Background

Beginning with the 2006 season, a new set of rules on player selection from the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) went into effect. From that point on, only those players who have actually played in a Major League game, will be allowed to appear in an MLBPA licensed base set. Further more, all cards of first-year players will have a new standardized, cross-brand, "ROOKIE CARD" logo on their cards.

As part of it's long-standing agreement with the MLBPA, Topps is not bound to the Association's group licensing agreement, and must sign each player to an individual contract. On the surface, this appears to give Topps' competition an advantage; however, (up until 2006) it allowed Topps to include players who had yet to reach a Major League roster, onto fully-licensed MLB cards. Since relaunching the Bowman brand in 1989, Topps has positioned it as "The Home of the Rookie Card," by stocking the checklist with hundreds of minor-leaguers. Since Bowman is a fully licensed brand, and does feature a token number of current Major League stars, the cards of these minor-leaguers are considered their true Major League rookiecard.

And therein lies, as the MLBPA sees it, the problem. Their beef is twofold. First, is a term coined by some in The Hobby as the "RC Gap:" that is, a player's rookiecard appears in a product years before he actually appears in a Major League game. An example of this is the case of the 2005 National League Rookie of the Year, RyanHoward. Howard actually Major League debut as a September call-up in 2004, but all of Howard's rookie cards were issued in 2003. (Not suprisingly, they're all Bowman products.) Unlike the NFL or the NBA, which do not have established minor-leagues, a player is prohibited from appearing in football or basketball card set until he has appeared in a actual game.

The second beef is the fact that the hundreds of minor-league prospects featured in the Bowman set are not actual Major League players, and as such, are not dues paying members of the MLBPA.

Well, That's Good To Know. What's It Mean?

For the longest time the hobby has been split up between major league cards and minor league cards. Sets like Topps, Bowman, UpperDeck, Fleer, Donruss were all major league companies. Just, TriStar, the USA sets that are now out were all minor league cards and companies.

For years the market established what was considered a rookie card. In a sentence, rookie cards were the base (non-insert cards) produced by major league companies in the first year that the player had cards produced by a major league company. This meant that a the player could have minor league cards from 2000-2005. If in 2006 their first card produce by a major league card company came out, that year held his rookie cards. There are a couple of exception including 2001-2003 Prospect Premieres which are labeled XRC's (extended rookie cards) in the Beckett. These were produced by a major league company (Upper Deck) but due to the make-up of the set (the entire set was players who had never had a card before without a single established major league player) these sets were viewed slightly differently from your average set and the players who had a card in this set but did not have one in any other set that year have rookie cards in later years (examples include DavidWright who had a 2001 Prospect Premieres card and has rookie cards in 2002; PrinceFielder who had a 2002 Prospect Premieres Autograph card and has rookie cards in 2005.) The Prospect Premieres cards are in pretty high demand and many like them better than the later rookie cards. It seems most people treat them like they would any rookie card.

So in the year that the player's rookie card is, all base cards from that year (not insert cards) are considered rookie cards. Parallels that are a take-off on the base set (like Bowman Chrome Refractors and the like which use the same image just with a different color card) are treated by most like rookie cards and in fact I can't think of anyone who treats them differently.

Things get slightly more complicated going forward. A year ago or so (might be closer to 2 years ago) the MLBPA (major league baseball players association) decided that a player could only have a rookie card once he was in the major leagues. Until this point it did not matter where the player was, he could be in A ball but he could still have a rookie card. The MLBPA noticed that a hot rookie card sells product. Because of the old setup of rookie cards, most rookie cards were being produced years before the player made the bigs and the MLBPA wanted to bring more interest into the new products. They put a big official MLBPA Rookie label on these new "rookie cards" and waited to see what would happen.

There were a few major problems.

• Most people couldn't care less what the MLBPA had to say. The collectors had decided what was a rookie card for years and were not interested in having it dictated to them.
• Because players in the past had Rookie cards while they were in the minors, there were now players with "rookie" cards in 2 different seasons. The original rookie card and the MLBPA rookie card.
• To make matters worse, the MLBPA couldn't get rid of Bowman Chrome which was the "home of the rookie card" because it is/was just way too popular; one of the highlights of the card year for many many collectors and a set that always sells out. What did they do? Because as stated earlier an insert card is not considered a rookie card, they had Bowman and Bowman Chrome come out and put all the guys who weren't in the majors yet in an "insert" set hoping this would solve the problem.

Didn't work though, not even close. After years and years of Bowman and Bowman Chrome being considered rookie cards, the MLBPA calling them inserts changed nothing in most people's minds. They were still Bowman Chrome and they were still the cards to get of the guys they wanted. Because of this, the problem of having rookie cards in 2 different seasons (Bowman Chrome card and MLBPA card) will remain until something changes.

Meanwhile in the beginning collectors were so anti the new MLBPA rules that the cards were dirt cheap. The only time they sold for anything was to an unsuspecting buyer who thought they were getting a real rookie card. In the last year or so collectors have come to accept it as a reality and the prices have gone up, especially for hot prospects and guys who's actual rookie cards are very expensive. Prince Fielder's 2006 Bowman Chrome Autograph which is a MLBPA RC but not a "real" rookie (his rookies are in 2005) has sold very well since he's been hot, especially the rare parallels so it's clear that some people are interested and somewhat accepting that the MLBPA RC cards are something that is worth spending money on (in the case of Fielder it's his first Bowman Chrome card as he did not have one in 2005 and the popularity of Chrome helps a lot!!) Going forward it seems clear that there is somewhat of a market for both and room to "invest" in both if that's what you are looking to do.

As for some guys (Matsuzaka and Lincecum), both are in a fairly unusual and somewhat nice situation in that they never had a major league card until 2007, and they are both in the majors in 2006, so for them they will not have 2 separate years of rookie cards. All their cards from 2007 will fit the requirements for both types of "rookies" meaning for those 2 players there will be less confusion. One thing to keep in mind with DaisukeMatsuzaka is that the Japanese market will be paying huge sums for his stuff (they already have) so his stuff will cost way more than a different player of his caliber (whatever caliber that proves to be.)

Meanwhile, with all this being said, another change has been occurring. In the past minor stuff for the most part was considered junk and did not sell well at all. In 2006 Tri-Star got a license to produce minor league cards and their first release was very impressive. The USA sets that come out every year have also been gaining in popularity as collectors and investors are paying more attention to college guys, high school guys and the draft than ever before.

Courtesy of topnotchsy of the Beckett.com Message Boards