When the clock strikes twelve on the night of Tuesday December 1st, the MLB’s collective bargaining agreement will come to an end, meaning that if a new one is not agreed upon we will go into a lockout on December 2nd. As most of you know we are putting on Bowmania in March, which is the first of its kind Bowman-focused trading card show. Part of the reason that we set Bowmania in Tampa, FL during the month of March was to give people an opportunity to sort of kill two birds with one stone by coming down to South Florida for both Spring Training baseball and our inaugural event built for the Bowman community. With the impending lockout floating above baseball fans like a black cloud many people reached out with questions such as, “will there even be Spring Training games?” or “what will this do to our cards?”. Both great questions but unfortunately neither have a definitive answer. All we can really do at this point is look at the facts we have today and use them to make an informed guess at how an MLB lockout would affect the baseball card market.

While we have very little information on how things are going to look this offseason there is one part that is set in stone and that’s who this work stoppage would apply to. In 2023 Minor League Baseball negotiated their first CBA separate from Major League Baseball and like the MLB’s agreement it lasts for five years. That means that if the minor leagues were to have a lockout it wouldn’t be until December 1, 2027, one year after the expiration of the major league CBA. This is important because it ensures that MLB lockout or not, Minor League Baseball will play games in 2027. That’s not up for debate. They have their own agreement, it won’t expire, they 100% will play the full minor league season. What decides whether a player is eligible to play in those games comes down to if they are on an MLB team’s 40-man roster. That means that not only is every big leaguer on the 40-man going to be locked out from team activities, so are any prospects that are on the 40-man, regardless of whether they’ve reached the show or not. For all of the, “why aren’t the Red Sox calling up Franklin Arias?” questions down the stretch this was always the answer, clearing a spot for him on the 40-man roster would have all but guaranteed that he would miss baseball in the event of a lockout, a situation Boston was never going to risk. So, if the work stoppage carries into February or March and you’re wondering if a player will be eligible to play the short answer is: if they’re on the 40-man roster, no; if they’re not then yes.

One question that I had personally was whether Spring Training could go on without the players on the 40-man roster. Granted I may be biased as someone who only collects Bowman, but the thought of Spring Training games being only prospects would be a dream come true. Unfortunately, that would not be the case as Spring Training games would be pushed back or even cancelled entirely if the lockout were to extend deep enough into 2027. We will still get the Spring Breakout games which for the first time ever are going to be in a tournament format taking place the same weekend as Bowmania (March 19-22). I figured if we were going to throw this event in Florida, we’re going to make damn sure that baseball of some kind is being played. Talking to a few prospects, it did seem unclear what would happen to their training schedule but since they are under their own CBA it doesn’t appear that there is anything to stop them from using team facilities. When I spoke to a couple of them, they didn’t seem sure based on what the teams have told them if they’re going to report as usual but in 2022 when we last had a lockout these prospects outside of the 40-man were allowed to have minor league camp, train at the team facilities, and carry on as usual. From what I have been able to find and read up on minor leaguers will still get all their normal training with the organization on top of having a full season, regardless of how long the MLB work stoppage ends up being.

Now, I’m going to assume that you’re reading this because you’re a card collector who wants to know how this is going to affect the hobby. To be honest we can speculate but until we get to February with no end to the lockout in sight I don’t think anybody can be sure what will happen to baseball cards. One thing I think we can all agree upon is that for active major leaguers it would be bad. There’s a chance that your superstars like Ohtani and Judge could sustain their prices but outside of that it’s safe to say that the lockout would have a negative impact on almost everybody else. These markets are cyclical. Baseball cards will trend down over the next couple of months as people focus more on football and basketball cards and then right around the time that pitchers and catchers normally report you start to see baseball cards go back up with the excitement of a new season. Is it possible that we get to the point in the year where baseball cards typically go back up but the lockout hasn’t been resolved, and our cards get stuck in winter offseason prices? It’s possible, although right now I would lean towards that cycle being normal because I think most people will start to buy again in anticipation of the work stoppage ending and players coming back. Where I think you’ll start to see atypical trends is if we get towards mid-to-late March without a new CBA being ratified. That is probably about the point that people will start to worry about whether we miss a portion of the MLB season, making them not only afraid to buy new cards but potentially also panic selling what they have. Aside from the singles I would imagine that a long lockout would affect new products as well. Imagine something like Topps Series 1 being released and nobody knows if we’re going to have a baseball season. Nightmare fuel. If this goes on for that long I think we are looking at a handful of possible outcomes as it pertains to the hobby.

This is absolutely the worst scenario, but I think that a prolonged lockout could potentially turn many people off from the sport entirely. Not that this is quite the same as the strike back in 1994-1995, but that killed the popularity of the game. With baseball having so much momentum right now I personally think that the league and owners know how silly it would be to hold this thing out for too long and that alone will ultimately help them come to an agreement. At the end of the day baseball being played is beneficial for both sides. If, however, this lockout cut into the regular season I do think you’d see the game lose fans, and with that we’re very likely to see that hurt the collectability of baseball cards. It’s going to be tough to sway people to spend their hard-earned money to buy a 2027 Topps product when there’s no product on the field.

