What Comes Out of a 2013 Bowman Retail Rack Pack? Pack Breaking and Ruminating

The answer is......"cards of mostly unrecognizable figures in the major leagues as card companies continuously to inundate us with a checklist of prospects to cash in on the next big thing."  Xth Round Draft Picks and Top 100 prospects are all the rage and have been for some time in this hobby.  As one of many different kinds of collectors, I can tell you one thing, it is always tantalizing to invest in the upside of the little known and well regarded rather than the well known with varying degrees of being regarded

I was an avid Bowman collector for years because there's nothing more satisfying than discovering a player and making him a part of your collection for the most inane and irrational of reasons, you pulled the first card of that player out of a pack.  Usually though, there were other explanations, that gave you the need to collect a player and seek out their cards, maybe something normal like team association or something visceral like photo selection or something greedy like value in the monthly Beckett's of old.

Let's see where these cards rank on the scale of collectability; all cards scanned are from a 2013 Bowman retail pack, the peak of buying a set for one player, Yasiel Puig (spoiler: none were Yasiel Puig).

Steven Moya: I heard of him recently (definitely not in 2013) since he appeared on the 2015 top 100 prospects by some publication or another.  Even though is an international parallel, which is special and brings back great memories of 1998, his skill set does not give me something to dream on (8:1 K:BB ratio) The choice is No.

Wade Hinkle of the Angels organization is a complete unknown.  Is that how big 1st baseman's mitts are? It looks like a catcher's mitt.  He's still in AA at the age of 25, so not a prospect in the traditional sense.  Also, purple parallels were a bad gimmick for this product to get me to buy a pack.  I blame the marketing department of my house. The answer is a No.

Vance Worley was a well-known name considering that he was a fun Phillie to watch during 2011.  Somehow he kept on making people strike out looking.  I just wanted to point out the horrific airbrush job when he was traded to the Twins during the offseason.

Adeiny Hechavarria is a slick fielding shortstop with the Marlins, so two strikes against him.  The other one is spelling of his name; I can't remember how to spell it, so I can't collect it (Same reason for Jeff Francoeur(sp) when he first came up besides the obvious of being a Brave that challenged Ryan Howard for the NL ROY award).  No.

Roman Quinn is an exciting player, and I'm not just saying that because he's a Phillie prospect.  If he ever can stay healthy, I see him as a Michael Bourn type, which are fun to collect and watch when they;re on your team. Yes.

J.O. Berrios has the most original initials combination ever.  He's a young guy in AAA with potential flamethrower capabilities. He had some great stats this year in terms of K/9 and BB/9.  Someone to keep an eye on with a great cutter grip....Yes.

Patrick Kivlehan is a complete unknown to me, but he apparently has both power and speed capabilities.  His stats remind me of a young Corey Koskie, though with less of a batting eye.  He is a semistar in cardworld in the making, also a Seattle non-star gets lost these days, plus there's dust in chrome scans....No.

Well, that was an interesting exercise.  I think my favorite aspect to consider when looking at collecting a player is speed and fun (from either the pitching or batting side).  Though this would mean I would also collect Billy Hamilton and Dee Gordon, which has not been the case.  Maybe visceral reactions to the card is the overriding factor after all.