Perfect outings drive demand for Roki Sasaki baseball cards

A young player, international appeal, historic games ... and a Superfractor chase.

Those are some key ingredients making some hot cardboard right now -- if you know about it -- as 20-year-old Chiba Lotte Marines star Roki Sasaki has been arguably the most-dominant pitcher on the planet this month. A week ago, he threw a perfect game with 19 strikeouts in Nippon Professional Baseball action and he followed that up yesterday with eight perfect innings with 14 more strikeouts before the ball was handed to a closer.

Why might this matter to American collectors? Well, he's got 18 cards in both of Topps' 2021 NPB releases you can easily chase (or cash in on if that's your thing) with 10 in Chrome and eight in the basic set. They're all paralleled out so, yes, there's a Superfractor in play out there somewhere as he's dominating the game.

While his NPB Rookie Cards from Japanese manufacturers are in 2020 releases -- and they are selling well, too -- the Topps cards are dominating on eBay considering the Chrome factor. The Aqua parallel above had a $749.99 BIN and a best offer was taken. Asking prices among current eBay auctions? They're actually higher -- and none of the cards on the marketplace at the moment are particularly rarer versions. Meanwhile the lineup includes Refractors with Purple (/299), Aqua (/199), Blue (/150), Green (/99), Gold (/50), Orange (/25), Red (/5) and a 1/1 Superfractor also out there.

The standard Topps NPB set also has a base card and parallels -- Gold Rainbow, Rainbow (/150), Vintage stock (/99), Blue (/50), Orange (/25), Red (/5) and 1/1 Rayfoil versions -- there aren't that many of these cards out there either but boxes can still be found. Base cards have sold on eBay have sold for $45 and up this month while Chromes have gone for as much as $215 -- not bad considering they're not Rookie Cards. It's also interesting he didn't appear in any of the insert sets in either release -- but that focuses the attention on these cards perhaps more. His Japanese RCs pre-dated his actual debut. He went 4-2 with a 1.84 ERA and 87 strikeouts in 83 innings in last season. He's 2-0 this year with a 1.16 ERA and 56 Ks in 31 innings -- that's 16.3 strikeouts per nine innings so far -- simply dominating.

Now, what might happen to them if this streak continues? Or what if he gets MLB attention later? He's already got the attention on MLB.com.

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