While the worst case is people not spending their money on baseball cards at all, an alternate route could be that they’ll pour it into cards of players not affected by the lockout. That could cause a market shift where we see more people than usual getting into the vintage card game. There are already tons of diehard vintage baseball card collectors, but the middle section of the Venn diagram where you find the overlap between them and ultra-modern collectors is smaller than you may think. It’s not crazy to think that would change though since I am someone who doesn’t collect vintage at all but 100% could see myself walking into a store and thinking a Jackie Robinson slab is a better investment than buying singles or sealed wax of current players. It wouldn’t even surprise me to see high-end buyers temporarily shift their focus away from even the Ohtani’s and Judge’s of the world and start moving into Mantle’s and Ruth’s, leading to an increased popularity in vintage cards among younger baseball fans.

Like I just said with vintage cards, they may see a bump because the people who are still putting money into the baseball card market will want to buy players not negatively impacted by the lockout. Although players from the 40’s and 50’s shouldn’t be hurt there’s only one group that regardless of the length of the lockout will be playing baseball in 2027 and that’s MLB prospects. I’ve gone back and forth on this when people asked me about it. As a Bowman guy, I’d like to say that a lockout is almost good for us because all the baseball fans who want something to watch will start to watch Minor League Baseball. Is that true? If I’m honest, probably not. Sure, you might see your real hardcore fans check out a game or two but it’s hard to imagine that loyal MLB fans who have never cared about the minor league affiliates will suddenly begin to. The good news is that Bowman people are a different breed, and most of them probably don’t even care about the lockout because the value of their collection is tied to which 19-year-old prospects are playing well in High-A. While us Bowman people think that we’re a big group it’s still pretty niche, hence the lack of Bowman at The National and whole reason we started Bowmania. For this reason, I have a hard time believing that a lockout could negatively impact the Bowman market in any way. I’ve been an Atlanta Braves fan since I could talk. Do you want to know how many cards I own of active Braves players? Zero. Do you know how many regular season Braves games I watched this year? I could probably count them on my hands. I think I can speak for a lot of Bowman people when I say, we don’t care, we spend so much time following the prospects at the minor league level looking for market inefficiencies that the MLB games played between March and September become background noise. As I mentioned earlier, if Topps Series 1 gets released and there’s been no CBA progress that product could be a dud. Do you know what will come out in January though and sell no matter what? 2026 Bowman Draft. And on top of all the Bowman people fighting over these boxes as they always are, you now open up the possibility that people who have never dabbled in the prospect game will buy those instead of their usual Topps flagship cards.

If I’m a betting man, I think that the new collective bargaining agreement is passed before we miss any regular season MLB games because as I said I think both sides understand how much it will hurt to miss a portion of the season and that alone will ultimately lead to them making concessions to get it done. In that scenario then none of this really matters, fandom should remain the same, and the baseball card market shouldn’t have any negative effects. Again though, that’s only my opinion, and if you’re somebody who firmly believes that an agreement will not happen in the next five or so months then you should be prepared to see a shift in the baseball card market. The first thing I would do is get out of any cards of active players. Now I want to be clear this is only from an investment standpoint, if your cards are for your personal collection and you don’t care about the value of them then continue to do what you do, but many people buy cards with the goal of making money. To those people I would say to put your money elsewhere. Sure, Ohtani might be bulletproof, or even Judge to some extent, but outside of that there’s no way I’m actively buying cards of any current major leaguer with the intention of making money in the short-term since they will be the players most hurt in the event of a long lockout. Other sports are always an option but there are many out there, myself included, who only buy and sell baseball cards. In that case I would say to focus your offseason buying on other areas. I do think we could see an increase in sales volume compared to years past for vintage cards if we get to February and there’s no end in sight to the lockout. Vintage is in many ways like your Google, Amazon, and other blue-chip stocks where most people buying them are happy with slow and steady gains, knowing they’re not likely to go up exponentially at once but also feeling safe that they’re unlikely to crash. Despite the card hobby now being more focused than ever on gambling, I don’t think it’s out of the question that people could get fed up with the state of the game and find a new love for the classics. For me personally though if I’m putting any amount of money into baseball cards this winter with the goal of seeing financial gains in 2027 the easiest avenue is in prospects. They are after all the only baseball players guaranteed to be on the field come March. You will already have your usual Bowman people that will continue to operate regardless of the lockout which makes it a much safer market than people realize. Getting a new wave of people to join the prospecting world in the event of a lockout would only help and since it’s such a niche area compared to collecting today’s MLB stars or vintage greats it also has the most growth potential. Basically, to make a long story short, keep doing your thing if you don’t believe there will be a prolonged lockout. If you are worried about it then stop investing in cards of active MLB players because over the course of the next few months we’re likely to find that vintage is the safest alternative and prospects provide the best chance for growth.