Pack of the Day 103: 2015 Topps Chrome Blaster Box

It's been a rough week. The wildfires in the West have poured a lot of smoke into the air, so my allergies have been on full-blast for a while now. My sinuses are just burnt out. There is a process at work that got switched from an upload-based program to a web-based program, and the programmers didn't consult with users so it doesn't display information we need in a useful way. On smaller error listings it only adds a couple of extra hours to processing, but we have one very large report that the web-based system can't handle. Instead of taking seconds per line, it takes 3-4 minutes per line, and there are 3800 lines on the list. I worked the thing all week and only got through around 450 lines. There are just enough button-clicks required that you can't effectively multi-task, so I am looking at working this same stupid report (that would only take a day or two under the old process) until the end of September, with higher headquarters nagging the whole time because it is past due. But they won't roll out a fix for it or let us revert to the old process for just this one file because the whole process is changing again in December anyway and they are working on that. My eyes hurt from looking at the same spreadsheet for nine hours a day, and my brain hurts from thinking about doing the same thing every day for the foreseeable future. I don't drink, so I bought a blaster of 2015 Topps Chrome to help me deal with it. It's got 7 packs of Chrome plus a bonus pack of Sepia Refractors.

Here are the odds taken from the back of one of the packs. I don't know how they compare to the odds on regular Retail packs or Hobby packs.

First up is the pack of Sepia Refractors. While opening this I felt like there were an awful lot of Red Sox in this box. I am going to track the teams and see if this was true or just my perception. I guess these are all right, although it kind of bothers me that they changed up the numbering on all of the Refractors again. Sepia Refractors are supposed to be numbered out of # / 75. I've heard that the case breakers are frustrated at the relative lack of colored Refractors in this year's product. I could imagine that taking out even one or two layers of serially-numbered parallels does really hurt their bottom line, as that one good pull could be the card that brings a case from a loser to a winner.

Seattle Mariners - 1

Boston Red Sox - 2

Texas Rangers - 1

I got the base version of David Ortiz in this pack to go along with the Sepia Refractor from the last pack. Kris Bryant is the rookie to get from this product, although Carlos Correa would be my preference. Correa, though, was only included in the set as a last-minute short-print so it is unlikely that I will get his card. Any of the 5 short-printed rookie cards would pay for the blaster if sold on eBay, though. This Kris Bryant rookie card seems to be making brisk sales for a few dollars a pop even in base form. Moustakas gets one of the more unique photos in the set, with a 'falling over the rail' fielding shot.

Seattle Mariners - 1

Boston Red Sox - 3

Texas Rangers - 1

Tampa Bay Rays - 1

Chicago Cubs - 1

Kansas City Royals - 1

I guess the Sean Doolittle card is my favorite here, with him looking a lot like Groundskeeper Willie. The Kyle Lobstein card is a base Refractor. They are harder to spot in this year's set with the colored borders as opposed to the silver borders of previous years, and Topps removed the 'Refractor' label from the backs which collectors had used as a crutch in recent years. Now you have to do the time-honored 'wiggle your cards around under a light source' maneuver to identify your Refractors, just as The Hobby's Founding Fathers intended.

Seattle Mariners - 2

Boston Red Sox - 3

Texas Rangers - 1

Tampa Bay Rays - 1

Chicago Cubs - 1

Kansas City Royals - 1

Atlanta Braves - 1

Detroit Tigers - 1

Oakland A's - 1

I don't have a lot to say about this pack. Melvin Mercedes is a Prism Refractor, which I guess replaces the X-Fractors of yesteryear. So now Panini has Refractor-y Prizms and Topps has Prism-y Refractors. Mark Teixeira has been surprisingly productive in fantasy baseball this year, although he is currently battling a leg injury which is really more along the lines of what I expected from him.

