Waiting for Wander Franco has been tough! The No. 1 baseball prospect in 2020 and 2021 finally got called up by the Rays last spring, and Topps held him out until 2022 Series 1! I AM A HUGE rays fan — I was at their very first win in 1998! I’ve collected a bunch of Wander Franco cards already, but this is his first Topps card in his Tampa Bay Rays uniform! He's the biggest young player to come up for Tampa Bay since Evan Longoria in 2008. Made my wife watch his debut game last year. She wanted to know if he was going to kick a touchdown.
There are 330 cards in this set, and some of the other top rookies I'm looking for include:
-Gavin Sheets
-Emmanuel Rivera
-Bryan De La Cruz
-Vidal Brujan
-Conner Wong
-Tyler Gilbert
-Jarren Duran
-Reid Detmers
-Wander Franco
-Brandon Marsh
-Jackson Kowar
-Jake Meyers
-Matt Vierling
Did you know that Wander Franco's 2022 rookie base card has the RC logo and the Topps All-Star Rookie Cup, so he joins Rafael Devers, Alex Bregman and Yordan Alvarez (who was famously held out of the 2019 series so he could be in Series 1 of 2020) with that double-designation.
This set is missing Oneil Cruz, SS, Pittsburgh, unfortunately.
It does have tons of Veteran Stars, though, also:
-Shohei Ohtani
-Mike Trout
-Fernando Tatis Jr.
-Vlad Guerrero Jr.
-Ronald Acuna Jr.
-Mookie Betts
-Juan Soto
-Luis Robert
-Bryce Harper
If you are like me, collecting cards and investing on a budget, then make sure you subscribe to this channel as I share tips like this.
You can read my Card Collecting articles on TheAthletic.com, and you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram: @DavidGonos
Have a #HappyHobby!
