Bowman Spotlights: The Callup Board, Updated for August
Two top-20 names finally debuted. The rest of the board kept doing what it has done all summer.
A month ago I updated the 2026 callup board and the story was a wall of down arrows. Expensive callup names leaked all through June regardless of how the player performed, and the debut window kept proving to be the only clean exit. I said I'd run it again when the next batch of names graduated. They have, and two of them are the biggest debuts of the summer, so here's the board through August 6 with the old cohort repriced and the July and early-August debuts added.
The short version: nothing about the thesis changed, but the two names everyone actually cares about, Max Clark and George Lombard Jr., have now had a few days on the board, and the graded market has already repriced both of them sharply. More on that below.
The updated board
Same cohort rules as before: every 2026 debut with a Bowman 1st auto that traded above $10 before the callup, plus the new names since. "Debut $" is the raw price through the callup window. "Jul 2" is where each sat in the last board. "Now" is August 6. The right column is measured against the debut, because that's still the number the playbook is trying to beat.
| Prospect | Tm | Product | Debut $ | Jul 2 | Now | Vs Debut |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Konnor Griffin | PIT | 2024 Bowman Draft | $860 | $599 | $479 | -44% |
| Kevin McGonigle | DET | 2025 Bowman | $315 | $299 | $297 | -6% |
| Spencer Jones | NYY | 2023 Bowman | $317 | $293 | $289 | -9% |
| Colt Emerson | SEA | 2023 Bowman Draft | $256 | $240 | $200 | -22% |
| JJ Wetherholt | STL | 2025 Bowman | $232 | $207 | $149 | -36% |
| Travis Bazzana | CLE | 2024 Bowman Draft | $219 | $150 | $137 | -37% |
| Esmerlyn Valdez | PIT | 2024 Bowman | $44 | $83 | $118 | +168% |
| Henry Bolte | OAK | 2022 Bowman Draft | $185 | $140 | $103 | -44% |
| A.J. Ewing | NYM | 2023 Bowman Draft | $135 | $70 | $83 | -39% |
| Carson Benge | NYM | 2024 Bowman Draft | $230 | $124 | $76 | -67% |
| Gage Jump | OAK | 2026 Bowman | $81 | $81 | $64 | -21% |
| Noah Schultz | CWS | 2022 Bowman Draft | $123 | $82 | $60 | -51% |
| Robby Snelling | MIA | 2022 Bowman Draft | $185 | $87 | $53 | -71% |
| Justin Crawford | PHI | 2023 Bowman | $67 | $61 | $52 | -22% |
| Andrew Painter | PHI | 2021 Bowman Draft | $83 | $50 | $50 | -40% |
| Joe Mack | MIA | 2021 Bowman Draft | $37 | $37 | $40 | +8% |
| Sam Antonacci | CWS | 2024 Bowman Draft | $61 | $45 | $40 | -34% |
| Braden Montgomery | CWS | 2024 Bowman Draft | $82 | $48 | $38 | -54% |
| JR Ritchie | ATL | 2022 Bowman Draft | $86 | $41 | $33 | -62% |
| Cole Carrigg | COL | 2023 Bowman Draft | $28 | $21 | $27 | -4% |
| Ryan Waldschmidt | ARI | 2024 Bowman Draft | $71 | $30 | $26 | -63% |
| Blaze Jordan | STL | 2021 Bowman | $58 | $55 | $22 | -62% |
| Jacob Gonzalez | PIT | 2023 Bowman Draft | $49 | $23 | $18 | -63% |
| Jeferson Quero | MIL | 2021 Bowman Chrome | $22 | $16 | $15 | -32% |
| Gabriel Rincones Jr. | PHI | - | $12 | $23 | $16 | +33% |
| New since the last board | ||||||
| Max Clark | DET | 2023 Bowman Draft | $207 | - | $237 | +14% |
| George Lombard Jr. | NYY | 2024 Bowman | $173 | - | $173 | 0% |
| Tommy White | ATH | 2025 Bowman Chrome | $42 | - | $36 | -14% |
| Kaelen Culpepper | MIN | 2024 Bowman Draft | $40 | - | $40 | 0% |
| James Triantos | CHC | 2022 Bowman | $23 | - | $23 | 0% |
| Alex McFarlane | PHI | 2022 Bowman Draft | $16 | - | $16 | 0% |
| Abimelec Ortiz | WSN | 2024 Bowman | $16 | - | $7 | -56% |
| Emiliano Teodo | TEX | 2024 Bowman Chrome | $8 | - | $8 | 0% |
| Gabriel Hughes | COL | 2022 Bowman Draft | $5 | - | $4 | -20% |
| Winston Santos | TEX | 2025 Bowman | $6 | - | $3 | -50% |
The month didn't change the pattern. Griffin gave back another leg and now sits 44 percent under his debut. Snelling is down 71 percent. Waldschmidt, Ritchie, Blaze Jordan, Jacob Gonzalez, all deeper in the hole than they were in July. The only real up arrow that isn't a fresh debut is Esmerlyn Valdez, who has more than tripled off his callup price on a genuinely loud stretch in Pittsburgh.
