National LEAGUE West HObby Preview
Topps Series 1 is out, and that means baseball season is just around the corner. I’ve found my passion for baseball growing over the past few seasons, and I’m more excited for this one than any since I was a kid. I’ve done baseball previews the last two years, but this year, I want to give each division their own week. That means six weeks of baseball previews. I hope you’ll indulge me a bit as I wax poetic about the upcoming 2025 MLB season for a rather extended period of time.
I’m starting with the NL West as most articles move east to west, and I want to avoid coastal bias by hitting the west divisions when I’m just starting this series and still goofily excited.
Arizona Diamondbacks
I really like the Diamondbacks this year. I mentioned coastal biases already, and I think the Diamondbacks are certainly a victim of that. Corbin Carroll is a superstar in the making and is one of the top 10 players I’m intrigued by in 2025.
That said, Carroll stunk the first half of 2024. He stunk bad. He was clearly dealing with lingering shoulder issues, and once those got resolved, he was one of the best hitters in the majors with an OPS of .918 from August 1st on, which was good for 11th best.
He’s got the blend of power, speed, and excitement that is all the rage in the hobby. He put up a 20/20 season in a down year at the age of 23. 30/30 should be the expectation for Carroll this year, with plenty of highlight reel plays to go along with it.
Carroll’s cards have dropped over 60% from their peak in 2023 as many collectors gave up on Carroll completely. I predict that many collectors will jump back onboard the Carroll train as he and the Diamondbacks excel.
Carroll’s 2023 Topps Chrome RC autos are going for right around $100 currently, which seems a touch low.
Colorado Rockies
This is the third year in a row I’ve written about Tovar. It’s honestly more of a knock on Colorado than an endorsement of Tovar, though. I like Tovar, but I’m not sure of his hobby value, even if he becomes a 35-homerun shortstop. The hobby, frankly, just hates the Rockies.
He plays a difficult position and will be a WAR machine in the future, but a lack of hype coming in and the Rockies' stigma give Tovar an uphill hobby battle.
I was big on Tovar last year and bought a few Topps Chrome autos for between $10 and $20. He had a strong All-Star season, and so naturally, the same cards still go for between $10 and $20.
The Rockies aren’t likely to be on anyone’s radar, so Tovar will have to put up some gaudy stats to get attention. His cards best chance for a big increase is if he gets traded or gets attention while negotiating a big contract. He already signed a very team-friendly seven-year contract last season, so he’s stuck on the Rockies for the foreseeable future, and his hobby future is likely stuck as well.
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers unsurprisingly have more hobby-relevant talent than any other team in baseball. Ohtani almost undoubtedly will still be at the top of the hobby at the end of the year, but I’m most interested in Mookie Betts this season.
Betts has been nothing short of spectacular and is a surefire HOF inductee at this point. He’s been overlooked in the hobby, given his production and talent.
I think a big reason is that he hasn’t had autos in products for years. Just about every time someone pulls a Mike Trout auto, they share it on social media or with their friends. This reinforces the idea that Trout has hobby value. Betts doesn’t have that constant reinforcement that he is the guy to hit in the hobby, as he doesn’t have autos to hit.
That’s changing with Betts signing for Topps again. With Betts autos being the highlight of products this year, I wonder if he’ll start getting more attention. I think he will. Pair that with the Dodgers likely march to the World Series, and Betts’ cards should be on the uptick, IMO.
My favorite RC he has is his 2014 Topps Heritage RC. PSA 9 copies are currently going for around $140, with PSA 10s getting $325-$350. His cards have been trending upwards, and I expect them to continue to do so.
San Diego Padres
Merrill is a breakout candidate (one could argue he already did last year), but I’m most intrigued by Luis Arraez, who is trying to maintain a small amount of hobby relevancy with a stat that has fallen out of fashion, batting average.
Arraez won his third straight batting title, and if this was 1990, the hobby would be buzzing with Arraez hype. Batting average is an afterthought now, and there is good reason for that. Arraez’s 2024 might have been the least productive 200-hit season in history.
That said, if Arraez keeps stringing together batting titles and 200-hit seasons, he’ll become a favorite of the anti-analytics crowd who favor traditional stats like batting average.
His 2017 Bowman Chrome 1st Auto is going for between about $60 and $80. That’s actually quite a bit higher than I expected. As long as Arraez is atop the batting average leaderboard, I expect him to have hobby value. A few years at even third or fourth, and I think his cards’ value falls off a cliff. Arraez has a unique path to hobby stardom, but it is a narrow one.
San Francisco Giants
The Giants might be the best team in the majors without a clear hobby-relevant player. Logan Webb is nice, but he’s a pitcher with a PED suspension and it’s hard enough for pitchers to become hobby-relevant. Webb is great, but you should be able to get his Topps Chrome RC auto for under $20 for the next decade or so barring a major step up.
Matt Chapman got a massive extension and is great, but hasn’t had hobby relevancy in years. I wonder if he should though.
Chapman had a big 2024 and if he can put together just three more years like that followed by three years with half that production, he’ll have between 65-70 WAR. Toss in some Gold Gloves and decent MVP finishes and all of a sudden, the hobby afterthought is in the HOF.
It’s more likely Chapman won’t replicate his 2024 season and even if he does, he’s unlikely to get hobby attention for a couple of years meaning he’s not the Giants' hobby superstar yet.
Willy Adames was their other big signing and he’s a stellar real baseball player, but absolutely irrelevant in the hobby. 29-year-olds without an All-Star appearance just don’t move the needle.
Perhaps one of the Giants’ young stars will fit the bill. Marco Luciano, Luis Matos, and Heliot Ramos have all had buzz at some point as prospects, and one of them may break out and give the Giants their cardboard hero.
The most likely candidate IMO is Ramos, who had what might’ve been the most ignored All-Star season by a 24-year-old in ages last year. Ramos hits the ball hard and was amongst the best in the majors at barreling the ball (13th in all of MLB). The challenge is in turning that into consistent production.
My strong guess is that the Giants will still lack a hobby-relevant player at the end of the season barring a trade.
Wrap Up
That’s it for the NL West. I hope you’ll indulge me being a little long-winded in these previews. I’m not sure if it’s an upside or a downside but writing these always sparks my hobby purchases. This week I talked myself into some more Corbin Carroll cards. Next week, I’ll see what AL West players I can talk myself into buying.