I have seen Bunt really start to ramp up on the inserts over the last few weeks, and I am sure it has a lot to do with Spring Training coming into focus over the next month. The baseball season is imminent, and I could not be more happy.

All that being said, with the looming release of 2015 Bunt, is it worth picking up new cards that you know are still categorized technically under 2014? There are reasons to think that it is and it isnt.

The Case For Collecting Now

First and foremost, the cards look tremendous. Each new insert set is cooler than the next, and some of them really are packing a punch in value. Finest cards are trading like sigs in many cases, and the themes of the sets we are seeing are really cool.

When you see how great sets like Nicknames and Grid look, and how there is likely not going to be a huge change in collection strength come 2015, it isnt a bad thing if you feel drawn to spending your coins to pick up these cards. People will want them next year because they are A) rare, B) look awesome and C) have really clever themes.

Those last three things hardly ever change, and it is a big reason why some 2013 inserts are still very valuable. Go try to find a McCutchen Mystery for cheap, it just doesnt exist.

Lastly, there are no year tags applied to the newest cards, which could mean that they eventually get tagged with the new year. That is pretty interesting, as it will add value if they show up when sorted by 2015 after the launch of the new build.

The Case Against Collecting Now

With 2015 likely about a month and a half away, there is a timer before the collectors focus shifts to completing the new sets. With each new year, things change, and people move on. No matter how cool a new card is, it will drop in value when the new cards are released. There are still some major questions to see how MUCH value will be lost, but it might not be worth risking it until we know for sure.

Secondly, there is no guarantee that the insert structure will remain the same. We all know that there will be inserts and there will be sigs, but we dont know how they will function in game. The reason is because we dont know how much the gameplay element will be changing. It might not change at all, but there have been a lot of clues that say it is.

A change in gameplay structure could mean a shift in collection value as well, and we know that 2014 cards will not score, save a few here and there. Because we dont know much about how the app is going to change – trading, playing along, sorting, etc – its hard to make a case that it is worth buying in or acquiring the new inserts until those things are cleared up.

Dont get me wrong, I love the look of the newest inserts enough that I bought coins for the first time in months on Bunt. However, I am overly cautious at the same time with how much I am investing. Balance is the key word.