I believe there are many hidden gems in the 2025 baseball rookie cards class. Personally, I have been accumulating Ben Rice and Nick Kurtz rookie cards for months. I been actively looking for these in dollar boxes regardless of condition, which are typically in decent condition given they are newer cards. Surprisingly, I am still able to find large lots of these probably for reasons that I describe below. I anticipate a targeted price of $50 for the average base Ben Rice rookie card and $40 for the average base Nick Kurtz rookie card in approximately five years. It typically requires a player seven years to show signs of GOATesque symptoms proven with upward trajectory in record pacing levels and postseason success. The bottom line is, only GOATesque and plus players will receive perennial public exposure in the long-term after the hype hence their cards are likely the only ones that will see post-inflation adjustment gains after they retire. Both players’ cards will have higher ROI multipliers due to their marketability.
I believe Ben Rice will be a cultural icon in popular culture as an Ivy leaguer super athlete role model, a career long Mr. Yankees folks hero who will get 400 plus home runs, 2,000 plus hits and a few championships. I think Nick Kurtz will eventually make it to a major market team where he will be a superstar. The issue here is his fan base will likely mostly be from a team that is not the team name on the jerseys of his rookie cards which might diminish the ROI multiplier a bit. The baseball rookie cards in the 2025 baseball card packs are probably one of the best in the last few decades. We are talking about at least five highly probable future hall of famers in Ben Rice, Nick Kurtz, James Woods, Drake Baldwin and Cade Horton. Daylen Lile and Dalton Rushing also have decent chances of being future hall of famers. I can also identify probably another five players with their rookie baseball cards in 2025 that also have the potential to be hall of famers. This class is top heavy and extensive deep. Some of these players mentioned above are already at record pacing levels. The best part of all this is while all the people are diverting their attention to basketball cards, soccer stickers and modern Pokemon cards, baseball cards are lagging behind its true market value for these cards. Even so, I’m baseball cards, people focus more on the Ohtanis, Judges and other players who are already superstars.
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.
July 2026 sports and Pokemon Trading Card Game (TCG) cards Buy List.
Prices are so ridiculous low at this point, I could buy two Ben Rice cards for around a dollar. Ben Rice is literally hitting better than Aaron Judge and is likely a top MVP candidate in the American League. In this year of low level offensive production due to stellar pitching and likely exhaustion from the recent few years of historical offensive performances, Ben Rice has a real opportunity to get an MVP award. He is not just hitting home runs and the best player on the Yankees now, he is very efficient per his hitting metrics. The Yankees are currently the winningest team in the American League that means Ben Rice could also win postseason awards and a championship. With Aaron Judge likely out for an extensive amount of time and no one else in the AL that is realistically better than Ben Rice, I think it’s safe to say Ben Rice will likely win the MVP. I know Vladimir Guerrero is getting more votes than Ben Rice with a grand total of four home runs this season, but let’s be honest….I think someone or some organization(s) important enough will reasonably make the all star starting situation right in Ben Rice’s favor.
Many of the pundits see Ben Rice not as a historical level hitter but more of a Mr. Popular type. Even though I agree he came into the league a little late hence greatly lowering his probability of breaking records, however, I believe in momentum. I think Aaron Judge’s injury history and the older players on the team will mean more time for other hitters to develop. The Yankee appears to be win the next five years kind of team right now. Its farm system is practically depleted now. Even if the Yankees can get free agents, not every year is a blockbuster free agency year. All that to say is in Ben Rice’s prime baseball years, he will get help from a lot of big bats to lead the Yankees to postseason success. Nick Kurtz is young and has a lot of power in his hitting. I think at some point he will be traded or leaves for a big market team. I see Nick Kurtz winning an MVP at least and likely multiple MVPs.
Regarding Pokemon cards, I said this few times and I will say it again. The best deals right now by far are the vintage 1999 cards especially the base set. This set contains the best value in Pokemon TCG cards history because it is the last set that can be considered as rookie cards of Pokemon. It was literally produced in the first year of the English language version of Pokemon cards. At a buck or less per card, this is literally the best deal one could get when people realize how insane it was to buy modern for more when they could by the OG rookie cards for almost nothing. Making money in the long-term is all about discipline and sustainability. These two players I believe have the highest potential to become GOATesque in the MLB out of all the players with their rookie cards in 2025 due to a combination of abilities, viability and marketability. In most valuable collections, it’s usually only a low double digit percentage of cards that makes up the vast amount of value of the collection. I am also buying up the undervalued baseball rookie cards namely Jordan Walker, Michael Harris II and Julio Rodriguez. In the next few posts I will discuss my buying strategies and analysis in details for many of the cards mentioned above.