Did Anybody Care About 2020 Bowman Heritage?

Life's been a wee bit too lifey lately, so I haven't had the time to finish any of the 7 stories I've started in the last two months. This one seemed to be the quickest to finish, and it was only started in late August. It'll be a more straightforward review than I usually do, I'm not even going to Whatever it. That would have involved a lot more scanning and three more weeks I don't feel like burning.

2020 Bowman Heritage

I first read about 2020 Bowman Heritage last Winter. With 1992 Bowman ranking high in significance to my collecting history, I was very interested in a 2021 tribute. (I'm still planning on a grand 1992 Bowman Whatever someday. Started it over 4 years ago now...) However, 2020 Bowman Heritage would be an online only release, with a strict limit of 3 boxes per order. Some other Topps rules and clubs and stuff I don't care about were involved, but I figured that finding this product on the secondary market could be fairly elusive. 

Back in April, 2021, an open box appeared at my beloved LCS! The packaging was even more attractive than the online preview I saw months earlier! I had to have some! 

Not the exact packaging, as my nearly mangled 1992 Bowman wax box shows, but a good job as a tribute.

I bought 5 packs and was pretty happy with what I pulled. Hoped his stock didn't sell out too quick, as I wanted to buy some more packs before they were gone. Luckily, his customer base wasn't nearly as into a 1992 Bowman tribute as I am. I made it a habit to pick up between 1-5 packs, on each visit, depending on whatever else I was buying. In total, I probably bought around 18-20 packs, between the two boxes he had, over the span of a few months.

I loved the 2021 twist on the product, while keeping the spirit of the 1992 set. Although I do wish Topps would have gone a little more gimmicky as a throwback to notable 1992 Bowman cards.

Like this great 1992 Bowman card of Expos prospect Cliff Floyd, dunking a baseball. If I had a say in Bowman's card design, a prospect (like... say... Triston McKenzie?) would be replicating this photo.

Also, why are there no high school senior photos showing up in the set? There were seemingly hundreds of them in 1992 Bowman... Which is rather unfortunate, even though everybody hated them, you wouldn't have 1992 Bowman without them. 

How about extra-fringe Expos prospect, Rick Hirtensteiner! (I don't think I've ever seen another Hirtensteiner card.) Hirtensteiner appears in the 1992 Bowman Special Engraved Foil subset. Which is just a part of the regular set, with several rumored short prints, creating a slight degree of difficulty in completing the 705 card set. Which I did back in the day, almost entirely from reasonably priced Jumbo Packs, from the local WalMarts.

For 2020 Bowman Heritage, the Special Engraved Foil subset cards are replaced by Chrome paralells. That makes sense for today... And there's only 250 cards in this set, this time around.

Topps should have also made some effort in duplicating that foil etching, through some sort of design embossing thingies on the border. Another small touch that would have called back to 1992 Bowman.

But 1992 Bowman didn't have Refractors of varying colors and serial numbered scarcity. Regular Silver Refractors are all numbered to 199. Which is pretty low, and reflective of the overall print run of Bowman Heritage.

Of the packs I bought, they produced three Silver Refractors. One Padre and this pair of Rays.

According to the stated wrapper odds, these fall at a rate of 1 in 8 packs. I bought more than 16 packs, but less than 24 packs, spread over two boxes. So those odds check out, even if it wasn't all from the same box. Digging deeper into these numbers show that there are 150 cards in the Chrome parallel set. With Silver Refractors comprising 199 copies of each of those 150, for a total of 29,850 cards. 

If those 29,850 cards are placed at a rate of one in every 8 packs, that means 238,800 ten card packs of 2020 Bowman Heritage were produced. That comes out to 9,950 boxes. Gets a little trickier if you try to figure out the ratio of base cards to inserts and parallels, in order to try to calculate how many of each card was printed. So I'm not even going to try that level of math. I'm not claiming my numbers are 100% correct, but you get the idea.

When compared to a lot of today's releases, there simply isn't a whole lot of 2020 Bowman Heritage out there.

But I did get a decent amount of the base Black & White parallels.

Which I kind of liked.

Only 100 veteran players are included in the set. Meaning most teams get 2-3 cards of their biggest names.

