Transcription
2025 Tops Chrome Baseball has been subject to a ton of criticism online since its release date. And honestly, it's very valid. The criticism Chrome Baseball is getting is very valid. And today, we have the stats to back it up. We have the official print run of Chrome baseball and it's going to shock you. Not for the reason I think you're going to you're going to believe though.
So, what is going on guys? It is Grip and Rip back here with another video for you guys today. Of course, before we get into the video today, let's plug the giveaway as usual. So, at 1 or 11,500 subscribers, we're giving away hobby packs. All you got to do be subscribed, like this video, turn on the post notifications and comment who went to the All-Star game for your favorite team. 11,500 takes home the packs. We'll announce the winner then. So, if you're brand new, hit that subscribe button. We make videos here every single day. And of course, join the Discord also down below in the description of this video. So, with that being said, let's get into it, man. Let's not waste any time and get into this one.
So, I guess story time first. Story time first. Today I went to Walmart and Target and they were loaded up with chrome. Loaded up with chrome. Target had about I would say 30 to 35. I didn't count. I'm just taking an estimate based off the boxes I saw there. And about Walmart, it's going to be about 25 to 30. Very similar stock to both stores. Again, didn't count them. I just looked at them and just made a a guesstimate really. Um, but the point is one, Target never stalks on Saturday. Today is Saturday. I'm filming this video Saturday night. Target never stalks on Saturdays. So, that tells me because Target typically stocks Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, somewhere in that little time period there. And obviously, Crumb came out Wednesday. So, I'm going to say they probably stalked on Thursday. Just a guess. Maybe Wednesday. Maybe Wednesday was the day. I have no idea. It's still sitting there. What? Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Three days later. Three days later. And I bet you if I go back there today, it's going to be just the same.
Now, Walmart, they can stock on Saturdays. I have seen it with my own two eyes. I have seen stocks on Saturdays. Could it have happened? Maybe. But the shelf was a little bare. So tells me that it wasn't like recently stocked. So I'm going to say probably Thursday for that stock as well realistically. Um, because there was a lot of stuff missing and like messed around with which again if you know restocks vendors you know organized things and things like that. So it it's been messed around with. So I'm going to say the stock was probably Thursday as well maybe Wednesday even. It's still sitting there.
I'll tell you man a lot of people called me stupid. Seriously, a lot of people called me stupid saying grip, you don't know what you're talking about. Crumb's gonna sell well. Sound the alarms. Sound the alarms. Grip was right once again. Not surprised. But today we got some math. So if you people don't like math, I apologize. But my good friend Corey aka on Twitter Slab Squatch Sportscard. So go give him a follow on Twitter. His at is wax matrix w ax m t r i x all one word. Go give him a follow on Twitter. He posts all the breakdowns, all the breakdowns of all the new product including Cro Marvel. I asked him, I said, "Corey, bro, can you somehow find out the print run of Cro Marvel?" and he did, which I might bring up in this video, maybe I won't, but to no surprise, it is significantly less than Chrome baseball. No shocker. But today we have packs, year-over-year percentages, base card percentages, and the real reason why Chrome is as bad as it seems.
So, let's start out with Print Run. So, we're going to go to 2020 first, work our way up. 2020 200 card checklist 106,664 per base card. 2021 220 card checklist 136,554 base cards in 2021 Chrome. This is important. 2022 the Fanatics Takeover started in 2022. 176,635. Yikes. Woo! 220 card checklist as well. 2023 220 card checklist as well. 154,491. So, they learned from their mistakes. Remember in 2020, no one bought those freaking boxes because of the conspiracy theory in the Well, it wasn't really a conspiracy theory. It was a fact that the short prints were not in the boxes. You guys remember that? And they the boxes of Chrome 2022 sat on the shelves everywhere. Yeah. They learned their lesson and they lowered the print run the next year. 2024 last year. 300 card checklist. 300 cards. 12264. So again lowered again which brings me to 2025. That is interesting. 120,682. M the lowest print run per base card since 2020. Yeah, crazy, I know. But that doesn't tell the whole story. Just because a print run is low like this compared to previous years, it doesn't necessarily tell the whole story. And I'll tell you why in a little bit.
