Category Archives: History

Product Spotlight: 1995 WPI Orientation

Posted by on 22 August 2020 Comments Off on Product Spotlight: 1995 WPI Orientation

Trading cards go to college

The summer of ’95 – Batman Forever dominated at the box office, Waterfalls was the song you just could not escape from, and baseball cards were at a now-unimaginable peak with six (six!) licensed manufacturers. Cards had grown up a lot since the junk wax boom that started in the ’80s. With cereal box printing technology long abandoned (since 1991, at least), new premium card formats were popping up everywhere. Full color, full gloss, foil stamping, holograms, die-cuts, and even refractors were all over the market. On top of that, trading cards had grown beyond just collecting and were moving into the realm of gaming. The hobby had matured.

As for me, I had limited time and limited funds. Like the previous summer, Scout activities ate up most of my free time. Only, instead of scrambling up mountains, I was scrambling to finish the requirements for Eagle. I still had time before I aged out, but I had a hard stop on August 18. I was heading off to college the next day. With that, my card collecting would be winding down, eventually coming to a halt with a few packs of UD3 in 1997. But little did I know that cards would be waiting for me at college orientation.

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2020 Mets Card Spr-ummer Preview

Posted by on 24 July 2020 1 comment

Baseball’s back, even though it probably shouldn’t be

So, um, right. Baseball! As a pandemic rages unchecked across the country and travel and gatherings of all kinds are frowned upon, MLB is back in action. Sure, there won’t be fans in the stands. And there may be complications along the way. But, in times like this, we need baseball to let us know that everything is fine and there’s nothing to worry about, even though it isn’t and there is. But, but, baseball!

What a wild ride it’s been through the first four months of the non-season. The growing animosity between owners and the MLBPA and the utter disdain for all things minor league were laid bare as negotiations to get the season started dragged on. In the end, nobody got anything they wanted, MLB declared that the season was happening under the rules agreed to in March, and a greater battle looms as the CBA is set to expire after next season. The fun never ends! Now on to the cards.
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Best Mets Cards of 2014

Posted by on 2 March 2015 Comments Off on Best Mets Cards of 2014

Firsts, lasts, and everything in between

It’s hard to believe that it’s March already. And this piece is two months late… Between Topps and Panini releasing products right down to the wire, chasing down cards, and chasing down answers, it took me longer than expected to get this the way I wanted it. 2014 brought us the first cards, first autographs, and first memorabilia from the first Mets player to win the Rookie of the Year award in 30 years. It also brought us the last autograph card from the first person ever to wear a Mets uniform.

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1992 Mets Draft Class Autographs

Posted by on 25 September 2014 Comments Off on 1992 Mets Draft Class Autographs

The Mets get less than you would expect but more than you think

Full list of 1992 Mets draft picks

Tonight’s big story is about the 6th overall pick in 1992. After a 20-year career, he will be walking off into the sunset, a sunset called Fenway Park. Yeah, I don’t get it either. In honor of the cream of the 1992 draft class crop, we’re taking a look back at the Mets’ picks in 1992. Those weren’t quite as creamy. Or much of anything else. Combined, all of the players drafted by the Mets in 1992 appeared in just eight games with the team. Only three made the majors with any club. And yet, the Mets’ 1992 draft was key in bringing another iconic player to New York.

     
1 Preston Wilson 1C Chris Roberts 1S Jon Ward 2 Steve Lyons

The autographs for this draft class begin and end with Preston Wilson. The nephew / adopted son of fan-favorite Mookie Wilson, Preston had name recognition working for him in addition to his prospect status. With the big guy off the board three picks before the Mets made the first of their three first-round picks (they received two comp picks for the loss of Frank Viola), Wilson was a reasonable choice. Looking through the rest of the names in this draft, it becomes apparent that there just wasn’t much elite talent on the board.

So what of those other two first-round picks? Um, not much. With plenty of players who would at least prove useful over their careers still available, the Mets walked away with absolutely nothing. Of their remaining picks, the only one who became a star player (albeit briefly) was Darin Erstad, who didn’t sign with the Mets. The third pick that would reach the majors was 20th-rounder Allen McDill, who did so with the Royals and didn’t do much. Neither did the players he was traded for. The Mets weren’t alone in failing to sign a future star at least; the Padres failed with Todd Helton, who would go on to become a franchise player for the newly-created Colorado Rockies. Of the players who did sign, the only big stars the Mets passed on were Johnny Damon and Jason Giambi, who would both spend time as teammates of a certain someone on the Yankees.

Viewed on its own, it sure looks like the Mets made the worst of a mediocre draft class. Only 8 games in the majors for the entire bunch? It’s hard to do much worse than that. But things look a bit different when you realize why Preston Wilson’s Mets career ended after just 8 games. On May 22, 1998, after just two weeks in the majors, Wilson was the centerpiece in the trade that brought Mike Piazza to the Mets. Piazza would nearly take the Mets to the postseason in 1998 before signing a 7-year contract extension. With Piazza behind the plate, the Mets ended a decade-long playoff drought and made it as far as the World Series in 2000. He was inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame in 2013 and should be enshrined in Cooperstown soon (well, he should be there already…). And that’s how Preston Wilson (plus $91 million) helped to make history in Queens.

