By this time next week, the book will be closed on the 2026 Baseball season.
It’s time for us to start thinking about the players/wax we want to scoop up during the dip in the offseason when hobby eyes are all on NBA and NFL.
And if you’re shopping baseball wax, Topps Chrome is usually where you start. It’s the rookie card most collectors want, it’s one of the most liquid releases of the year, and it tends to hold its value long after the boxes are cracked.
Tends to.
Enter 2025 Topps Chrome Baseball.
It was a very hyped release that collectors turned sour on pretty quickly. There was a ton of it that stayed on retail shelves all summer. It’s rare for a product like Chrome to be so poorly received.
So, a little over one year later, we want to look at the rookies in the release and see if current prices can justify ripping some wax.
Let’s rip in.
2025 Topps Chrome Baseball
2025 Chrome is full of good, not great rookies.
Roki Sasaki, the headliner at the time, has yet to really break out in LA. A shoulder impingement cost him most of his rookie year, and he’s carried a 4.49 ERA through 2026.
Dylan Crews, Paul Skenes’ LSU partner in crime, hasn’t quite figured out how to hit consistently at the major league level.
Ben Rice has been fantastic his first two full seasons, but he’s got an Aaron Judge-sized shadow to play under while wearing the pinstripes.
But then there’s James Wood.
He’s looking like a legitimate star whose only problem right now is that the Nats are still rebuilding. He just wrapped his second straight All-Star season: 30 homers, 21 steals and a .388 OBP, good for a 144 OPS+ (up from 130 last year).
A PSA 10 of his base rookie is selling for $77.20. His refractor? $118. And his rookie auto refractor is going for $503.
Where’s James?
Before you pick a box, you need to know where James Wood actually lives on this checklist.
Wood shows up 17 times before you start counting parallels & variations.
Base Cards
#132 — Available in all but Breaker’s Delight
Inserts
Radiating Rookies #RR-7 — Hobby formats exclusive
1990 Topps Baseball #90CB-15 — Hobby, Jumbo, Mega, Value
Fortune 15 #F15-10 — Hobby, Jumbo, Mega, Value
Power Players #PP-19 — Hobby, Jumbo, Mega, Value
Youthquake #YQ-7 — Breaker’s Delight exclusive
Ultra Violet All Stars #UV-11 — All but Fanatics Megas
Shadow Etch #SE-13 — Available in all formats
Hobby Masters #HM-18 — Available in all formats
Topps Chrome Exposé #TCE-32 — All but Fanatics Megas
Chrome Home Field Advantage #HA-9 — Available in all formats
Helix #HX-8 — Hobby formats exclusive
Fanatical #FAN-20 — Retail exclusive
All Etch Rookie Rush #CERR-7 — Hobby, Jumbo, Mega, Value
Autographs
Rookie Autographs #RA-JWO — Available in all formats
All Etch Rookie Rush Autographs #CAER-JWO — All but Fanatics Megas
Dual Autographs #CDA-CW (with Dylan Crews) — Available in all formats
There’s a lot of James Wood to find in this release. But how often we find him is another thing entirely.
And the price of looking? That’s where it gets interesting. One format costs the same today as it did on launch day. The rest don’t.
Where have prices gone since the launch of one of last year’s most disappointing releases?
And is there any value left in 2025 Topps Chrome Baseball?
