2026 Topps Series 2 Preview - How Good is the '26 Rookie Class? | Wax Packs & Warning Tracks #33
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About this episode
2026 Topps Series 2 Baseball brings a new batch of rookies to collect including international superstars and former top Bowman chases. Bubba & Cody talk about which young stars they're most excited to chase on the latest episode of Wax Packs & Warning Tracks! The guys discuss Sal Stewart's rise to becoming one of the NL Rookie of the Year favorites, why Bryce Eldridge is getting hot at just the right time and some huge rookie SP's to chase in this year's set. And with the 2026 Topps rookie class taking form, the guys talk about how the class stacks up to previous classes from the past decade and which eventual Debut Patch will be the biggest chase. Go to Mojobreak.com to get a spot in all the latest baseball breaks & more! Visit our shop in Santa Clara or order online at mojobreakshop.com Watch this podcast on our Mojobreak Media YouTube channel - https://youtu.be/UqcNQESc5DQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This episode is published by Mojobreak The Hype - A Sports Card Podcast.
Transcript
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Before we jump into today's episode, quick shout out to our sponsor, ebay Live. If you think ebay is just a marketplace, you're missing a whole side of it. Ebay Live is where real time excitement means rare, exclusive, hard to find cards and collectibles. You can watch live auctions, catch exclusive drops, and buy directly from trusted and quite frankly the best sellers like myself. Well, it's all happening. It feels like a show, not just shopping with great hosts, the aforementioned me creators and streamers. Plus everything's backed by ebay's protections and authenticity again, guarantees. To check it out, download the ebay app, tap the ebay Live button right under the search bar. Make sure you follow. Obviously sports cards nonsense. Let's get back to your show. What's up everybody? Welcome back to Waxbacks morning Tracks. It's Mo Breaks Baseball card Podcast. Series two is coming up. We're going to be breaking it down looking at the rookie classes and then also kind of looking at how does this rookie class stack up to rookie classes of the last decade. It's Cody, it's Bubba with we're of course going to be ripping series two on release day. That's what, Wednesday, June 10th. I do believe, double check that release date, but I believe it is this coming Wednesday. So we'll be ripping it across all platforms. Of course. A nice chance to start collecting, adding to the collection of course and we're going to rip it in. Mojobreak.com fnatics live all that good stuff plus a huge bevy of baseball products coming out in the month of June. Series 2 Baseball Bubba we got our full look at who the rookie class is going to be and I got to say right out the gate it feels like a good compliment to Series one. I will say I'll start by saying this. I felt like Series one the thing that really stood out was how strong the pitching class was with Misarowski, with chase burns, with McLean. All those guys, I know I'm missing a couple Schlitler, Schlitler kind of missing the big one. All those guys who made up really one of the strongest pitching classes for rookies I think I had seen from tops out the gate in a while. I think this Series two, if you were worried about, oh, is it too pitching heavy? I think this series two class of rookies which we kind of knew were already coming from chrome black and all that should put you at ease of like this is going to be a really good hitter class as well.
Yeah, all the top hitters in here. We're going to go through a handful of them. But yeah, I think potentially and it seems, I guess at this point in the season likely that both the rookies of the year will be from Series two. That's my kind of like. I don't know if it's a hot take but we'll get through the list of the guys. Some guys had super hot starts and kind of cooled off a little bit. Some guys had a bunch of hype coming into the year and haven't really performed as well. So it's a good batch. Overall, I think I prefer series 2 over series 1.
Yep. Just hitters always do better for the hobby. They just, you know, they're gonna your roi, your ceiling. So this is like really exciting for collectors I think for card investors. If you're ever to get excited about a paper product, try series two out. Try Series two out. Usually at a really good price. You know, entry price, entry point. And a couple guys that we're going to talk about right now I'm especially excited for. And this is for like series one to an update like series two. There are a couple of guys in particular that I'll be spending a few extra bones on next Wednesday.
Yeah, absolutely. And you know what? Also they have just on top of the rookies. We're talking about the product itself. You've got new additions in there. The COVID athlete autographs which I think we've seen those before but those are really cool cards. Yeah, you've got World Series champion autos. I know Bubba will be chasing those for Los Angeles Dodgers home field advantage. The paper version makes its return in here and I think one of the most exciting and a huge hit and we loved it in Series one that they have this chance. Tops buyback cards are coming back in this one. The bigger chases in that A53, Jackie Robinson. A54 Hank Aaron. These are all graded by the way. Clemente. A55 Clemente. Huge. You've got huge Roger Maris cards, Mickey Mantles in there. Cal Ripken, Kirby Puckett, Bo Jackson, Jeter93 Jeter08, Clayton Kershaw. Really, really cool stuff. I love that they've included this and so hope this becomes a staple of Series one. Series two while and they you know it didn't really affect the price all that much by including this type of these buybacks really doesn't do anything to affect the price and it gives a really, really cool a chase for people to throw in there.
