2021 Donruss Baseball delivers a fun and collectible product to chase.

Panini has found its niche for the Donruss baseball product line.  Create a 200-300 card set utilizing the nostalgia of the Diamond Kings, Rated Rookie, and Retro 80s design subsets and watch the cash roll in.

The Breakdown

There are 38 base card variations in this year’s release, and 18 or 19 different parallels exist for both the base cards and variations.  Nine different insert sets also provide a chase element.  The Whammy insert is a case hit and continues to be one of the most popular elements of the product.

Autos and Relics are inserted at a rate of 2 autos and 1 relic per hobby box.  Compared to Topps baseball products, the cost per hit in Donruss is far superior to what you will find from Topps. Retail configurations provide reduced odds for hits as we’ve come to expect from past retail products.

In my opinion the biggest strength of Donruss is the inserts and some of the more creative parallels.  The Whammy, Dominators, and Elite sets are sharp.  The biggest drawback continues to be the lack of logos and the sometimes awkward photo shopped jersey colors.  However, in many of the photos used in the set, the angles and cropping make the lack of logos less noticeable.

Prices and Potential Value

Shortly after release, hobby boxes were running about $175.  This is about triple the historical rate, but isn’t as high as the 3x-4x rate we’ve seen in other products over the last year.  If you really have to bust wax you could do worse, but buying singles or complete sets on the secondary market continues to provide the bigger bang for your buck.

I did not open any hobby, but I did find a retail hanger pack.  I didn’t hit anything crazy, but the card stock quality was solid, and there were enough stars in my pack to get my money’s worth from the rip.  I didn’t get any PC cards, so they will all get listed on Sportlots!

Checklist

You can find the full checklist here on Beckett.com.

Also, if you haven’t heard, I started a new Podcast called the WaxPackHero Sports Card Minute!  It’s available here directly on the site at the Podcast link at the top of the page, or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, and TuneIn!  Check it out, let me know what you think, and tell your friends!