I will be honest, I personally don’t think Drake Baldwin, Nick Kurtz, James Wood or Dalton Rushing will become GOATesque nevermind GOAT. The reality is they are unfortunately playing in the same era as prime Ohtani, Judge and arguably the most talented era in MLB history. Baseball just became super exciting again with all the rule changes, global stars, competitive teams and various intriguing storylines. Baseball as a sport appears to be growing significantly globally. The World Baseball Classic becoming popular, baseball’s return to the Olympics and the fact that baseball is spreading from Asia bellwether pop culture centers like Japan, South Korea and Japan into Southeast Asia is a very important trend for the sport. Because baseball and cricket are very similar, there is a good chance it could get a piece of that 2.5 billion fan market.
All this to say is that because the much larger pie for all, I think rookie cards of these four players are good value. I tend to think baseball has the highest career longevity of all the sports for players who are good at what they do. It is not exceptionally uncommon to see baseball players in the MLB play to their mid 40s. However, the players who play to their mid 40s may likely are chasing something record wise. Many of these players start in the league in their very early 20s. Hence when I am buying rookie cards of new MLB players, I typically look for guys who make to the league early, play a premium position, has height and can either hit or pitching or both with power. Of course I look at their minor league stats as well to analyze their potentials. And yes, because my rookie cards pipeline strategy also entails maximizing upside risk and with almost insignificant downside risk when I can buy maybe a box of 4,000 of inderrated new player rookie cards for less than 100 dollars, I am able to also get rookie cards of Patrick Mahomes, Steph Curry and for sure Aaron Judge when they first came out. Of course, most of these cards won’t be worth the storage cost after a while within a given time range, hence every year I either donate those cards or give them away to friends. I live in America which means I have the rights to exercise reasonable free speech as permitted by the law. All posted content(s) on this website are my opinions only which means they should not be taken as advice of any kind. I am a non-celebrity, non-public figure posting anonymously for my own entertainment on a website that is not affiliated with any individual(s), organization(s) and/or any entity/entities.
Let’s talk about my Drake Baldwin, Nick Kurtz, James Wood and Dalton Rushing rookie sports cards to invest in for May 2026.
Why do I have a huge collection of these players’ rookie cards when there are so many other top players’ rookie cards I can choose from? One word, value. At a dollar or two per many of their base rookie cards, I think this is a very solid deal. Drake Baldwin and Nick Kurtz are Rookie of the Year winners. Historically speaking, the rookie of the year winners have high probability of being GOATesque for a variety of reasons including momentum and probably self-fulfilling prophecy as well. Baldwin also plays the catcher position for the best team in baseball right now. The Braves probably have enough depth to match evenly with the Yankees and Dodgers in postseason. James is a power hitter who may likely hit 600+ home runs and earn 3,000 hits if he has a long MLB career. I think he might have a similar career trajectory to that of Soto’s.
Dalton Rushing is a unique case. He plays a premium position as a catcher but he is a backup for someone who will likely be on the Dodgers for a long time. If he was the starting catcher of the Dodgers, I would probably would not be investing in so many of his rookie cards because his rookie cards would probably be too overly hyped for my liking. Yes, some of the intangible stuff may seem a bit off recently, however, I think a potential trade might actually be good for him. The catcher position is probably the most difficult position to play in baseball hence shorter career longevity and more in demand especially those with a big bat. Rushing is way undervalued and way underutilized on both ends especially the offense side. He only had 60+ at-bat yet he already has seven home runs with a .300+ battling average compared the 2026 at bat leader Gunnar Henderson with 170+ at-bats, a barely .200+ batting average and nine home runs. Aaron Judge arguably the best hitter in baseball right now and this season’s home run leader so far with 16 home runs had 140+ at-bats. Andy Pages, his teammate who has 140+ at bats has nine home runs. I don’t usually intently invest in the rookie cards of pitchers for value reasons.
I think that within 30 years there will be a *clean new all-time home run record given progressively better training, conditioning and athletics nutrition programs. Many players are able to regularly hit 50 and occasionally 60 home runs a season at the moment already. I think it is doable currently for a power hitter comes into the league at 20, and starts hitting on average 50 home runs at 26 for 10 years and average around 23 home runs for the other 12 years in the league. I also tend to believe if the all-time home run record can be broken the single season home run record can also be broken likely by the same player. I also think that player will also be able to get 3,000 hits as well. As great as Shohei Ohtani is, I think there will likely be a better American version of him within the next 50 years given the high athlete percentage in total US population. I believe two-way players in the MLB will become much more common in the future hence traditional one-way pitchers may not be as valued by teams as before.