Unless those teams had a number of 2020 "Rookie Cards". Which are the usual crop of rookie card names appearing in every Topps set, every year. A few quality players that will go on to productive careers, but a whole lot more flame outs, included just to pad the totals.

At least I pulled a 2020 Bowman Heritage Rookie Card of the 7 Foot Hippie. Unfortunately showing more signs of flaming out due to injuries, than becoming an All Star. I really hope I'm wrong there...

Of course the real draw with any Bowman line is the the prospects.

Andrew Vaughn went from a high first round 2019 draft pick to a full productive rookie season with the White Sox. He wasn't an instant superstar, but showed he belongs there.

Whereas the higher touted Jo Adell has struggled greatly at the Major League level. Still showing promise, still needing some work. For his sake, it's good the Angles didn't have near the expectations that the White Sox had, going into 2021.

Alek Manoah was a top prospect, but his performance in 2021 went above and beyond what even Toronto could have predicted. Especially since fellow top prospect, Nate Pearson’s season was pretty much lost to injury. The Blue Jays would have had nowhere near the success they did in 2021, without Manoah.

To get something similar out of 2019 first overall draft pick Adley Rutschman, next season, would have to please the Baltimore Orioles. Yet to make his Major League Debut, Rutschman’s stock improved greatly with an impressive season in AA and AAA. 

Also improving his stock with a major leap forward in the 2021 minor leagues, was Elehuris Montero. The key player acquired by the Colorado Rockies in the Nolan Arenado trade, posted a .278 / .360 / .889 slash line, with 28 home runs in exactly 500 plate appearances between AA Hartford (CT) and AAA Albuquerque (NM). This (along with a pleasantly surprising 2021 season from Austin Gomber) makes me feel slightly better about that terrible trade. 

Twins fans (like myself) are still waiting to see when/if Royce Lewis will have any sort of impact for the team. Between Covid and injuries, Lewis has now missed the past two seasons of development time. With as poor as the Twins performed in 2021, it’s easy to say that had he been healthy, we could have seen Royce Lewis getting his feet wet at the Major League level, this year. Had he not missed the entire 2021 season, Lewis could have been penciled in as our starting shortstop for 2022. With any luck, he should make his debut next season, and hopefully become our shortstop by 2023. But all of that lost development time definitely hurts.

Or he could flame out completely. 

In case you hadn’t figured it out from the samples I’ve included here, all of the prospects appear in Photoshopped Major League uniforms, painted over their minor league jerseys. 

Here is Royce Lewis in his 2019 Pensacola Blue Wahoos uniform. Covid also affected 2021 Topps ProDebut Minor League set. The game photos are from 2019 (for the most part), with all 2020 draftees appearing in the same Photoshopped Major League uniforms, on a 1991 Topps design. ProDebut is similar to 2020 Bowman Heritage in that the print run is obviously lower, given the higher percentage of serial numbered hits.

Both in 2020 and 2021, I picked up Jumbo Boxes of Topps ProDebut (with ProDebut also including Chrome parallels, but only in the Jumbo Boxes). Each box yielded a decent amount of numbered Refractors, in relation to base. Offering a higher bang for the buck in a lower print run product that isn’t widely received. 

Let’s get back to 2020 Bowman Heritage...

In addition to the 3 Silver Refractors (numbered to 199), I also pulled 2 Blue Refractors, numbered to 99. Neither are top prospects, but both are nice looking cards.

And one Orange Refractor, numbered to 25. 

Which is a pretty decent haul for the less-than-one Hobby Box I opened. I didn’t pull an autograph, but according to the odds, I really shouldn’t have expected to.

Now I’ve gone this far into the product review and I’ve barely mentioned any Minnesota Twins content! 

Well, if you don't count Royce Lewis...

The 2020 Bowman veteran checklist only included 2 Twins. Eddie Rosario (which I pulled, but didn’t scan) and Jose Berrios, (No Byron Buxton? BOOOOOOO!) Neither of whom finished the 2021 season in Minnesota. Rosario wasn’t resigned after the 2020 season, and spent the 2021 season split between the Indians and Braves. Berrios was traded to the Blue Jays for Austin Martin and Simeon Woods-Richardson, in July 2021. Both of those prospects didn’t appear in 2020 Bowman Heritage.

So there’s not a whole lot of Twins in the set...

