My First Look at 2016 Bowman

Tuesday, on he eve of its official release, I stumbled onto some Bowman 'value packs' at the local Target. I hurriedly picked out two and used a few of my Marketplace coupons to get $1 off each pack. I opened them and am just getting around to being able to scan them for a post.

Here is the 'exclusive' yellow parallel pack out of the first 'value pack'. I'm pretty happy with the Maeda, especially considering how dominant he has been in his first few starts.

Regular pack number 1 provided the money card. In my neck of the woods, Swanson is quite the hot commodity since the Carolina Mudcats are easily within driving distance. I'm hoping that I'll have a chance to shoot over to he stadium for either a game or one of their open practices to get this signed before he is promoted to the next level. That's also my first Chapman shown with the Yankees. The Guzman is #/99. I don't know much about that kid, but it's a relatively low numbered parallel which could end up being a decent piece of cardboard.

I really like the Vlad Guerrero squared card. I'm going to look into the rest of that checklist, it looks like a nice set.

Wow, I was beyond thrilled to pull the base Maeda from the same value pack. Piscotty is pretty decent too. Let's move along to the second value pack.

As awesome as pulling the yellow Maeda was, this pack was better. Moncada and Wade will hopefully end up with some ink on them at some point.

I'm digging the Mondesi RC. Since he made his MLB debut in the World Series, it's cool to see the WS patch on the sleeve of his uni. Compared to years past, I'm loving the Top 100 this year. It doesn't hurt to pull such a highly rated prospect, but he design is pretty sweet.

BOOM! Sitting in he middle of the second pack of my second value pack was a retail exclusive paper prospect auto. Try saying that five times fast... From my understanding, McGuire has some pretty decent potential in the Pirates system, and he's in his age 21 season this year so he still has time to develop.

The final pack was a bit anti-climactic, but it still yielded one of this year's RC Flashbacks and a unique, press conference card of new Diamondback, Zack Greinke.

Overall, I was really pleased with the packs. I always say that I'm not going to buy a lot of Bowman, but this season, I really like the design. Team that up with the fact that I am doing my best to get back into autograph hunting when I'm able to make it to the ballpark and maybe his is the set for me this year. I'll reserve judgment until I've picked up a few more packs, but my initial reaction to the product is quite positive. Thanks for reading.