Yeah, I totally agree. And they're hard to find these sps. But They've been popping up. We've been seeing a couple of the big ones pop up from Series one. Yeah, I'm stoked. I. I'm can't always personally, I can't always get into the transcendence, all the definitives and diamond icons of the world. So I always get a little extra excited about a nice paper product that I can rip a lot of. And yeah, can we, can we get right into it? There's a guy, it's a lot of big rookies to let me list off this addition, the additions that we are getting in series two, the notable names. Obviously top of the list is Minutaka Murakami. We've talked about him at length. He's on the injured list right now unfortunately, so hope he gets back soon because he will. All Star voting actually today just began so sure he's going to get a lot of love in All Star voting and Tops understands he's the big Chase. You probably saw the SP that's going to be in there where they recreated the photo. I don't know if it's an SP or if it's Golden Mirror. I believe it is. Yes, it is an SP. Yeah. So it's recreating the Frank Thomas 92 tops card which is awesome. Really, really cool that they did that. So acknowledging, yes, this is the guy, this is the big Chase in this product. But on top of that you have Murakami, you have Okamoto who's had very quietly, I feel like very underrated how good he's been doing for the Blue Jays. Yeah, you've got Imai from the Astros, Trey Savage of the Blue Jays postseason hero last year. He's been featured in some other products as inserts. Now he's in there for full fledged his first rookie card. Carter Jensen, Sal Stewart getting his first base rookie card in here as well. Bryce Eldridge who has been coming on as of late. Chase Delater who got off to a hot start for the guardians and then SPS of JJ Weatherholt, Kevin McGonagall, Carson Benj and Justin Crawford. So a lot of new additions. Again, very hitter heavy in this one. Now I want to hear who who is the guy you're really trying to champion at the bit here to to to talk about.
It's Trey Savage slash Sal Stewart. I it was always Trace Savage. Yep. And then we started talking about how hitter heavy it was. I thought oh, how ironic. I'm going to talk about a pitcher here, but I want to talk about South Stewart too. Trey Savage is pitching to a 2.19 ERA right now in a very, very difficult division. He has not really wavered, I think since he's been called up. He's been all throughout the, the big game, World Series. I thought he wasn't ever going to come back from that Max Muncie home run he allowed in game seven. He looks better than he did last year. His pitch repertoire is way more advanced. He kind of has like a little bit of a swagger. He's like a little less deer in the headlights that he kind of looked last year on the mound.
Swag level. He's got swagger. Yeah, 100%. Um, I am stoked on Trey Savage stuff coming out. Um, and also too, I really appreciate like the hobby in general. Kind of like promoting or promoting maybe not the right word, but like appreciating pitchers more lately over the last handful of years. So like I'm going into series two with a little confidence, you know, collecting a pitcher. Um, that being said, it is hit or heavy. Sal Stewart kind of maybe a guy you hadn't heard of before opening day and now like he's just forced himself into all these different conversations about Rookie of the Year. I don't know, he could have a crazy weird next couple months and the Reds start winning games and he starts getting some down ballot MVP votes with Ellie now on the shelf. Right. So yeah, there's a lot of room for opportunity there for Sal Stewart, like irl, you know, to like take the next steps. That'll only translate to his hobby prices. He was a guy that had rookies in chrome black and you know, you were lucky if you're able to hit him here. This is going to be his first true rookie and yeah, so I kind of cheated there. I gave, I gave two picks but well, you know, the Sal Stewart one. And again that's one that I know we have been hearing that. Hey look, I know America is getting the love but. And we've said it already, I know I might be sounding like a broken record here right now, but yeah, Sal Stewart should be getting just as much love and he's 22 years old. He's a full four years younger then Murakami. He's in a great hitters ballpark. He's got a ton going for him and, and his market a lot smaller or you know, it's a lot more. There's, it's, it's a little easier to get in. The price of getting in is a little easier than south than it is for Murakami. For a lot of similar cards still up huge compared to what it was probably at the beginning of the year. But regardless, yes, Stewart I think is going to be what do do we think he's the if we're not counting the SPS here, which weather Holt and McGonagall are going to be pro probably after Murakami, if not above Murakami because of the scarcity. The scarcity. The name brand. They're healthy right now so they're. They're both performing. I think both are performing at an all star level. I think There's a very McGonagall to me is a shoe in for the all for sure.