Now again from our good friend Corey slab squatch sports cards. We're going to be going over production of packs and boxes year-over-year comparing this year to last year. This is also very intriguing. So we're going to start out. Let's see cuz I have these uh tweets bookmarked here. Uh we'll go we'll start with value packs. Obviously cheapest format. We'll work our way up because they're a little um not in order. So I have to find which tweet is which. But either way, 2024 value packs, aka blaster box packs, 6 million 92,742 last year. This year, 6,514,572, which is a 5.6% reduction compared to last year. So theoretically they made less blaster boxes than last year. Very interesting, but again does not tell the entire story. Again, now we're going to go to mega boxes, which last year, if you remember, they're called monster packs. This year they're called mega boxes. So when I say mega and monster, they're the same thing. So last year monster packs for the now newly named Mega Box 1 million 442,217 2025. Oh 2 million 440,760 which if you are keeping track at home is a whopping 69%. Nice number. Year-over-year, year overyear, 69% increase. Wow. Now, why is that? The Fanatic inclusive boxes, which he also adds in here. Additionally, Topps is introducing Fanatic's mega boxes this year, adding 210,560 more packs into the wild, which tells some of the story. But as you can see here, Mega Box production, no matter if it's the normal version or the Fanatics version, spiked big time. Spiked big time. Wow. Interesting.
Now, hobby packs 2024 2,775,528 2025 2,721,160, which is a minus 2% year-over-year. So, they minused 2% of the hobby hobby box packs compared to last year. Interesting jumbo last year 726,672 2025 777,000 552 which is a 7% year-over-year increase. So, they upped production this year of the Jumbos. And last, but certainly not least, you guys. You guys know I hate this format. And I'm going to give it my best yell. Break her to light. [Music] Scam breaker to light boxes. You guys know I don't like these for very obvious reasons and this just proves it. Last year breaker to light boxes aka packs. One pack a box. So box in this case equals pack. 30,010 last year in 2024. 2025 it gets even worse. 35,484 which is a 18% increase year over year. Yikes. As you can tell, you guys probably guessed it. What formats do breakers break the most? Jumbo and Breaker Delight. Do you find it pretty interesting how they upped the production of jumbos and breaker to light scams compared to last year? Yeah, proof is in the pudding. Do you guys remember that uh little phrase? Proof is in the pudding. Well, yeah. Proof is in the pudding. Numbers don't lie. Numbers do not lie. Just because the print run mathematically per base card is lower than years past, that doesn't tell the full story.
So, I saved the best for last. So, I did ask Corey. I said, "Why do these boxes just feel so watered down?" Because you would think if if the print run is is lower per base card, that shouldn't be the case. But there's an underlying little thing here that I'm going to read his word for word response because he can explain it way better than I can. He's the statistician. He figured out all the math. So I asked him why is it like this? And by the way, the print run does not factor in logo factor which we might re we might go back to that conversation when logo fractor comes out maybe. I don't really know. But I asked him that and here's what he said. I'm going to pull up the text message. I have the screenshot right here. The print run is not as bad as you may think, but there are reasons. Firstly, it does not fra uh factor in logo fractor, which which I said the print run of this year's base card. Of course, logo fractor is not out yet, so we don't officially know the actual official final print run of Chrome. But all then I said, "Well, I'd say certainly the 166 rookie autographs is a big problem in this," which he replies, which adds quite a bit more base, which he didn't respond to my logo or my 166 autographs. That's just a little comment I put in there. He's replying to the uh logo factor thing. So he says which adds quite a bit more base but they didn't release on for that in a couple different years. So I'm trying to compare apple to apples odds. So his calculations didn't add in by my understanding the logo refractor print run which is okay. He said there's also a lot more unnumbered refrators overall. That's an easy way to get the print run to go up a bunch without affecting any base numbers, which is a very good point. Look at all these unnumbered things. Ray waves, sepias, x fractors, tops fractors. It it it it's very interesting to see what Topps is trying to do here. And he says, also there's a shitload more common inserts than there were a few years ago, which is again a very good point. Same deal. Hundreds and thousands of more cards, base numbers untouched. So, the base production itself doesn't really tell you the whole story of ramped up production. End quote.
There you have it, folks. That is the underlying reason, my friends, my brothers and sisters of my great community. We figured it out. Cory figured it out. The real reason why Chrome is such a letdown this year, one in my opinion, is the 166 different rookie autographs. That's ridiculous. But that's aside the point. Let's talk parallels, though. The reason why Chrome sucks so bad compared to other years is because one, a bunch of different unnumbered parallels have now entered the loophole in this product. And secondly, production of inserts, just base inserts have gone up a lot. And there you have it. There you have it. That is the real reason why Chrome is underperform. I'm going to say the word underperforming this year. Not shocking at all. Absolutely not shocking at all. To see the print run actually go down was actually quite interesting to me because I thought it was going to be the exact opposite actually. But as you can see, 69% increase of mega box packs, which is in essence an increase of box production of mega boxes this year. That's interesting. 69% increase. That's pretty big number. Jumbo up 7%. Of course, I find it again, I find it very funny. The two boxes or actually the breaker to light scams, the two boxes that breakers like to open and sell the most received increases. H funny how that works, huh? Quite funny how that works.