The one that keeps arguing back is McGonigle. In June he was my example of a hype premium leaking out despite good play. He climbed off his June low and now sits at $297 raw, about six percent under his debut, while almost everything around him kept sliding. He just never stopped hitting and the market stopped fighting it. I didn't call that recovery and I've said so each time. It's the honest counterweight to the fade.
Max Clark
The debut everyone was waiting on, and it delivered.
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Bowman 1st auto (raw) | $237 |
| PSA 10 | $604 |
| Product | 2023 Bowman Draft |
| MLB debut | July 31 |
| Status | Watching, no position |
Clark's debut was about as good as a hitter's first look gets. Three hits, two doubles, a walk and an RBI on Friday night in Sacramento, then his first big league homer the next night, plus a highlight sliding catch in center. He's up with his draft classmate and close friend McGonigle, and the two of them give the Tigers one of the more watchable young cores in the league.
When I first drafted this board his raw auto was still sitting flat at $207, and I said I didn't believe that number would hold after a debut like this. It didn't. The raw has ticked up to $237, and the graded market moved harder, with the PSA 10 now around $604. That's the shape you want to see: a top-15 prospect debuts loud, and the slabs reprice first while the raw follows.
I don't own Clark and I'm watching this one. The debut did what a debut is supposed to do to a card. Now the question is whether it holds, and the playbook says the callup is the peak more often than not.
George Lombard Jr.
A first-hit home run and a slick double play in the same debut.
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Bowman 1st auto (raw) | $173 |
| PSA 10 | $837 |
| Product | 2024 Bowman |
| MLB debut | August 4 |
| Status | Watching, no position |
Lombard's arrival came right after the deadline, and he made it count. He homered in his second career at-bat for his first big league hit, then turned a clean 6-4-3 double play in his first defensive chance at short. The glove was always the known quantity. The question was the bat, and he's answered it this year with a .284 average and a .909 OPS across levels, hitting even better after coming off the injured list in July.
Lombard is the cleaner example of graded leading raw. The PSA 10 has run from the high $400s up to roughly $837 since he debuted, nearly doubling, while the raw auto is still sitting at $173. A first-hit home run for the Yankees' top prospect in the Bronx is exactly the kind of moment that shows up in the slabs first. The raw hasn't caught the same bid yet, so the board's flat $173 understates where the market actually is on him right now.
I'm watching Lombard too, no position. Between him and Clark, the graded market has already told you these two are different from the rest of the board. Whether that survives the fade is the next thing to watch.
What I'm doing
Nothing on this board makes me want to chase a callup pop. The June and July lesson held into August: the fade is the base case, the debut window is the exit, and paying up at the callup has been a losing hand all summer. The two exceptions moved the way great debuts move, hardest in graded, and I want to see whether Clark and Lombard hold those spikes before I say anything more concrete than "watching."
I'll run the board again when the next wave graduates, and by then we'll know whether the two big August debuts held or joined the wall of down arrows like almost everyone before them.
Track the names on the HobbyMonitor Prospect Dashboard.
This is not financial advice. These are cards. The data and analysis are here to inform. You make your own calls.
This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed before publishing. Always verify latest market data, stats, or news.
Published: August 2026