The 2022 baseball season saw the highly anticipated debut of Inception baseball cards from Panini America. Panini is a major player in the sports card industry known for its licenses with the NFL and NBA, but this marked their first foray into producing official MLB trading cards since acquiring the license back in 2020.
As the name implies, Inception cards were aimed at capturing the very beginning of players’ careers in the major leagues. Only rookies and prospects from the most recent MLB Draft made the cut for inclusion in packs. The base card design highlighted a action photo on the front with team logo and player info, keeping it clean and simple. On the reverse, more stats and a short bio provided background on each rising star.
While the base cards supplied the backbone of the set, collectors were eager to pull the short printed parallels and autographs that could become extremely valuable as players developed. Red and blue parallel versions of the base cards existed at a ratio of 1:12. Even rarer were the Inception /25 green parallel and ultra-short printed black parallel, limited to a mere 5 copies each.
The true big ticket items were the autographs. Panini acquired Samples from prospects prior to their first MLB season. On-card autographs featured vibrant yellow signatures on a white base for maximum legibility. Serialized versions numbered to /25 in gold and an exceptionally rare black parallel numbered to an absurdly low /5 rounded out the autograph checklist. Landing one of those black autos of a future superstar could result in a card worth thousands down the road.
While the Prospect side of Inception delivered exciting RCs of players just starting their journey in The Show, the Set Rounds also appealed to collectors chasing established major leaguers. Multi-category Stars Round cards grouped together the season’s biggest performers and award winners on a single card. Meanwhile, Team Round cards put a single club’s core players together to capture a snapshot of that year’s roster.
Even with the MLB license, Panini faced serious competition from longtime incumbent Topps. As such, they loaded Inception packs with value by including silver Prizm parallels of base cards alongside the standard cardboard. The foil adds some flash and appeal to entice collectors used to Topps Chrome and Bowman Chrome. Additionally, Inception introduced Mini Cards sized down to fit more content in blasters and hangers at a lower overall cost.
Upon release, Inception faced mixed reviews. While the look of the cards and various parallels offered compelling chase cards for collectors, quality control proved an early issue. Some reports emerged of miscuts and poor centering marring otherwise desirable RCs. Additionally, Panini was still establishing distribution channels versus the wider availability of Topps through hobby shops and rack packs. These factors may have held initial sales back from reaching full potential.
For patient collectors, the long term potential of Inception remained very intriguing. With ongoing player development and a full MLB season of stats and highlights, interest in the rookies should rise over time. In their second year, Panini was sure to address production and distribution expanding the product’s footprint. Much like the players just starting their MLB careers, for the Inception brand, year one was really the inception of something with room to grow into an impactful and collectible annual release. Only time will tell if Panini can gain serious traction, but early signs suggest Inception has stayed power to become a fixture in the baseball card world for years to come.
