2011 Panini Playoff Contenders Baseball Box Break Recap And Review

[Baseball Nut]

Collectors of Football and Hockey cards look forward to therelease of Playoff Contenders. These boxes provide great autographs and a strong base set of theveterans of the sport. Now comesalong 2011 Panini Playoff Contenders Baseball. While Football and Hockeyversions concentrate on first year rookies, the baseball version concentratesmore on the MLB draft selections making it more of a deep draft prospecting product.

Playoff Contenders Baseball falls into our premium cardscategory. Each box contains 24packs with 5 cards each with a promise of 6 autographs, 2 of which will beon-card.


Here are some of the cards we pulled.

Base Set - Draft Ticket

Sean Gilmartin, front and back, Travis Harrison



Dwight Smith Jr., Hudson Boyd, Kes Carter


Base Set - Season Ticket

Ichiro, Ryan Howard, Justin Verlander


Mariano Rivera, Jose Reyes, Prince Fielder

Prospect Ticket

Trevor Bauer, Danny Hultzen, Francisco Lindor


Cory Spangenberg, Javier Baez, Taylor Jungmann

First Overall

Gerrit Cole, Luke Hochevar

Award Winners

Dustin Pedroia, Chris Coghlan


Curtis Granderson, Andrew Bailey


Neftali Feliz, Tim Hudson

Future Stars

Matt Barnes, Jason Esposito, Dante Bichette Jr.

Winning Combos

Abel Baker & Tyler Collins, Anderson Feliz & Cristhain Adames


Andrew Chafin & Travis Shaw, Evan Marshall & Jason King


Josh Hamilton & Ian Kinsler, Justin Upton & Ian Kennedy


Legendary Debuts

Bruce Sutter


Numbered Parallels

Micahel Goodnight #/299, Lenny Linsky #/299, Josh Hamliton #/299


Larry Greene #/299, Logan Verrett #/99


Cameron Gallagher Artist's Proof #/49, Nick Ahmed Artist's Proof #/49

The Hits - Autographs

Lee Orr Draft Ticket Auto, Cole Green Draft Ticket Auto, Adam Morgan Draft Ticket Auto

Austin Hedges Rookie Ticket On-Card Auto, Larry Greene Rookie Ticket On-Card Auto

Shawon Dunston Jr. Sweet Signs #/99



Overall Look

The design of these cards kind of grows on you overtime. While Panini has secured alicense with the Players Association, they won’t be able to even try to obtaina license with the MLB for some time due to the League’s previous agreements. This translates into no team logos forthe established Major League players. That presents challenges from a design level. While the non-logoed studio portraits work really wellon the Season Ticket cards because of the added stadium background the appealof these photos decrease without background in the various inserts. It should also be noted that our veryapparent straight scratches on both sides of the Draft Ticket card fronts, bothbase and paralleled numbered cards, most likely due to machine damage. I have no idea if this is a releasewide problem or if we just got stuck with an isolated issue.

Quality and Variety of Players

It is important that you know that Contenders Baseball is adraft prospect product, not a rookie prospect product like other Contendersreleases. But it is a nicelyrounded mix of players.

Do the Hits satisfy?

The on-card autos of early draft picks and the sweet signscards are great. Pulling some ofthe Draft Ticket autos of late round picks (Lee Orr went in the 13th round ofthe draft) is a shot in the dark as far as determining value.

Will you keep coming back for more?

Probably not with the enthusiasm of other Contendersproducts, but if the look feels right to you and you want to take a chance onsome future players, you could easily buy multiple boxes.

Rating

3 1/2 out of 5

2011 Panini Playoff Contenders Baseball will be good fordraft pick prospectors. If futurereleases start to include actually rookie autographs, the customer base forthis product will increase and be more inline with expectations for a Contenders product.

More...

[cornwellfamily]

Wow, not really impressed. Hate the cheesy hiding of what Team this guys are on. Makes it look cheap. Autos not to much either. I say a C

[azdbacks1998]

Is the Trevor Bauer Prospect card available?