Yeah. Weather Holt is very close. I think he's a borderline guy right now. Both with wars over B wars over three right now or close to three? Both. Yeah. Both playing exceptionally well and for the weather hole even more exciting doing it on an exciting young team right now. But if I'm taking that all aside, I guess Stewart probably the number two chase in this product. Yeah, there is a question mark though, because I just feel like the like he doesn't have that notoriety. He doesn't have that like brand for himself yet. So like if we were to go on like ebay sale, if, you know, in a week's time from now, ebay sales, like, I don't know, like maybe I'm trying to. I'm trying to like justify a Savage sale or an Eldridge sale that could be high. Just. I, I think you're right though. It is going to be Stewart sp aside. Right. That's kind of what you were right.
I will say the one thing kind of going against him is that he has dipped a little bit in the month of May. So the numbers are down a little bit. But still think that there's been enough here that we've seen that. I think there's a lot of encouraging signs. And again, he's only 22 years old. I want to go to bat for my guy by the do it dude. Bryce Eldridge, this is so exciting to there's been so little to hang your hat on as a Giants fan this year, but Bryce Eldridge finally getting playing time. It's been a. It's. It has been. If you guys again, there's no reason, if you're not a Giants fan to be following what's going on with the third worst team in all of baseball right now. But if you have been following, there's been some vocal frustration from fans, from the announcers, from people within the Giants world That Bryce Eldridge. For a team that is not playing well and needs hitting from anywhere, why is Bryce Eldridge not in the lineup? I'm actually looking right now. They're playing live as we're recording. As he is in lineup today, things are starting to shift finally. But there's a couple of times he's like, he's not in there against the lefty. And it's like, why? Who cares? You got to know what you have with this guy. Finally, he is getting playing time. And what's encouraging to me, because the worry was, oh, man, he's so tall. He's got a big hole in his swing. And then he's just trying to hit for the fences every single time since getting called back up noticeably more patient noticeably, not trying to just hit the ball 5,000ft every single time. I've been really encouraged with the way he's hitting the ball the other way that he's getting. That he's getting just. Just getting hits, not. Not getting walks, getting hits, not. I don't need to get a home run every single time. I've been really impressed with his ability to just get the bat on the ball rather than just going for the home run every single time, which is something that, even when he was in the minor leagues, there was a lot of people going, look, the power is there, but that's a lot of swing and miss. Once he gets to the big leagues, it's been a lot less of that. I'm really, really hyped up for a guy who is. Just. Just turned 21 just a few months ago.
Gosh, that's crazy. So it was. I mean, he was. We've been hearing about him for years, it seems. Yeah, he stormed through the minor leagues. He was up in the big leagues at 20 years. 19 years old, in fact. No, 20 years old. Excuse me. He. He was up in the big leagues at 20 years old. I'm really excited for him. I just need to get him every day at bats. We'll see. There's a few, like I said, very few bright spots right now. This is a big bright spot. I like the early results from Bryce Eldridge. He's going to be a guy that is going to get a lot of love. I. I would imagine just because of the frame of the potential, all that. And I think, too, a lot of Giants fans who. It's a huge team that. With a huge. There's a. There's a big fan base that I think wants something. There's been not that many huge prospects who have come through products. So there's. This is the one guy in God, I'm trying to think who was the last huge Giants rookie.
Giants rookie prospect Chase. There's been a lot of prospects the last couple of years, starting with Eldridge, but yeah, there hasn't been a ton. I mean, Schmidt a little bit, I guess, but nothing. Nothing really, really huge. The last few years of rookie chases. Yeah. Like, does Jung Huli count Jungle? Yeah, that would be the one. Yeah, you're right. You're right. But this is so. This feels very different. I know what you mean. It's way different. Yeah. Yeah. Lee comes from Korea and already established playing professional ball. Right?
Yeah, it's like totally different. Yeah. Yeah. This is versus a guy 20 years old coming through the system doing what he's doing. So had to put my homer hat on and shout out Bryce who I. I'm very excited that yeah, he's putting it together. The more you were talking about him and kind of giving a little more like hobby backstory. He. He's a week, a great week away from maybe outselling Sal Stewart, I would say. And it wouldn't be fair to Sal. I'll just throw that out there. Would not be fair to him.
