Topps kicked off its 2022 baseball card release season with the Opening Day set, featuring cards of current MLB players from all 30 teams. As is tradition, the Opening Day set serves as the first mainstream retail release from Topps each year, providing baseball card enthusiasts with their baseball card fix as the season gets underway.
The 2022 Topps Opening Day set includes 396 total cards sorted into various insert sets in addition to the base cards. The majority of the set is comprised of the 266 base cards, one for each player on an MLB Opening Day roster. As rosters are finalized right before the season begins, the set provides a snapshot of who is expected to be on each team at the start of the year. Each base card features an action photo of the player in their team’s uniform along with career stats and bio information on the back.
In addition to the base cards, there are several insert sets included in the 2022 Topps Opening Day release. One of the more popular inserts is the All-Time Fan Favorites set, which pays homage to star players from baseball history. This year’s Fan Favorites subset includes 12 cards honoring legends like Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Vladimir Guerrero Sr., Ozzie Smith, and more. Their iconic photos and career accomplishments are encapsulated on these prestigious inserts.
Another sought-after insert set for collectors is the 16-card Stadium Club subset. These shiny foil parallels feature different MLB home ballparks shown through dynamic action shots. Coors Field, Fenway Park, Dodger Stadium, and more iconic venues are represented through memorable moments captured within their walls. The 2022 Topps Opening Day set offered an 8-card Members Only parallel variation box-loaded with select packs as a special bonus insert set.
Along with the various numbered parallels and refractors that are common across Topps flagship releases, the 2022 Opening Day set also included hit odds for several autograph and memorabilia cards. Some of the included autographed parallel inserts featured stars like Shohei Ohtani, Fernando Tatis Jr., Ronald Acuña Jr., Juan Soto, and more recent young MLB stars. For collectors pursuing relic cards, the 2022 Opening Day set checklist had jersey and bat knob memorabilia cards with wood or fabric swatches from today’s top players.
When it comes to the base design itself, Topps went with a clean and traditional look for the 2022 Opening Day player cards. Each has a solid color background with the team wordmark prominently across the top. Players are shown in action shots within their team’s color scheme batting or fielding. Career stats are listed prominently on the rear along with a short player bio. As the flagship set kicking off the season, Topps went conservative with the design to allow the photographs and stats to be the main focus pointing collectors toward the upcoming 162-game schedule.
Upon its widespread retail and hobby store release in late March before Opening Day, the 2022 Topps Opening Day baseball card set was met with strong interest and sales from the card collecting community. As many fans were getting their first baseball card fix of the new season, the mainstream accessibility and familiar player selection made Opening Day a reliably popular annual release. Within the first few weeks of being available on store shelves, the common base cards along with many of the popular short-printed inserts and hit cards began selling out at retailers and becoming more difficult to find unopened.
For avid collectors, finding a fully unbroken case of 2022 Topps Opening Day jumbo boxes presented the best opportunity to complete the whole set including all the chase parallels and hits. With 72 packs containing 12 cards each, the jumbo format from Topps provided over 850 total cards to maximize collection-building potential. Intact and unsearched jumbo boxes also came with a considerable price tag often over $300 to acquirefactory sealed. But for serious set builders, it was considered worthwhile given the sheer volume of cards.
In the months since the initial release wave, individual 2022 Topps Opening Day cards have fluctuated in aftermarket price based on the players and parallels. Common base rookies for hyped prospects like Bobby Witt Jr. and Julio Rodriguez sold for just a few dollars each raw, while their autograph and memorabilia rookie cards skyrocketed past $100 graded. Top seasoned veterans on pennant contenders like Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto held steady values around $5-10 per base, with their parallels and autographs in higher demand. Rookie errors or short-printed chase cards like Adley Rutschman or Spencer Torkelson ink achieved premium multi-hundred dollar tags.
As the MLB season marches on toward October, interest and value retention for 2022 Topps Opening Day rookies and stars performing well will likely rise compared to those who have down years or suffer injuries. While the base set is already in the rearview, collectors remain on the hunt for coveted hits and hits. The set served as an ideal launching point to spark collecting passions for the upcoming 162-game schedule and provided a historical snapshot of rosters at the dawn of a new campaign. Topps annually kicks off the season with fanfare through its Opening Day release as a reminder that after a long offseason, meaningful baseball is finally back.
