Today marked Checklist Release Day for 2018 Topps Heritage, which will be out this time next week (February 28).
Heritage has quickly become my favorite release of the year due to the variety of parallels, relics, and autographs that it delivers. The product does not deliver many autographs (an average of 2-3 per case, but I pulled five in my case last year), but when it does they are usually a great hit.
While the #AllRise Aaron Judge fever turned the hobby into gold mining in 2017, we could see similar pandemonium in 2018 with Shohei Ohtani, especially as we are now seeing Heritage case prices reach and exceed the $1,500 threshold.
Fortunately, I pulled the trigger early on two cases at $800 each (I actually missed $735 prices by one day before they rose). Those prices are looking like a bargain at the moment.
Back to the checklist. We all know Ohtani is here in autograph form as well as a non-Auto card. Today, we found out Ohtani will be in the set as an action parallel. He will not have a card in the 1-500 master set as expected. But this is a Cubs blog, so enough about Ohtani.
The base 1-400 set features 16 Cubs cards. Here is the rundown:
20 – Anthony Rizzo
43 – Jon Lester
63 – Ian Happ
80 – Kris Bryant
106 – Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant
107 – Kris Bryant
126 – Jose Quintana
171 – Javier Baez
241 – Addison Russell
247 – Willson Contreras
264 – Carl Edwards Jr.
268 – Kyle Schwarber
288 – Jake Arrieta
297 – Cubs Rookies (Taylor Davis, Dillon Maples, Jen Ho Tseng)
362 – Kris Bryant
368 – Jason Heyward
Reviewing Base Cubs Checklist
Not many surprises here. The Rizzo/Bryant card #106 will likely be a Bryzzo card which has become popular…and I’m not complaining. The Cubs get the triple rookie card as opposed to the dual rookies. Our trifecta truly shows we are no longer in the Rookie sensation phase. Again, this is a good thing when the Rookies of yesteryear are now Bryant, Schwarber, Russell, Baez, Happ, etc. my only complaint is Jake Arrieta, when it’s long been known he would not be in Chicago in 2018. However, Arrieta remains unsigned even today, so there is nowhere else to put him and being one of the game’s top pitchers Topps has to include him. So, all in all this is an A+ team checklist.
High Number Short Prints
The Cubs get five players in the 100-card short print portion of the set. They are as followed:
403 – Ben Zobrist
411 – Albert Almora
423 – Kyle Hendricks
430 – Wade Davis
455 – Drew Smyly
I do have an issue with 40-percent of this checklist. First off, Wade Davis isn’t a Cub, and wasn’t expected to resign. He signed with the Colorado Rockies at the end of December, likely two weeks past the Heritage deadline for players that switched teams. So, I get it, but don’t like it. Drew Smyly is a surprise addition here as he will likely not throw a pitch in 2018 due to injury. Overall, a solid B. The short print checklist as a whole for 2018 is much weaker than years past.
There are several parallels and inserts featuring Cubs players. Overall, I like the Cubs checklist and looking forward to receiving my two cases.
For the full 2018 Topps Heritage checklist view it HERE .