No. Sal's playing in a, In a weird market. He's playing on. On a. Actually a pretty decent team. I think for. Yeah, they're doing fine. All, you know, all expectations coming into the year. Eldridge to me, kind of like I put Spencer Jones in this category too where like they need, they need to do very little for, for the hobby and the rest of the world to be like, okay, like that's, that's, that's what they should be doing. Well, we'll go buy into that again where Sal Stewart again, I don't. And unfair to Sal and, and forgive me if I was just living under a rock, but like I didn't feel like Sal Stewart was like talked about much before 2026. And so I think with all the hype going into it, eldridge was a 23 draft guy with Skiings and Langford and Emerson and there was a lot of hype around Eldridge from the get go and because he came on so fast that then I think his, his first Bowman was just after his pro debut. So there was a lot of hype surrounding him when he first showed up in Bowman where Salv late first rounder there. I do remember his name being thrown around when Bowman was coming out of like, hey, this is a guy who's like a sort of on the back end of the bigger chases that you should be excited about. But.
Yeah, and like, maybe like a little like, Homer bias. I'm not a Giants fan, but, like, I got to see. We have gotten to see Bryce Eldridge play at length, and he just looks different. You can tell, like, okay, that's the best player on the field or that's the most capable player on the field. He's just kind of does it all. And I'm. I'm waiting and, like, you know, you won't hear me out there, be like, oh, I can't wait for Bryce Eldridge, you know, like, oh, let's go. But like, I'm. I'm like secretly kind of waiting for him to just pop off because, you know, I. I want the division to be more competitive. And. And that's like, regardless of what team he's on, you want to root for that guy, you know, that has all these things going for him. And it's at the Hype and like, it's. That's the story that you want to come true.
Yeah. And I think, like, I know he's like, was it his garbage Pail Kid? He had a garbage Pail Kid? Yes. Those were, like, going crazy numbers. It was like the best designed garbage Pail kid. He had like, one foot in the. In the bay. That was like, so sick. And those are still, like, crazy cards to chase. Good luck. Chasing his first Bowmans again. He's in there with Skiings and Langford and all those guys. So. Max Clark. So, like, good luck. I wouldn't be surprised if you can get some really good Eldridge singles right now. And in short time, they could be way, way bigger.
It hasn't quite happened yet, but I think it's like the week where you're right. There's a week or two week period where maybe he pops off and gets like four or five home runs or something like that, where. Yeah. Then you. Then you see the totality of what he's done. You go, oh, wait a minute. He'll hit two in a day, right? Something like that. Crew kite, John. Someone's gonna have an amazing call on it. And, yeah, it's gonna be all over Sports Center. We're gonna be like, okay, duh. Like, okay, we were waiting for that.
Yeah. So a little consumer confidence, you know, will go a little long way, too. But I'm not rooting for the Giants. I'm rooting for Bryce Eldridge. And if you've watched the show enough, you know, I'm all about Hot takes I'm going to say in, in a month's time, an autograph to 150of. How about this? I'll make it a little easier for Bryce. An orange color match. An orange color match. Bryce Eldridge will do better. Will do higher numbers than an orange Sal Stewart auto. Wow. Well, color match too certainly helps.
I'm going to give him a little help there. All right. I like that. It's. This is the hot take of the. Of the week. Look, I'm. That's why you're here, right? It's for me to give my hot take of the week. I'm all for more, more praise and more possib of Eldridge becoming that dude. So right now an orange PSA10. This was April 20th before the call up but while he was doing well in AAA. $7,500 for that card. So I think it might already be, it might already be outperforming a Sal Steward. Although I need to double check on that. But you know, actually Sal deserves to be selling higher on paper and on any metric. He is a doing more.
Not quite by the way. I just looked it up. So not quite but 8, 200 for a SAL Stewart. So again okay. But that's not a huge gap considering the production. The, the gap in their production does not. There's not no correlation between the gap in their prices. No. Essentially it's. Yeah, yeah. Put a little respect to Sal's name man. Of course. Because he's what he's the. You know. Are we saying it is. Is it him or is it Weatherhole? I'm giving it to Cell but Sal is like hanging on like by a thread because. Only because he's had a tough last like 10 days.
