First Impressions: 2026 Topps

Almost 2 weeks after it's release, it's time for me to stretch out an over-saturated topic and give my first impressions of the base set. Tired of reading people's opinions yet? Oh well, here's 1 more!

 

#185 Tomoyuki Sugano

 

The honor of the first card goes to Mr. Sugano. Let talk about that design. For the most part I like it. I appreciate the attempt to use jersey fabric as a theme, and I appreciate that Topps is actually trying to design sets that will be memorable. I think the execution on the theme fails by not having the fabric design throughout the border. Fading away to white takes away from it. I like a lot of the design elements too. The 75th Anniversary stamp isn't too gaudy, the team color stripes are cool, and the font is easy to read. The 3-letter team designations are redundant with the logos, but not awful on their own. As for this card in particular, that Baltimore City Connect jersey is uninspiring. Someone got paid to come up with that...

 

#17 Nick Castellanos

#18 Ryan Ritter (RC)

#44 Shane Smith

#216 Gavin Sheets

#232 Chad Stevens (RC)

#338 TJ Friedl

#75 Camilo Doval

#286 Anthony Seigler (RC)

 

The Topps base set was officially released on February 11th. Seigler was traded to the Red Sox on February 9th. For a set that routinely features players no longer with their pictured team, that has to be some sort of record... 

 

#137 Sean Burke

#208 Jack Leiter

#155 Drew Gilbert (RC)

#209 Riley Greene

#254 Gavin Williams

#235 Logan Gilbert

#74 Alex Freeland (RC)

#219 Rafael Devers

#58 Kris Bubic

#175 Eric Lauer

#15 Payton Tolle (RC) 

 

Speaking of the Red Sox, my first 2026 Red Sox card is of up and coming starter Payton Tolle. He is quickly becoming a fan favorite with his unicorn fastball, humorous interviews, and glorious mustache. Also, I looked at all the Red Sox cards in this set, and out of 17 cards featuring Red Sox players, 5 different jerseys are being displayed. (In addition to the traditional white and grays, Boston now has a traffic light of options - red, yellow, and green!) It kind of took away from the team cohesiveness if you know what I mean...

 

#278 Jose Altuve

#22 Clayton Kershaw

 

A proper sunset card for an all-time great. You love to see it!

 

#40 Sonny Gray

#198 Boston Red Sox (TC)

#65 Masataka Yoshida

 

Back to back Red Sox cards! Nice, this might be the most Red Sox cards I've ever pulled in my first pack of the year.

 

#336 Kumar Rocker (FS)

 

If you include the Texas "T", then Topps has hit all four corners on this card! Just something I noticed...

 

#182 Grant Holmes

#341 Giancarlo Stanton

#116 Yanquiel Fernandez (RC)

#329 Miguel Vargas

#9 Nick Privetta

#102 Juan Burgos (RC)

#136 Ezequiel Tovar

#156 Dominic Canzone

#164 Brenton Doyle

#35 CJ Kayfus (RC)

#110 Evan Carter

#70 Bob Seymour (RC)

#261 Zack Wheeler

 This looks like a good spot to talk about the back. First of all, see what I meant by having the jersey encompass the whole border? This looks much better and they should have done the same to the front. The card number is easy to read, thank you Topps. The stats though? Are my eyes getting worse or did they get even smaller? I swear the font size got smaller...

 

#111 Cam Schlittler (RC)

#345 Andrew Benintendi

#94 Yu Darvish 

#112 Carson Seymour (RC)

#81 Matt McLain

#267 Willy Adames

#163 Brandyn Garcia (RC)

#274 Hunter Goodman

#331 Bryce Miller

#259 Luis Morales (RC)

#106 Kyle Freeland

 

#48 Stephen Kolek

 

Topps moved the inserts to the back of the pack rather than putting them in the middle, which is fine by me. These Holo Foil parallels do nothing for me.

 

#FP-4 Kevin Negandhi

 

I have no idea who this guy is. I haven't watched ESPN since I ditched cable and went with streaming services. He does not look happy.

 

#322 Trea Turner

#128 Felix Bautista

 

Granted, I do think these Diamante Foil look nicer than the Holo Foil parallels, but as 1 of 71 parallel sets available it's still unnecessary. 

 

#T91-17 Jeff Bagwell

I do enjoy these inserts, only because the past few years have been paying tribute to the sets I grew up with and collected in my youth. Seeing the 1991 set reminds me however that this nostalgia period is coming to a close soon. 

 

#TOG-18 Bryce Harper

#TOG-13 Pete Crow-Armstrong 

 

I' going to be nit-picky here. Titans of the Game makes me think of the absolute legends in the history of the game. The Hall of Famers and the eventual no doubters. Is PCA a titan? Maybe some day, but not yet. And what's with the black baseballs?

 

#SMLB-18 Jose Ramirez

#SMLB-10 Francisco Lindor

 

Stars of MLB is back again. The design is OK, but outside of also being team colored I'm not excited by it. 

 

It's been well documented that Topps/Fanatics has decreased the amount of cards in the boxes, so I really don't know how much product I'll buy this year. That being said, one of the "hot" rookies in the set happens to be a red Sox player, so if I don't open a pack and find a Roman Anthony, he may just be a bit overpriced on the buy/trade front by the time the season is over. Still, for the set itself, I like the design on the whole, but all the extra inserts and parallels haven't piqued my interest.