Try A Pack #17: 2019 Donruss

Haven't seen a whole lot of these on the blogs, but I kind of like this years Donruss.  Yes, it still doesn't have any logos, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.  But it's not very expensive and it's loaded with parallels, which after a few packs I kind of think there are benefits and drawbacks to the parallel insanity.

What I do like is this:

Like that Donruss used the '85 design for the young players

The base set has both black and white bordered cards.  Different, and I like the look.   If anything, maybe a bit too busy on the diagonal stripes on the white bordered portion, but the black looks really sharp (as it always does when used by card companies). 

The retail fat packs contain one holo red and one vector parallel in each:

The vector parallel scanned better than I thought it would, because I had a little trouble seeing the design if I had the card tilted a certain way.  The holo red parallels scan quite flat, they actually have a foil shine on them and they look good in hand.

Quite a few of the big names in the set have variations, as evidenced by Juan Soto above.   I also pulled a Walker Buehler with his twitter handle on the front (@buehlersdayoff).  In my opinion, these may have run their course as they've been done in the past. 

In my first pack, I pulled a Signature Series card as well...

I haven't had much luck for the longest time pulling any jersey or autograph cards out of any retail packs, so seeing this in the first pack was a welcome sight.  I've yet to see Caleb Ferguson pitch, but just looking at his stats over his first season + 2 weeks it looks as if the Dodgers have another solid young player to add to the group of under age 25 players that form a nice chunk of their 25 man roster.

Not bad from what I've seen so far, not sure if I'll try and build the set yet but the first few packs were a fun rip.

Thanks for reading!

Robert