Yeah. And like I don't think JJ is like I don't think it'd be fair to say like he's just like only been like streaky or something. He's been like a little more consistent I think. But these are the odds. These are, these are brand new up to date odds. This comes from I believe ESPN bet, the rookie of the year favorites in the National League Weather Holt is the slim favorite at plus one 35. Stewart at plus 200. Noel McLean at plus 550. That's a toss up 135 and 200 I'll throw in and we're going to talk about him in a second when we kind of talk about this rookie class in totality because remember of course there is also update later in the season. There's Chrome. All that so there's a few more rookies still to be added into this class. For the American League Rookie of the year, Kevin McGonagall, he's the leader in the clubhouse. Seems fair. But me and attacker Murakami is number two. I'd say those guys right now, I. I'll are 1 in 1A and 1B for chases for rookies, for cha for obviously McConnell's Bowman Market is insane. Bazana is third in that, but a pretty distant third. I'll throw in Samuel Bosayo, who I think is getting very, very slow start. Very slow start. But has been pretty red hot for an Orioles team, too. That's fine in its groove. That looks like they might finally be back to where they're at. I think they're still just a shade under.500, but they're red hot right now. He's been great. I'm. Basayo looks really good right now. I'm. I'm very excited about his future.
He's. He's a guy to look at as well. And he's a Series one rookie. Yeah. If you were to like, tell me last year, this time, like this time last year what Adley Rushman's numbers were going to be this year, I would have thought, oh, there's no space for Basayo then. Yeah. But they're both mashing and shout out the Orioles for making it work. They have so much young talent that's like that. That like, luster of like, oh, they're like. They're. They're so young and pristine. It's gone. So shout out sambasayo like, given the. Given that young core, a little more. A little more faith. Kobe Mayo hasn't done enough.
I don't think Mayo. He's been fine. He comes through, though, in big moments. He's been fine. That team is unfortunately, I still, I think, still defined by what could have been or what hasn't happened yet with those young stars. And so, yeah, shout out Sam Basayo. His stuff does really well in the aftermarket, too. Yeah, Basayo has been a hot name for a while and now that he's putting it all together, very exciting. So let's. So that's a lot of names we've thrown out there, but it's basically like we mentioned a few of those names at the top of the show. The one name I kind of was holding off on and he will be a rookie in this year because we saw tops now with that rookie emblem is Connor Griffin. Connor Griffin is going to have rookie Cards base rookies and is going to have autos and all that. So you take all of this into consideration. Weatherall, Stewart, McLean, Griffin, McGonagall, Murakami. I don't know if we're getting Bozana rookies. I have to double check on that. Someone in the comments let me know.
I think he's update. Okay, so if that happens, then we're getting Bozana. I think our guardian's going to be the louder. And then all of these other names that we mentioned, Roman Anthony, who I wouldn't even. Haven't even unfortunately, with the way the Red Sox are playing, I haven't really given Roman Anthony much thought lately. When's the last time you said his name out loud? I. That's the thing and we were all like, ah, that's the guy guy. That's the chase. And he's just not hitting for power at all. Like the Red Sox are kind of are a team that has doesn't know what. They kind of feel directionless right now.
Yeah. Wilson Contreras is like the team MVP right now. Like, and he's also a kind of the most annoying guy in baseball. Every. Every team seems to hate him. Look, I am fine with him being annoying. He does not have to be hit 16 times before June 1st. There's that. Yeah, you're right. But coming from a fantasy baseball owner that has him on his team. Stop hitting my guy. Look, do you get points for being on base or OPS or anything? Yeah, but like one of those is going to like hurt him at some point and then you don't have. And then you don't have a first baseman. But Roman and Jake Jacob Misarowski, who might be the NL Cy Young favorite right now. I know Ohtani. Probably it's him or Ohtani and all those other. A bunch of other pitchers we need. Chase Burns, another one.
Yeah. Because they're. They're rookies that'll have rookie debut cards, right? Yes. And they're all going to have debut patch which they sell. Yes. They. These rookie debut cards. Not the debut patch but like it says like rookie debut has. Oh sure, right. Those typically sell for about half. I. I've always thought those were in like completely underrated. Yeah. It's a good place to go if you're not like, ah, I want to have something that has a rookie shield on it of these guys. But you know, maybe the rookie base rookie is a little too rich for my blood.
I think of like the Jackson Merrell. I don't know if we could pop it up or not. Like the Jackson me rookie debut card from whenever that was series two or update a couple years ago. He's like emerging from the top steps of the dugout, like about to go onto the field. I think it's a sick card. It says rookie debut on it has the date on it and on the back of all those cards it has a blurb of what they did on their debut or the significance of their debut and I don't know Pre Order Series 2. There you go. Get in on it. This is what everyone's talking about. Everything's on the table. This is what champions come to take. This is what everyone came to see. No do overs, no second chances. No more Mr. Nice Guy. This is winner take all. The NBA finals continue on ABC and the ESPN app. Study and play come together on a Windows 11 PC and for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds.
