Author Archives: Matthew Lug - Page 11

2014 Biggest Pulls

Posted by on 2 January 2015 Comments Off on 2014 Biggest Pulls

The hobby of diminishing returns

Welcome to 2015.  With Topps and Panini going down to the wire with their 2014 product releases, it will take at least another couple of weeks to finish off all of the year in review pieces here.  With any luck, we’ll have the Best Mets Cards of 2014 post up this weekend.  But before we get to that, let’s look at how my luck fared with packs in 2014.  Spoiler: it was crap.

My spending was down in 2014, with just under $3,000 going toward unopened 2014 product.  That yielded just $540 in eBay sales, though, for a variety of reasons, I ended up not selling quite a few of the biggest hits.  Meanwhile, even the lesser hits were tough sells; cards that would have sold for $20 or more a year or two ago were lucky to go for $10 this year.  Part of the problem is overproduction.  Topps in particular has been pushing out more products with more parallels than ever before (and somehow without featuring more players).  This results in a glut of low-numbered parallels of star players.  That’s great for collectors who buy singles, not so good for sellers.  If a Jose Altuve parallel numbered to 35 isn’t going to sell for more than $1, I might as well hang on to it.  And so now I have piles of 2014 hits that can’t find good homes.

Of course, even the cards that did sell didn’t always sell.  Out of 130 sales on eBay this year, three resulted in non-paying bidders.  We’re not talking about junk cards either, these were big names: Clayton Kershaw, Kris Bryant, and Robin Yount.  All of these cards went relatively cheap compared to other listings, but all three went unpaid.  This seems to be an increasing problem as eBay has become more and more biased against sellers, bending over backwards to placate buyers while making selling more of a hassle.  With Check Out My Cards getting into auctions, it should be interesting to see how eBay fares in the sports card market.  We could see a tipping point in the next few years.

But enough doom and gloom, let’s get to the pretty cards.

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2014 in GIFs

Posted by on 31 December 2014 2 comments

Duda doing all the things that Duda does

Another year, another batch of GIFs to entertain, amaze, and confuse.  2014 had a lot of highs and lows.  And a lot of Lucas Duda.  But before we got to the Mets’ first base conundrum turned revelation, let’s check in on the minors.  This year, I experimented with GIFs from original video content shot at minor league games.  I’ve already covered the 2014 Binghamton Mets in GIFs, so let’s start with the Brooklyn Cyclones.

Marcos Molina rocketed up the prospect lists in 2014, going from a relative unknown to one of the hottest pitching prospects in a system filled with them.  Here he is on what must have been an off day for him.  He still pitched well, but it wasn’t anything worth raving about.

One of the other big names in Brooklyn was Michael Conforto.  Taken tenth overall in the 2014 draft, Conforto came with high expectations.  He started his professional career off with an impressive hitting streak, which he is shown here extending.  If he keeps this up, he could make it to the majors very quickly.

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30 Years of Collecting Surprises and Oddities

Posted by on 25 December 2014 Comments Off on 30 Years of Collecting Surprises and Oddities

The strange and wonderful things that have come out of my packs in three decades

As I’ve mentioned before, this all began exactly 30 years ago with an uncut sheet of 1984 Topps.  From there, things have kind of snowballed into everything you see here and a whole lot more that’s waiting for a turn in the scanner.  Those stacks of cards are filled with rookies, stars, nobodies, and Hall of Famers.  But through all of it, one thing has remained constant – you never know what is going to come out of a pack of cards.  Usually it’s nothing.  Sometimes, it’s the card you were hoping for.  And every once in a while, well, you’re not really sure what it is.  And that’s what we’re looking back on tonight.

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Product Spotlight: 2014 Panini Immaculate Collection

Posted by on 22 December 2014 Comments Off on Product Spotlight: 2014 Panini Immaculate Collection

Something old, something new, something orange, and something, um, black?

