[semperbm1463]

Broke my second box of 2022 Finest last night. First auto was Josh Lowe RC (Rays), not terrible...also a nice Manny Machado Aqua Shimmer refractor /175 (Padres fan here). 
And to the second mini box...a Gold Refractor Auto! Could it be Julio, Pena, Wander???

Nope. A Yankees "rookie" named Trey Amburgey. Had to Google to find his HOF-worthy career:

13th round pick in 2015,
Made his way up the minors and called up by the Yankees on July 15, 2021 (so NOT a rookie in 2022?!)
Had a total of FOUR at-bats with the Yanks, with zero hits, then promptly sent back to AAA.
Eventually released, signed minor league deals with the Reds and Mariners, then ultimately landed with the Yokohama BayStars of Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan.

Seriously Topps? I'd be curious to meet the masterminds behind deciding to put a guy with 4 big-league ABs in 2021 in this autograph checklist. 
On a positive note, my first box had an Ozzie Smith auto/50 and base Julio, Pena and Witt RCs...

[kerryandbeth]

Maybe you can sell it overseas...

[rjcj2017]

Broke my second box of 2022 Finest last night. First auto was Josh Lowe RC (Rays), not terrible...also a nice Manny Machado Aqua Shimmer refractor /175 (Padres fan here). 
And to the second mini box...a Gold Refractor Auto! Could it be Julio, Pena, Wander???

Nope. A Yankees "rookie" named Trey Amburgey. Had to Google to find his HOF-worthy career:

13th round pick in 2015,
Made his way up the minors and called up by the Yankees on July 15, 2021 (so NOT a rookie in 2022?!)
Had a total of FOUR at-bats with the Yanks, with zero hits, then promptly sent back to AAA.
Eventually released, signed minor league deals with the Reds and Mariners, then ultimately landed with the Yokohama BayStars of Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan.

Seriously Topps? I'd be curious to meet the masterminds behind deciding to put a guy with 4 big-league ABs in 2021 in this autograph checklist. 
On a positive note, my first box had an Ozzie Smith auto/50 and base Julio, Pena and Witt RCs...

The good news is, he’s still considered a rookie in MLB … less than 130 at bats and less than 45 days on the roster.

The bad news is, as kerryandbeth will tell you, that those Julio and Witt cards aren’t rookie cards, either … they both had rookie cards in 2021 Bowman’s Best.

Nice Ozzie auto though!

[semperbm1463]

The good news is, he’s still considered a rookie in MLB … less than 130 at bats and less than 45 days on the roster.

The bad news is, as kerryandbeth will tell you, that those Julio and Witt cards aren’t rookie cards, either … they both had rookie cards in 2021 Bowman’s Best.

Nice Ozzie auto though!

The whole 2021 Bowman's Best vs. 2022 sets and which are considered rookies has just left me boggled. Just seems really odd to group players like Julio, Witt, Adley, Torkelson, Zac Veen (none of which had yet to break into the majors) with the rest of the 2021 rookies (KeBryan Hayes, Dylan Carlson, Cronenworth, Mountcastle, etc.) who were considered rookies by MLB standards in 2021. Must have had to do with the 2020 COVID season where no one was truly considered a "rookie" by MLB standards. Similarly, I have a Randy Arozarena Rookie from 2020 Topps Chrome Sapphire, complete with the "RC" badge while in fact he won AL ROY for the 2021 season. 
Beckett seems to be the only ones referring to the 2021 BB cards as the true rookies, since Topps has slapped the RC badge on all the 2022 sets.

[kerryandbeth]

Beckett seems to be the only ones referring to the 2021 BB cards as the true rookies, since Topps has slapped the RC badge on all the 2022 sets.

Bingo!  That is everyone else's point...a RC is a RC because of those who say it is, not because of any rules.

[rjcj2017]

The whole 2021 Bowman's Best vs. 2022 sets and which are considered rookies has just left me boggled. Just seems really odd to group players like Julio, Witt, Adley, Torkelson, Zac Veen (none of which had yet to break into the majors) with the rest of the 2021 rookies (KeBryan Hayes, Dylan Carlson, Cronenworth, Mountcastle, etc.) who were considered rookies by MLB standards in 2021. Must have had to do with the 2020 COVID season where no one was truly considered a "rookie" by MLB standards. Similarly, I have a Randy Arozarena Rookie from 2020 Topps Chrome Sapphire, complete with the "RC" badge while in fact he won AL ROY for the 2021 season. 
Beckett seems to be the only ones referring to the 2021 BB cards as the true rookies, since Topps has slapped the RC badge on all the 2022 sets.

Yeah, it’s a very unfortunate situation that Topps caused by numbering all of the prospects in 2021 Bowman’s Best as part of the base set, which triggered the official industry standard rookie card designation.

In pretty much all of their other Bowman sets, before and since 2021 Bowman’s Best, they had always numbered prospects with a “BP” designation or something similar before the card number to technically make it an insert and differentiate it from the base set.

Problem is, they didn’t do it that one time, and it cast a wide net over a bunch of players like Julio, Witt, Franco and my PC guy, Torkelson from the Tigers.

But it also, sadly, included pretty much the entire 2021 draft class like Henry Davis, Marcelo Mayer, Jordan Lawlar, etc.

Topps made it worse by continuing to slap that ridiculous “RC” logo on ALL of the 2022 cards of guys like Julio, Witt, Franco and Tork … not only base cards, but checklists, inserts, manufactured relics, etc.

They’ve also started rigging the system the last couple of years by holding players over from one year to the next that made their debuts in plenty of time (Franco, Rutschmann, etc.) to be in that season’s update set but are now delayed until the following season’s Series 1.

So now a lot of collectors (not my style) are just making things up like “the market will dictate what a rookie card is” to justify the fact that these 2022 cards are not, in fact, rookie cards.

Whatever. I mean, I’m annoyed that all of Torkelson’s 2022 “RC logo” cards are not rookie cards, because I think most of the ones I’ve pulled look really sharp.

My solution? I bought singles of most of the 2021 Bowman’s Best rookie cards just to say I have them in my collection, but I still enjoy the 2022 logo cards for how they look.