The baseball season is underway and hopefully getting all of the bumps out of the road early. The Miami Marlins situation is reminder of how quickly this season could get taken away from us, so we must enjoy it while we can!

We picked up a retail blaster of 2020 Panini Absolute Baseball at our local target. The box contains two packs of 5 cards each and runs $19.99. On average, each box will have 1 Autograph or Memorabilia card and the packaging mentions two retail exclusive Blue Spectrum cards.

Here’s what we got out of our box:

Pack 1:

Max Scherzer Absolute Heroes, Adalberto Mondesí Spectrum Blue, Randy Johnson & Curt Schilling One Two Punch, Yoan Moncada, Shane Bieber.

Pack 2:

Bryan Abreu Rookie Materials, Adbert Alzolay Rookie Round Up Spectrum Blue, Stan Musial Spectrum Blue, Nico Hoerner Rookie Round Up, Jorge Soler.

Grade: C+

Opening two packs and getting just 10 cards is always going to be a little underwhelming unless you hit a big card. I did manage to pull 4 Blue Spectrum cards which was nice, even though the box mentioned to look for 2 (maybe it was 2 per pack? Either way I’m not complaining!) The Blue Spectrum cards really pop in the light. Putting them in my lightbox to photograph them caused some really cool color streaks and reflections.

My autograph or memorabilia card turned out to be a plain white jersey swatch of Houston Astros pitcher Bryan Abreu. The Astros #5 Prospect made his major league debut last year and is back in the majors right now.

This set also does a really good job of hiding the airbrushing and removal of logos from the uniforms and hats. While there wasn’t really much value in my box, I would be willing to rip more of this if I found it. It’s always nice to know you’re going to get an autograph or jersey card.