Part of the Donruss legacy from the Playoff years was innovation and diversity in memorabilia. To date though, Panini has been a bit inconsistent in its memorabilia releases. This fall, Panini brought the Immaculate Collection brand to baseball and brought with it some of what made Playoff/Donruss great. It also brought some of what has become controversial in the hobby and, until now, has been largely unseen in baseball products.
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Player Spotlight: Juan Centeno

Posted by on 10 November 2014 2 comments

Two-time September call-up gets no love from Topps

As we await the announcement of the 2014 NL Rookie of the Year, we can safely rule out Juan Centeno. We can probably rule him out for next year as well; he will carry his rookie eligibility into 2015. Still, someone who started the final game of the season for two consecutive years deserves some recognition, right?

Juan Centeno’s claim to fame may have come in just his second major league game. On September 25, 2013, he became the first MLB catcher to ever throw out Billy Hamilton. Hamilton would go on to be the early favorite for NL Rookie of the Year in 2014 while Centeno would spend most of that season in the minors, finishing with AA Binghamton before getting the call to Queens, his second of the year after a brief stint in May. Despite the appearances early in the season, Centeno apparently did not merit his own fake Topps card at the entrance to Citi Field on the final game of the season.

In fact, he wouldn’t get any real cards from Topps either. Wilfredo Tovar, also a two-time September call-up and the recipient of the throw that nabbed Hamilton, got half of a Rookie Card in 2014 Topps Heritage. He had all of 3 MLB plate appearances in 2014 and has yet to play in a single AAA game. Centeno just can’t catch a break. Well, with Topps at least.

Panini is a slightly different story. After a disappointing first series, Panini revamped the 2014 Donruss product in Series 2. It was still disappointing, but this time around all of the Mets autograph cards on the checklist actually existed. Among those were Centeno, Tovar, and fellow Rookie Matt den Dekker (plus David Wright for good measure). These are Juan Centeno’s first cards other than team issues. A proper Topps Rookie Card seemed like an inevitability after this, but it was not to be.

But Panini kept delivering in 2014 Panini Immaculate with Centeno’s first memorabilia cards. Included here are swatches from blue and black jerseys, plus patches, piping, and assorted odds and ends. Seems too good to be true, right? A guy who has played in just 14 MLB games with memorabilia cards? Well, it wasn’t true. The black jersey, which the Mets haven’t worn in a game since 2012, was the biggest clue. Well, that and the bit on the back that says “event-worn material” where most others say “game-worn material.” None of this material is from an actual game and I can’t even imagine what “event” it could be from. Seems fishy.

And that’s all there is for Juan Centeno. After helping the Mets make it to the finish line (well behind the NL East champs unfortunately…) in two straight seasons, the Brewers claimed him off waivers when the Mets moved him off the 40-man roster to clear space for prospects in need of protection. With plenty of catchers available as minor league free agents, the move made sense. Still, Centeno deserved better than a couple of sticker autographs and some sketchy memorabilia.

Product Spotlight: 2014 Stadium Club

Posted by on 28 October 2014 1 comment

From the future of the hobby to flashback footnote

Back in 1991, the hobby was starting to respond to Upper Deck’s new quality standard and the growing demand for premium cards. Topps set a new standard with 1991 Stadium Club, one-upping Upper Deck with full-bleed photography and a new take on stats on the back. While 1991 Topps was still mired in the past, Stadium Club was the future. Two years later though, Upper Deck brought full-bleed photography to its base product while, along with Topps Finest and Fleer Flair, its new SP product helped to define the super premium category. Stadium Club meanwhile had grown stale and gimmicky, sticking around for another decade despite having been made redundant by an era of premium escalation that it had helped to usher in.

The Stadium Club brand would appear only briefly over the next decade with baseball, basketball, and football products in 2008 and a Triumvirate insert set in 2013 Archives. In 2014 though, Topps resurrected the brand that had been irrelevant for 20 years and tried to breathe new life into it. They just didn’t try very hard.
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