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A lot of hype too. A lot of hype. A lot of the 21. 2020. Luis Robert. Luis Robert. Joe, Adele. Yeah. Jordan Alvarez is like, you're holding it down, right? But it's like one guy, right? The Yordon is the one guy. Gavin Lux hasn't turned out. You know, I was a big Gavin Lux guy. I thought it was gonna be a dude and does not happen. 2020. Yeah, you're right. 21, though considerably weaker because you don't have it's goo ball Scuba. Yeah. Like no Mount Castle. Mount Castle has not done it. Alec Bohm.
Boom. Was that like Mize? I don't remember. Pitching's been fine. Chisholm's benefiting from being on the Yankees. I don't know that he's as relevant if he's a Red or. But yeah, he is what it is and it is what it is. So good for him. And then you have ones that are feel very like almost legendary at this point. 2022 J Rod Bobby name that we won't mention but at the time it was big that what, 24 I think of with another big class. Well, 23. 23. I kind of looked right over 23. Corbin, Carroll, Adley, you're right. Now in hindsight too because what big dumper was 22.
22. Yes, I believe so. I know I'm getting them all thrown off a little bit. 20. Well, the first debut patches were what, 24. 24 was like is going to go down as one of the top and now that Jordan walker gets added 23 in 23. Excuse me. Yeah, yeah, Jordan Walker gets added in that. That really does help things out quite a bit that Jordan Walker now has made it and looks like a guy and probably is an all star. So. Yeah. Where does this, where does this 26th class sort of rank right now or is the potential of it? I really like how well rounded it is with great pitching, great hitting and again I need to do maybe more of a deep dive of like all of these rookie classes as we're kind of just talking about them popping. All these guys are sort of popping up in our heads like, oh, I remember that guy. Oh yeah, that guy makes his class a little bit better. But all in all, I think this 26 class is shaping up to be a very, potentially very special one.
Yeah, I have 24 at the top and there are like 20, a 23 or a 22. Like they might have more players. Like they might. It might be a deeper rookie list. But when you got Paul Skeens, Ellie De La Cruz, Jackson Churro, Jackson, Merrill, Yamamoto. Yamamoto. I'm good, I'm good. Yeah, you have the. Well, I was going to say. I was going to make another crazy statement there, but you have the. I was going to say the two best right handed pitchers in baseball with the Yamamoto and Skeens. Yep. Up for debate, but maybe, maybe.
I don't think there's too much debate. Okay. Yeah, I'll say it then. I'll say it with my chest. Yamamoto and Skeens, you got the two best right handed pitchers in baseball. Yeah, I don't think that's that crazy. For what it's worth, you know, while healthy today, you know, with no, with no school ball, currently pitching, are they the best pitchers in baseball? Maybe like there are some pitchers doing some crazy things right now. Mizarowski, I. E. You know, Schiller, but pound for pounds, you know, I have those guys toward the top and then, and then with the hitting. Ellie's having an incredible year. He's really only been good since he's been in the majors. He's only been good or great. And the times he hasn't been great, it's like, oh, is he slumping? It's like, yeah, he's still, like, hitting, like.230 with, like, averaging, like, a homer every third game.
Ellie's a star. Yeah, he's a star. And then Merrill and Cheerio. They could be hall of Famers. We could be talking about them as, like, in the hall of famers in 15 years. I might slow on Jackson Merrill for now, and I was high on Jackson Merrill, and he's been, you know, that team. That team, I think is, in fact. He hasn't been funny Ben 2 or something right now. All right, well, I'm. I'm. I'm leaving it open. I like him, but, yeah, it's not happening right now for him, unfortunately. He doesn't. Okay. Is he on. Does he have the trajectory? No, but, like, that changes when he's hitting.270 at the end of the year, and then you're like, he just had a weird hitting year, but he's still incredibly incredible defensively. And that team's I. Anything Padres. I. You know, I. I don't know. I don't know. I. That's. It's such a. An anomaly because they have such great players. And then, like, Machado's, like, doing weird stuff. All right, we'll get back on track here. 20, 24. I have number one.
Yeah. They continue to get better. Can I go to Badford? We were. I. I dismissed 23 for a second. But you're right. You said, Corbin, now that I'm, like, reevaluating. It's one that if you go back in time now seeing a form. Michael Harris is in there. Yeah. After a rookie. Big rookie year. And now he seems to be putting it back together. Miguel Vargas. Yeah. Well with the whites. He is doing well with the white. Not saying he's the number one guy in there, but, like, it helps the products. It helps 20, 23 products.