So, to wrap this up, would like to give a big thank you to Slab Squatch Cards, Wax Matrix. Go follow him on Twitter. He don't have a lot of followers on Twitter. When this video goes live, I would hope a lot of you guys go follow him on Twitter. Go follow him on Twitter. Very good statistics account. And that's where I get all my information. Corey uncovered the truth. Corey today uncovered the truth of 2025 Tops Chrome. It's not that the base card production went up. It's just the unnumbered refractors and the base inserts received a very mighty big increase which waters down the parallels and waters down the autograph loot pool which at the same time tops in the biggest autograph pool in history this year 166 different rookie autographs. which is the largest rookie autograph checklist in Tots Chrome history. And there you have it. That is the real reason. So hopefully you guys enjoyed the video today. Again, very mathematical video, a lot of statistics, but I like these videos. I like these videos when we talk about it because it uncovers the truth. It uncovers the truth on tops playing mind games. Why I say mind games? Because here's the thing, and I'm going to make a video about this topic alone, really. But when you open your blaster boxes, and I watched my brother open one. My brother bought one the other day. Got got nothing. Absolutely nothing. A complete waste of $45. I saw a lot of sepias, a lot of ray waves, a lot of bass refractors, but nothing else. Nothing else. As a matter of fact, in a 28 card blaster box, I am willing to say about almost half of those cards were unnumbered refrators of some kind. That's very interesting to me. So, the real reason why Chrome is as lackluster as it is is the production of unnumbered parallels and base inserts. Again, last thing I'll say, proof is in the pudding. Numbers don't lie. Numbers don't lie.
So again, big shout out to Corey, Slab Squatch. That's a tongue twister. Slab Squatch Sports Cards. Go follow him on Twitter, Wax Matrix, and tell him Grip sent you on Twitter. Either way, now it's time, which I saved the Crow Marvel discussion for a later date because that video is a definitely an entire video again in and of itself. Crow Marvel. Either way, let me tell you about the P uh the sponsorships of today's video. Smacking the SeaGeeek links down below to both brands. Smack and Sunflower seeds 10% off your entire purchase. Link down below and in Target stores nationwide. So, if you want to try it out, Target, go buy a couple bags. 250 a bag. I just saw them today. Again, $2.50 a bag. Go give them a try. If you want to go buy more, use my code, get a little discount on the website, segeek.com, the official ticket marketplace of Major League Baseball. $20 off your first purchase only on segeek.com with my promo code grip and rip all word at checkout. And we will see you at the ballpark. We will see you at the ballpark. Next time you'll see me at the ballpark is August 23rd. August 23rd. Blink182 shirt night. PNC Park Pirates Rockies. Shouldn't really be a big crowd. So, you know, fine by me cuz a lot of the games I have gone to this year have been sellouts or close to sellouts. So, it's nice to go to a game where, you know, you could actually, you know, not a lot of traffic and, you know, not a lot of people walking around, you know, overcrowding the, you know, aisleways and things like that.
So, I'll tell you one thing, by the way, next year I think we're going to do a watch with Grip game. Now, what does that mean? I'm gonna be looking into at some point when the next year's tickets go on sale in in January, February, or or whenever it is. I'm going to be looking into getting like a group bundle of tickets. So, obviously, it depends on how many people want to go, but I I think we're going to do a watch with Grip game where we just get a group bundle cuz they, you know, at Pansancy Park, they sell bundle like group tickets. Um, I don't know how we will all like pay for it together. I I'll figure that out obviously. Um, if you want to know more information, join my Discord. I'll talk about it there when the time is right, obviously. But, um, you know, I think we're going to do a watch with Grip game next year. I don't know when. We have to look at the schedule. Obviously, that's not out yet. So, yeah, very, uh, it'll be a weekend game for sure. Definitely like a Friday, Saturday game. So, yeah, we'll see. That was just an idea I had um in my head. Um, which, you know, I think it would be a very fun idea.
All right, here we go. Aoy, we have the hood, which is that No, that's not the red hood, is it? Or is it? I don't know. I have no idea. Is this the same character as the guy in Iron Hart? Yeah, it is. Yeah, I didn't I didn't like Iron Heart. I'm gonna be I'm gonna be honest with you guys. I'm gonna be honest with you guys. Did not like Iron Hart. Sherry. Oh, last good cards here. Good one. I like this one. Magneto. I like this one. I like this one. Oh, I like that. So, that's all we got, guys. That is all we got. I'll tell you, man. I'll tell you. I cannot wait for the Magic the Gathering Spider-Man set that comes out, I believe, in September, I think. Cannot wait for it. Cannot wait for the Magic the Gathering Spider-Man collaboration set. I'll be getting some. Cannot wait.
Either way, that's all I got for you today, guys. Hopefully you guys did enjoy the video today. Um, the print runs been revealed, the year-over-year numbers have been revealed, and it is pretty interesting to see overall what we learned. So, either way, guys, big thank you to Corey again. Go follow him on Twitter, slabsquatchcards, and I'll see you guys in the next one.