General Forum

So it seems to me that Series 1 had a ton of good rookies and nearly all of the stars. I noticed Verlander and Spencer Strider were missing, but off the top of my head I couldn't think of anyone else who was missing. 

Figured I'd see what you all thought about who may be appearing in series 2 later this year, rookies and/or vets who I'm not thinking of at the moment, because right now it seems like series 1 was very front-loaded.

off the top of my head, I see some Yankees missing, DJ Lemahieu, Giancarlo Stanton. Also, the rookie Oswaldo Cabrera is missing which is odd because they included Oswald Peraza who made his debut later than Cabrera, I believe.

I won't be touching flagship until the FS comes out later this year so not the best source. However, historically, Topps has used S2 to include rookies who appeared early in the season and some vets who may have changed teams long before the trade deadline or who signed late in the FA period. 

Being attuned to the Mets, Edwin Diaz and Brandon Nimmo are missing in S1, so they'll be in S2, along with Verlander's Mets cardboard debut. I'd think Francisco Alvarez would show up in S2 as well, although they might hold him for Update.

I've started ranking prospects for this season for the purposes of making a personal list and started with those in S1 and went from there. A good guide to the rookies you might see will come from the inserts from S1, but either way the ones I think are locks or near-locks for S2 are Corbin Carroll, Logan O'Hoppe, Max Meyer, Ken Waldichuk, Spencer Steer, Freddy Tarnok, Canaan Smith-Njigba, Esteury Ruiz, James Outman, Francisco Alvarez, Garrett Mitchell, Ryan Kreidler, Michael Toglia, Matt Wallner, Jordan Groshans, Ji-Hwan Bae, Mark Vientos, Ezequiel Tovar, Eguy Rosario, Bo Naylor, and Alec Burleson. Xzavion Curry, Narciso Crook, Conner Capel, and Maikel Garcia also landed inserts in S1, though I'd be less likely to assume they are in S2, but they could also factor in. You can also throw in some more of the late-2022 debuts as well as less-likely names. Donny Sands, Yainer Díaz, Israel Pineda, Miles Mastrobuoni, Ford Proctor, Carlos Pérez, Dalton Guthrie, Wynton Bernard, Will Brennan, Cody Thomas, Michael Siani, Jordan Diaz, Liván Soto, and Cal Stevenson would be some names I'd put under this category.

Missing from the Phillies in S1 and may be included in S2:

Kyle Schwarber
Zack Wheeler
Nick Castellanos
Ranger Suarez
Jose Alvarado
Seranthony Dominguez
Trea Turner
Taijuan Walker
Craig Kimbrel
Andrew Painter RC

That's an impressive list! Many of those guys I've never heard of and I wonder how many of them will be recognized a year from now. Topps might be going/continuing the Bowman route of getting rookies in the set no matter what (even if unrecognized) and possibly ignoring some actual MLB players. 

Not 100% sure but I don’t think Andrew Vaughn has a base/parallels in s1. Maybe some inserts??

Actually I have to note there should be other guys as well. My list just includes guys who are still rookies. S1 had a lot of guys who exceeded their rookie status last year, i.e. Harris, Gorman, and Adley. There probably will be more in S2, such as the arms Arizona brought up late last year and hitters like Tyler Freeman.

Oh, and I didn't go down the list much with the pitchers that are still prospects as well. Simeon Woods Richardson, Drey Jameson, and Hayden Wesneski are some off the top of my head that should join that list.

So yeah, there are a lot of candidates. I'm assuming Heritage this year will have rookie duos/trios for this reason, and some of these guys may even have to wait until Updates or simply get overlooked.