Better white sock than he was a Dodger. He was. So Adley's still in there, obviously. Jordan Walker, we already mentioned. That's a huge, huge boost. Adley and Gunner is nice. Yeah. To anything. 20, 23. Huge, humongous boost. Riley Green just been steady as she goes. Great one. Shay Langaliers, another one that's really helped that. So there's a lot of players that maybe at the time were on the lower end of those chases or we considered maybe a Little bit of a disappointment that are coming around and I think are making those products a little, are a little more enticing, a little more exciting.
Yeah. Frankie Alvarez, I think back up in the bigs now. 23 guy, that's super deep. It rivals 24. I just, I, I can't put, I can't put a class over. Skiing's 24 is the cream of the crop. I think 22 comes in second because of those two guys at the very, very top with J Rod and Bobby Witt. And there are other names too as well. Yeah, the 25 was a solid class last year that I think is getting better because better of Kurtz, because of Wood, because of Ben Rice. Yeah. Like those three alone at the top make the 25 class excellent. But look, I, I again, I think this 26 class because of how good the pitching is. Like, that's how the, the top heaviness of the pitching, where pitching is suddenly now, where people are not afraid to invest in pitching. And thank you to Paul Skeens for that. Again, I'm not going to put it at the very top, but I think it's like got a case where maybe in a year or two we go, oh, yeah, that's like the easy third class of the last decade. Maybe even, I don't want to say number two, but I think right now maybe you could say, hey, am I going to be like the third best again in the moment? It's always easy to get caught up in it. I'm sure I said this about the 23 class at one point or the 25 class at one point, but I like the future prospects of 26 because of how well rounded it is.
It's easy to get excited about these classes when you have a, when you have an international player hitting 20 jacks and you have guys throwing 101 miles per hour in their sleep. It almost seems like back in like 2020, 2021, we didn't have that. It's like baseball players are getting better or something like that. They're just getting better, just getting better at baseball. Look in 20 again, we were big on like, as Yordon was just coming big rookie year and we weren't really talking about you on. We were talking about Lubov, talking about. We were talking about Austin Martin. Austin Martin in 2020 and 2021.
Yeah, we were, we certainly were. Like, we were talking about Jared Kelnick in 2021. Boy. So the, the same way change this. Yeah, that's exactly. Case in point, last year, Dylan Cruz maybe it went into the 25 season as the chase. Right. That's what we thought. Yeah. And then he was getting thrown in the trash waste at the, you know, about three weeks ago. And then he kind of seemed like the best buy mid May because he was selling for dirt. And he comes up and it's a sec. A home run in the second game back up.
Right. And his prices are not back to where they were but respectable again. So things change. You hear us talking about how how much we love the 2023 class and how much we don't like the 2021 class. Yeah. I mean, pull up the footage. We had different sentiments back then and at least I love that we're going into going into 2026 with optimism considering how or 2025 and 26 considering how pitcher heavy it's, it's. It's felt. But I think 2026, if you were like flagship, this is going to be a breath of fresh air. Hit or heavy. The sps are there. Every golden mirrors are now. They've gotten that system right with the golden mirrors. Every card now has one. It's just like. It's way more fun of a rip. I don't know.
Yeah. Yeah. Every. Every given pack they were saying about top scroll football. I really feel that with baseball these days. It's a great. Baseball's in a great spot right now, which is crazy to say because we're like lockout impending. I was gonna say, yeah, it's a great spot. Please don't go on strike. Yeah. It's like baseball's really good. It's like this is the best. Keep going. Keep going. Yeah. One more thing before we get out the door. If let's just quick, quick thought of all these guys we mentioned for the 26th class. Obviously these guys are going to have big debut patches. What's the number one. What's the number one debut patch of this 26 class is there's Roman Anthony out there, which I felt like at the beginning of the year we went, well, no matter what happens. Roman Anthony Colson Montgomery. I haven't even mentioned him, who I loved in Series one. And maybe he hasn't be become the guy where I'm like, he's gonna hit 50 home runs that maybe hasn't quite happened, but he's doing great on a. On a very surprising White Sox team.
Yeah. Because my gut tells me the number one debut patch will be Jacob Mizarowski in. In. It's sort of in the same vein of skiings, especially if he wins a Cy Young. I mean, the sky's the limit for that card. I know other people might be yelling, it's McGonagall. It's a slam dunk. It's McGonagall. It's A slam dunk. That. It's Murakami. I went to Murakami first. That's where my head went. I am just the. Probably not even worth saying. I'm just the guy that's not in on McGonagall like that. But. And I'm sure I'll be wrong, and I hope to be wrong, I go to Murakami first. That's interesting, Mizarowski, because a Cy Young just vaults him into like an unprecedented territory for a guy of like that build on a team like that. It just.
