Randy Arozarena's hottest RC may be (shocker) Sapphire

It's just a standard baseball card, but it's from a highly collected premium brand.

That's a sentence that could apply to a lot of players and a lot of sets, but in the case of the World Series-bound Tampa Bay Rays and their star newcomer Randy Arozarena it's true and it's arguably his best Rookie Card right now that we're about to talk about.

It's his 2020 Topps Chrome Sapphire Edition RC -- a card that arrived after his Topps Chrome card and all of his Topps Chrome rookie autos -- but it's in a lot more demand because of something beyond all that special, sparkly Sapphire stock. It's something that has asking prices for this simple card as high as $749 right now on eBay (really ... see it here) with hundreds of dollars already spent. 

You see, all of Arozarena's previous cards in Topps Chrome show him with his former team, the St. Louis Cardinals, while his Sapphire card shows him with the team that will be in more demand (and already is) as the World Series begins tonight down in Texas with the ALCS MVP and his upstart team taking on a veteran-heavy and home-stocked Los Angeles Dodgers team. (His Ben Baller Chrome card also is a Cardinal ... sorry, ballers.) Arozarena was traded to the Rays in January along with Jose Martinez and an additional pick for Matthew Liberatore, Edgardo Rodriguez and a pick. Meanwhile, he hit .421 with three homers and three RBI in the ALDS before an ALCS showing that included four homers and six RBI while still hitting .321 ... so that trade paid off.

It's not just asking prices that are high for this Sapphire Rookie Card. A BGS 9.5 (no subs) copy of this card already has bidding that has topped the $200 mark -- with more than six days remaining -- and should figure to be a front-runner as it's the only copy of the card that has been slabbed. No other Topps Chrome cards of any kind have been graded by BGS, either. As for actual sales of raw cards? Well, the basic version has sold for $500 and there have been 25 copies of the card sold for between $100 (Oct. 5) and $400 (Oct. 18) with half of those being $250 and up ... so it's hot and not some one-card anomaly.

Don't forget that there are parallels in Sapphire. A /10 Purple went for more -- somewhere between $500 and $899 (its original pricetag) via a best-offer sale. Meanwhile, boxes of 2020 Topps Chrome Sapphire Edition also can include Orange, Red, Padparadscha and Superfractor parallels that don't appear to have surfaced. (You also find a rookie autograph in every box in case you don't land an Arozarena jackpot, by the way.) If you can't swing Topps Chrome Sapphire, Arozarena also has a fresh Rays Rookie Card in 2020 Bowman Chrome, which recently arrived in a couple of formats.

What is possible here? Imagine if this young Cuban star with a bit of an out-0f-nowhere story powers the Rays to their first World Series championship.

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