Seattle Mariners - 2

Boston Red Sox - 4

Texas Rangers - 1

Tampa Bay Rays - 1

Chicago Cubs - 1

Kansas City Royals - 1

Atlanta Braves - 1

Detroit Tigers - 2

Oakland A's - 1

San Diego Padres - 1
New York Yankees - 1

The Salvador Perez card is a Refractor. These fall 1:3 packs, so I would expect about two of them in a blaster, and two is what I got. Doug Fister is having a down year after several years of pretty consistent success. I guess it is nice to get a Blue Jays card, even if Russell Martin doesn't even make my top 5 (maybe not even top 10!) players on the roster.

Seattle Mariners - 2

Boston Red Sox - 4

Texas Rangers - 1

Tampa Bay Rays - 1

Chicago Cubs - 1

Kansas City Royals - 2

Atlanta Braves - 1

Detroit Tigers - 3

Oakland A's - 1

San Diego Padres - 1
New York Yankees - 1

Washington Nationals - 1

Toronto Blue Jays - 1

I like getting Johnny Cueto cards, although I probably like him less as a Royal than I did when he was a Red. Brandon Phillips is an interesting case to me. He's been a Hall of Pretty Good-caliber player since basically 2007, but most of the Reds fans I know don't seem to like him very much. Also, this:

The Future Stars insert of Joc Pederson is a nice enough card, although it looks like it belongs in one of the Topps Finest sets of the last couple years. They are seeded 1:12 packs, so I guess I beat the odds a bit with it. Pederson's family has had one of the better feel-good stories of this season, as the media has tracked his brother's struggle to decide whether Joc or Albert Pujols is his favorite player.

Seattle Mariners - 2

Boston Red Sox - 4

Texas Rangers - 1

Tampa Bay Rays - 1

Chicago Cubs - 1

Kansas City Royals - 2

Atlanta Braves - 1

Detroit Tigers - 3

Oakland A's - 1

San Diego Padres - 1
New York Yankees - 1

Washington Nationals - 1

Toronto Blue Jays - 1

Cincinnati Reds - 2

Los Angeles Dodgers - 1

St. Louis Cardinals - 1

Madison Bumgarner is a Prism Refractor, which makes two for the box and is another slight win over the printed odds. Not a bad player to pull a parallel of, either, although he's probably not on track for a Cy Young award this year in spite of his ace numbers.

Seattle Mariners - 2

Boston Red Sox - 4

Texas Rangers - 1

Tampa Bay Rays - 2

Chicago Cubs - 1

Kansas City Royals - 2

Atlanta Braves - 1

Detroit Tigers - 3

Oakland A's - 1

San Diego Padres - 1
New York Yankees - 1

Washington Nationals - 1

Toronto Blue Jays - 1

Cincinnati Reds - 2

Los Angeles Dodgers - 1

St. Louis Cardinals - 1

Pittsburgh Pirates - 1

San Francisco Giants - 1

Baltimore Orioles - 1

The final pack of the blaster holds the biggest hit, with a Purple Refractor of Mookie Betts, numbered # 216 / 250. This is the most common of the serially-numbered parallels, falling at 1:38 packs. It's also my 5th Red Sox card, showing that my impression was correct. I did pull a lot of Red Sox relative to other teams, as the next-most-represented team was the Detroit Tigers with three cards in the box. The Purple Betts card actually gets outsold on eBay by the base Kris Bryant rookie card, so I guess it's a bit of a toss-up as far as which card wins the MVP of this break. It was fun to bust this open, but Topps Chrome is kind of like the Chinese food of baseball cards. It's pretty good, but ten minutes later you're hungry again. 

Seattle Mariners - 2

Boston Red Sox - 5

Texas Rangers - 1

Tampa Bay Rays - 2

Chicago Cubs - 2

Kansas City Royals - 2

Atlanta Braves - 1

Detroit Tigers - 3

Oakland A's - 1

San Diego Padres - 1
New York Yankees - 2

Washington Nationals - 1

Toronto Blue Jays - 1

Cincinnati Reds - 2

Los Angeles Dodgers - 2

St. Louis Cardinals - 1

Pittsburgh Pirates - 1

San Francisco Giants - 1

Baltimore Orioles - 1