He almost. Yeah, again, he's not the same type of pitcher at all. But in terms of just like, accolades. Yes. Ms. Got called up a little late last year. Kind of fell off at the second half. They slowed him down. But like, again, I'm also saying maybe Cy Young guy. I said Ohtani. Christopher Sanchez, by the way, just had the most incredible run of all time. I want to get. Once again, I want to apologize to Christopher Sanchez, his family and all Phillies fans for disrespecting Christopher Sanchez on this podcast and continually doing so, because he's probably the sighting favorite right now. But there's a shot. It's Mizarowski, who currently leads the league in strikeouts. Leads the league and WHIP and all that good stuff.
So it was a thought provoking statement. And I have been thinking since. And I would rather own a Jacob Mizaroski rookie debut patch and a Kevin McGonagall rookie debut patch. Yeah. I'm still not going to have him over Murakami. I mean, just the international market for that card, I think is going to be ridiculous. I think he has at least double the amount of sets of eyes than Mizarowski has. Gosh. We'll see. I think. And it'll depend when they get pulled, right? Where. Where are we at when they get pulled?
We still haven't gotten the Yamamoto one, right? Oh, still out there. Wow. And that might be the biggest. Well, I think besides Skins, that's the biggest of them all at this point. Bigger than le. Yes. Yeah. If that gets pulled tomorrow, considering everything he's accomplished in his career. It's a million bucks. It's a million bucks. I think it's just a shade under Skins. I think it's a million dollars. Yeah. Yes. And ski is like 1.4. Something like that. 1.2. 1.4. I think. I think it's either close to skiings or matches.
Skins might be 950. Yeah. But I don't think it's $800,000. No, no. Everything he's accomplished at this point, it's. And. And again, the story of the chase, how long it took for it to finally surface. So again, we're saying all these things of like, when does it come out? Well, again, Yama doesn't even. Yeah, surface. You're welcome, by the way. Getting. Getting through all those dud boxes. You're welcome. And growing. I will. To cap it with the Mizarowski whole thing, I think Mizaroski is the bigger one out of this class initially. I think a guy like McGonagall, Weatherhole, Connor, Griffin are the better buys and the better ones long term.
Yeah, I could see that. Yeah. I'm just out on McGonagall. I shouldn't say out. I'm not all in. I'm not all in on McGonagall now. And it's just because I haven't watched enough Tigers baseball. I'm going to chalk it up to that. Yeah, watch more. I need to be a better fan. Yeah. I need to be a better baseball savant. You know, that's one way you don't need to watch a ton because they're not playing all that well. Although they did just sweep the Rays, so maybe they're on the comeback. Wow. The Rays have been playing great too.
Ray's been really good. So McGonagall's really fun. I'm. I'm very, very excited about him. Who are you looking forward to? Who are you chasing? Let us know. And little wrinkle. What do you think about Justin Crawford in there? We didn't even talk about it. Yeah, that was kind of thrown in there. He is an SP again, a guy I haven't. I have not been watching enough Phillies baseball. Yeah, we didn't talk about him, but he's not really done. Again, if he was doing more to. Then we would be talking about him. Or he's just not making much of an impact at this point of the season. 56 games and he's batting 2. 32. He's in there every day because the Phillies need a center fielder. Let's be honest. If the Phillies make a move at the deadline, it's going to be looking for probably a center fielder because that's always what they're doing. The Phillies for the last. The Phillies have a lineup of all stars and yet constantly need a center fielder.
Bring him home. Bring him home. Bring him you. I know. We don't even say who it is. Liberation Day. Bring him home. You know who we're talking about? Yeah. How about that comment? Who we're talking about? Let him root for his eagles. Okay. Say the name who we're com. If you say the name who are commenting and about it. But before next episode, I'm going to go through the comments. I have a cool card of this individual. I'll reach out to you. Hey, I'll reach out to one of you guys. There you go. I'll send it to you.
Who are we talking about? Who are we talking about? Bring him home. Go Birds. Let him root for his birds with with his buddy Bryce. That's going to wrap it up for this week's episode. Let us know which debut patch for the 26 class you think is going to be the biggest. So you're chasing it Series two. And of course make sure to get in on breaks of series two baseball. Ripping it Wednesday, June 10th mojo break.com FNX live across all of our platforms. Until next time for Bubba. I'm Cody. We'll talk to you next time on waxbacks and warning trucks. See you.
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do. @mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra fee, full terms@mintmobile.com.