But here’s one (kinda) that I’m pretty excited about!

Tampa sent Ryan to Minnesota, in exchange for Nelson Cruz, last July. The Twins insisted on getting Ryan in exchange, as their scouts saw something in him that worked for us. At the time of the trade, Ryan was in Japan, pitching for the Team USA at the Olympics. Assigned to the St. Paul Saints, after returning to America, with a silver medal. Ryan pitched well for the Saints, and was called up to the Twins in early September. He started 5 games with Minnesota, giving up 16 hits an only 5 walks in 26.1 innings, striking out 30. Finishing 2-1, with a 4.05 ERA on the season. His ERA was actually in the mid-2's, until giving up 6 runs to the Tigers in his last game.

Regardless, Joe Ryan stepped up to look like a big piece of our 2022 rotation. I read that both the Oakland A's and San Diego Padres were interested in trading for Nelson Cruz. No idea who they offered to Minnesota, but Ryan definitely looks like a keeper for us. And it'll be nice to see Nelson Cruz get a nice October run with Tampa.

Hopefully, last year’s World Series breakout star gets another chance at a better end result this year. I’m sure hanging around a professional hitter like Nelson Cruz will only help Arozarena. Just ask Miguel Sano! Although, Miguel Sano never stole home in a playoff game...

Heheheheheheh... I just pictured that...

Tampa’s seemingly never ending pipeline of minor league prospects produced yet another pitcher slated to help in the playoff run. A few years ago, the Rays absolutely fleeced the Pittsburgh Pirates in getting Tyler Glasnow (who became the Rays ace, before catching a case of Tommy John surgery), outfielder Austin Meadows and Shane Baz for their old -fading- ace, Chris Archer. (Then they re-signed Archer this year anyways.) 

Whenever I hear a Twins fan lamenting how cheap and poorly run they believe the team is, I always bring up the Pittsburgh Pirates. I can’t think of any other organization that consistently proves their disdain for their fans, when it comes to putting a decent product on the field. (Well, maybe the Colorado Rockies...) 

Pittsburgh wishes they could be Tampa Bay.

Who could blame them, when your organization keeps producing talent like this?

We’ve been waiting on Wander for seemingly years now. That wait finally paid off last June when the Rays brought Franco to the Major Leagues. He quickly proved he belonged. That record tying on-base streak shows he’s going to be a name in both the hobby and game for years to come. And that few months of Nelson Cruz mentorship should go a long way in helping him adapt.

During most of the weeks that I was buying packs of 2020 Bowman Heritage, this was my biggest hit. I'd hoped to pull an autograph, but odds on those were pretty tough. I did get a regular base Franco later on, but I wouldn't have thought anything special of this card, had it not been reversed in the pack. Very cool! Even though the photo variation short prints fall only 1 in 12 packs, this could be a pretty decent card in the future, given the overall lower run on this product. 

And it's off-centered, that's the perfectly appropriate tribute to 1992 Bowman!

Hoping for an extended post season run for Tampa, led by Wander Franco doing his best Randy Arozarena impression.

If you couldn’t tell by the way this product review turned at the end, I'm all in on the Rays winning the 2021 World Series.

That way, the future Montreal Expos will have a World Championship in their history!

And the other 9 teams to make the post season all rank in the range of "really don't like" to "I hate that team!"

With heavier emphasis on teams I really hate...

Like I said, for most of the Summer, the Wander Franco short print was my biggest 2020 Bowman Heritage hit. On August 28, 2021, I returned to the card store and found just three packs left in the box. Previously, I'd requested to have the empty box once it was sold out, so I could use it in this story. But with only three packs, it just made sense to buy them.

I'm glad I did.

2020 Bowman Heritage Glenallen Hill Jr. Superfractor!

In all my years of buying Bowman (starting even BEFORE 1992), I'd never pulled a Superfractor from a pack. There have been several 1 of 1's in my past, but never a Superfractor. Granted, at 1 in 1,526 packs, the odds were significantly better than most Bowman releases, but it's still one of the coolest things you can get as a collector. And even though it's a Diamondbacks card, this will now hold a special place in the collection. More so than most, it will not be up for sale. 

You don't forget your first!

And I would absolutely buy more of this stuff.

GO RAYS!!!