cards in a pack and six packs per hobby box. 12 hobby boxes come in a case. Base cards come in three new parallels, Diamond Ticket (numbered to 15), Building Blocks Ticket (numbered to 10) and Fame Ticket (numbered to five).
Autographed cards represent the big draw in this product. Autographs are guaranteed one per pack, meaning that six will be in each hobby box or 72 in each case. At least two of those six autographs in each box are guaranteed to be on-card autographs. All the on-card autographs will be available with short-printed photo variations in addition to several parallel editions. Those parallels include Cracked Ice (numbered to 23), Playoff Ticket (numbered to 15), Championship Ticket (one-of-one) and Printing Plate (one-of-one).
Naturally, autographs are only as collectable as the players they belong to. This set doesn’t disappoint on that end. Top overall 2017 MLB Draft Pick Royce Lewis leads the list of first-round picks from June, and there are also several players from the top 20 prospect rankings included, headlined by Ronald Acuna.
The set isn’t limited to just prospects from the United States, however. International prospects like Luis Roberts are also featured in the set, depicted in their uniforms from their days playing in their native countries. Draft Tickets, Prospect Tickets and International Tickets autographs will also come in the four afore-mentioned parallel versions at the same rates of rarity.
To add further value to the set, it includes relic cards of MLB legends like Ozzie Smith and Cal Ripken, Jr. The players featured in Old School Colors are depicted in their collegiate uniforms with jersey swatches relevant to their college colors embedded in the card.
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The MLB Draft is unique because of its duration and the fact that many of the players selected will never don a major league uniform. 2017 Panini Contenders Draft Picks baseball is unique as well because of its depth of components and its celebration of college baseball.