The 2013 Topps Series 2 Mets: Where Are They Now?

Posted by on 11 June 2014 Comments Off on The 2013 Topps Series 2 Mets: Where Are They Now?

13 faces you may have forgotten

2014 Topps Series 2 launches today with cards featuring many of your favorite Mets, from David Wright to, um, Vic Black? Gonzalez Germen gets to celebrate doubly today; not only is this his first day back after being activated from the DL, but it is also the day his first Rookie Card is officially released. That is in stark contrast to last year’s Series 2 rookie Collin McHugh, who was beginning life in Colorado on the day he first graced a Rookie Card solo. As for the rest of last year’s crop of Mets in Series 2, their fates varied but most found themselves somewhere other than with the Mets within the year. At the time, I predicted that the team set image would be part of a “Where are they now?” article. One year later, I have made it a reality.

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2008 Mets Draft Class Autographs

Posted by on 9 May 2014 Comments Off on 2008 Mets Draft Class Autographs

A promising draft class goes down in flames

Full list of 2008 Mets draft picks

The 2006 Mets were just one big swing away from a trip to the World Series and possibly the third championship in the team’s history. Along the way to that painful defeat in Game 7 of the NLCS, the team’s flaws were clearly exposed. The game logs of 2006 are littered with the remains of Mets players who couldn’t go the distance and prospects who just couldn’t cut it. When your big hope is that Orlando Hernandez can be in shape to start in the next round of the playoffs, you know you’re in trouble. That round never came, but there’s always next year…

As we saw in 2004, drafting poorly can put you in quite a jam a few years later. The draft itself isn’t a quick fix, but it can save you from making desperate quick fixes down the road that cripple the team under a mountain of long-term contracts. With the consequences of failing to obtain and develop prospects never more apparent than they were after just falling short in 2006 and then utterly collapsing down the stretch in 2007, it was critical that the Mets got things right in 2008. Their first pick didn’t come until number 18, but that was followed by two more picks in the first/comp rounds and five total in the first 100 picks. They had to be able to get something out of all this, right?

1 Ike Davis 1 Reese Havens 1c Bradley Holt 2 Javier Rodriguez
3 Kirk Nieuwenhuis 4 Sean Ratliff 5 Dock Doyle 6 Josh Satin
7 Michael Hebert 8 Eric Campbell 9 Eric Beaulac 10 Brian Valenzuela
11 Jeff Kaplan 12 Mark Cohoon 18 Collin McHugh 22 Chris Schwinden

So far, what we’ve gotten is 10 autograph cards. The only player from this draft class who has been of any significant value to the Mets has been Ike Davis, whose 5.9bWAR with the team is better than all but three players picked later in the 2008 draft. For now. Davis was traded to the Pirates after two disappointing seasons, leaving questions about whether he can be anything more than replacement level going forward. At least we don’t have to play “Why didn’t the Mets draft [player] instead?” with this one, the only standout players drafted after Ike are Craig Kimbrel, who went 96th overall, and Jason Kipnis, 135th overall. At the time though, Davis looked like a good pick and was the only Mets pick with an autograph in 2008 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects.

Havens and Holt would have to wait a while for their autographs, an ominous sign given how the players around them fared. Javier Rodriguez was next up with autographs in 2008 Bowman Sterling (and later 2009 Bowman Chrome), followed by Davis, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Sean Ratliff, Eric Beaulac, and Mark Cohoon in 2008 Donruss Elite Extra Edition. Nieuwenhuis would get his own Bowman Chrome autograph in 2010, but the remainder of the 2008 top 5, Reese Havens and Brad Holt, wouldn’t get theirs until 2011. Chris Schwinden made an appearance in 2011 Donruss Elite Extra Edition and Collin McHugh rounds out the bunch with his first autographs in 2013 Panini Pinnacle after he had been traded for Eric Young Jr.

That last bit makes Collin McHugh indirectly the most valuable player from this draft for the current Mets team. In less than a year since the trade, Young has been worth 1.6 bWAR. Of the players the Mets drafted in 2008, only Josh Satin (0.9bWAR) is currently on the team and only Kirk Nieuwenhuis (0.3 bWAR) and Eric Campbell are still with the organization, both at AAA Las Vegas. Davis and McHugh are the only notable trades, with the rest retiring or being released by the club.

And so, this entire draft comes down to six players and not the six you might have expected in 2008. Instead of overall picks #22 and #33 having an impact at the major league level, we got picks #554 and #674, though they be best known for a player they were traded for and a waiver claim merry-go-round, respectively. The top pick did produce as expected for a short while but didn’t turn into the much-needed franchise player to man the corner opposite David Wright. Three back-ups and part-timers complete the set, leaving the 2011-2013 Mets short on premium talent to call on from the minors. Eric Young Jr. was the prize of the 2008 draft for the Mets and he was drafted in 2003 by the Rockies.