So let me get this straight – the set is filled with the usual veterans save for the inserts and 89 short-printed and super short-printed autographs and it’s dubbed Future Stars? And the cards are boring to boot. Let’s just call 2007 Upper Deck Future Stars Baseball for what it really is — crap.
So you might be able to stike it lucky and land a good rookie autograph of Tim Lincecum, Alex Gordon or Joba Chamberlain. But if you’re opening this stuff by the case you’re left with a ton of garbage left over.
I love building sets and the balance here is way out of whack. My retail box had almost the complete base set. That was fine. But with the one autograph, I was 88 short of the set there. I’m normally okay with just going for the base set when the checklists are this insane (yes, when the short prints have about two percent of the print run of the base cards, that’s insane) but Upper Deck called this set Future Stars. Give me my dang 28-year-old rookies who will pitch the seventh inning in one game that’s already a blowout, have a cup of coffee afterward, get confused for the maintenance guy three times and head back to Minor League purgatory for the rest of their careers. If I wanted guys like Jeter, Rodriguez and Pujols, I’d go for a set not branded Future Stars.
In a nutshell, the premise of this set is probably the worst I’ve seen. Sure, there’ve been a lot of bad sets over the years, but most at least hinge on some sort of innovation and I don’t consider autographed rookie cards – with stickers, no less – on foil board to be innovative.
2007 Upper Deck Future Stars retail boxes boast 24 packs of four cards with a guarantee of one autograph per box. Normally $20 for all that is a solid deal. Hobby boxes give you four autographs and six numbered inserts but the price goes up to around $70 to $80. Collation-wise, you couldn’t ask for a better box. I’m nearly done the base set, although I’m not sure I want to take the effort to track down the missing handful. My autograph was Jamie Vermilyea. All I know about Vermilyea from this card is that he’s a pitcher who in 2007 was with the Blue Jays and had some bushy hair. That’s because the card back on the autographs has nothing but Upper Deck’s Richard P. McWilliam telling me the signature is authentic. Because focusing your brand on future stars, largely unknowns to the majority of baseball fans, and not giving them a brief bio or some stats to help them get to know these future stars would be dumb. </sarcasm>
The base card design is boring. You’ve got lots of writing in an ugly futuristic font, an isolated player action shot, some green and a Pole Position race track in the background.
There’s no mention of inserts on the pack but I got two anyway. The first was a Rookie Dated Debuts card of White Sox pitcher John Danks numbered 277/999. The second was a Cy Young Prospects Tyler Clippard numbered 293/500. Accroding to the Upper Deck website there’s also Two for the Bigs, All-Star Futures, MVP Futures and numerous colored and autographed parallels. The two inserts I got were both boring and looked like they could have been base cards in any other generic premium set. They remind me a lot of the SP Authentic line cira 1996-97.
It’s been a while since I’ve been this down on a set. The $18 price tag lured me in as an add-on for another purchase I was making. Still, this set is a stinker that perhaps only the gamblers out there might want to roll the dice on in hopes of getting a good autograph. But even then, there’s nicer cards of most of these guys out there.
2007 Upper Deck Future Stars Baseball Box Breakdown:
Packs per box: 24
Cards per pack: 4
Total cards: 96
Cards in set: 189
Singles: 94
Doubles: 0
Triples+: 0
Inserts: 2
- Cy Young Prospects: 1 (CY-TC. Tyler Clippard [293/500])
- Rookie Dated Debuts: 1 (RD-DA. John Danks [277/999])
- Two for the Bigs: 0
- All-Star Futures: 0
- MVP Futures: 0
- Clear Path to History Triple Signatures: 0
- Red Parallel: 0
- Gold Parallel: 0
- All-Star Futures Signatures: 0
- Cy Young Futures Signatures: 0
- MVP Futures Signatures: 0
- Rookie Dated Debuts Signatures: 0
- Two for the Bigs Signatures: 0
