Category Archives: Player Spotlights - Page 3

Player Spotlight: Jon Matlack

Posted by on 13 February 2013 Comments Off on Player Spotlight: Jon Matlack

Why does nobody remember this guy?

I’ll have to admit, until a few years ago, I didn’t know much of anything about Jon Matlack.  I knew he was a Mets pitcher on the ’73 team and that’s about it.  It wasn’t until I started digging more into the team’s history that I discovered just how good he was.  His greatness has by and large been lost to history, and that’s a shame.  Because Jon Matlack was awesome.

Missing: One Jon Matlack patch card. If found, contact me.

Matlack’s game-used resume is a short one.  His only material is from 2001, with Mets pinstripe jerseys in  UD Decade: The 1970s and UD Legends of New York.  UD Decade also featured a patch card (though that is nearly impossible to find) and the Legends of New York jersey has a parallel version numbered to 400.  He has no certified autograph cards and only a smattering of uncertified autographs.  In the last decade, when every nobody who ever put together a mediocre career has been celebrated in cards, Jon Matlack has not had a single baseball card made.  Not one.  In fact, since his retirement, there have been only seven officially licensed Jon Matlack cards produced.  In addition to the four mentioned above, he had two more in the base UD Decade set and one base card in UD Legends of New York.  Seven cards to remember one of the best pitchers in Mets history?  How is this possible?

Not shown: 2001 UD Legends of New York

Matlack was taken 4th overall in the 1967 draft, ahead of Ted Simmons, Bobby Grich, Vida Blue, Jerry Reuss, Don Baylor, Davey Lopes, and other stars you’ve forgotten about.  I guess he just had the bad fortune to come up at a time that baseball would come to forget.  While we remember a disappointing Nolan Ryan getting traded and becoming a star with the Angels in 1972, we forget that Matlack was named Rookie of the Year in that very same year with a performance that was a match for Ryan’s season (according to bWAR at least).  He would go on to be named an All-Star three years in a row before getting traded in a complicated deal that gave the Mets Willie Montanez, Tom Grieve, and Ken Henderson.  The Mets got nothing out of that deal and the Rangers got a couple of good seasons out of Matlack mixed in with a few mediocre ones.  He was through at age 33.

Just a few days ago, Brandon Webb announced his retirement at the age of 33.  Webb’s career was shorter and had a longer peak, and while he lost out on Rookie of the Year to a clearly inferior Dontrelle Willis, he did win one Cy Young award and finish second twice.  Matlack only managed to get Cy Young votes once, good for a 6th place finish in 1976.  Clearly he’s no Webb.

Well, except for that 8.8 bWAR season in 1974 that blows away anything Webb ever did.  Wait, what?  34 games started, 14 complete games, 7 shutouts, 265 1/3 innings pitched…  Let’s just stop right there.  He pitched 14 complete games and averaged 7 innings on the other 20.  That right there would get you an MVP award today.  Throwing some other numbers out there: 195 strikeouts, 76 walks, 8 home runs allowed, ERA of 2.41…  Any way you slice it, that’s an elite season.  0 Cy Young votes.  Oh, and his record was 13-15.

How did this compare to his contemporaries in 1974?  Well, his 8.8 bWAR led all NL pitchers.  So did his 7.4 fWAR and 5.2 WARP.  His 2.41 ERA was third behind former Met you’ve never heard of Buzz Capra and Hall of Famer Phil Niekro (and just barely ahead of 1974 NL Cy Young winner and future former Met Mike Marshall).  His 195 strikeouts were good enough to tie him with Niekro for 4th behind Steve Carlton, Andy Messersmith, and teammate Tom Seaver.  14 complete games put him tied for 5th with Reuss, 4 back of Niekro’s 18, but his 7 shutouts put him one up on Niekro for the league lead.  Basically, Jon Matlack was all over the leaderboards in 1974 and certainly one of the top starters in the league.  And not a single damn Cy Young voter noticed.

The first place votes that year were split between Marshall, who led the league with 21 saves, 20-game winners Messersmith and Niekro, and 19-game winner Don Sutton, who led the league with 40 starts.  Buzz Capra got one token vote to finish at the bottom tied for 9th.  Jon Matlack would have to wait two years for any Cy Young votes, coming after a 1976 that wasn’t half as good as his 1974.  That’s not to say that he should have won the award in 1974.  A case could certainly be made for Niekro, who put up a roughly equivalent performance.  Marshall has a good case as well as the top reliever.  Buzz Capra and Andy Messersmith had great seasons.  But nobody remembered Jon Matlack when it was time to cast votes.  Story of his life.

This year, Justin Verlander will pass Matlack’s career total bWAR.  Justin Verlander at 29, after 7 seasons, Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, MVP, and (supposedly) dating Kate Upton, has yet to surpass an age 30 Jon Matlack.  While I’ll be the first to admit that one-size-fits-all metrics are to be taken with a truckload of rock salt, there has to be something to that.  Jon Matlack was too good to be forgotten.

Player Spotlight: Abraham Nunez

Posted by on 1 February 2013 Comments Off on Player Spotlight: Abraham Nunez

Same name, same difference

This is the story of two guys named Abraham Nunez who, after a chance encounter on a train, got an apartment together and shared experiences in love, loss, and punk rock music.  Wait, no, that was the plot to the anime Nana.  This story is about the Abraham Nunez who didn’t play for the Mets and the Abraham Nunez who, well, didn’t really play for the Mets.  Should have stuck with the punk rock romantic drama…

Abraham Nunez the non-Met was the player to be named later in the 1999 Brad Penny +2 for Matt Mantei trade that looks mind-boggling in hindsight.  Penny had three seasons with the Marlins that were worth about as much as Mantei’s entire run with the Diamondbacks.  The throw-ins in the trade, Abraham Nunez and Vladimir Nunez, were utterly worthless.  After a disappointing cup of coffee in 2002, Abraham had a disappointing half season with the Marlins in 2004, after which he was traded to the Royals, where he had another disappointing half season to finish his career.  To his credit, he never played for the Mets.  That’s more than I can say for the other Abraham Nunez.

Abraham Nunez the not-really-Met was a player to be named later in a 9-player trade between the Blue Jays and Pirates in 1996.  Despite getting six of the nine players in the deal, the Pirates got almost nothing of value, having only a few seasons of adequacy from Craig Wilson to show for it; three of the others never even made the majors.  The Blue Jays didn’t fare much better with one decent season from Orlando Merced, a terrible season from Carlos Garcia, and a mix of mediocrity from Dan Plesac.  Nunez lasted 8 seasons with the Pirates and was completely unremarkable.  After his release from Pittsburgh, Nunez had a career year in St. Louis, which he turned into a two year, $3 million deal in Philadelphia, where he was a disaster.  At least he has that going for him.

This Abraham Nunez came to the Mets in 2008 after 11 seasons in the majors and a total of 0.0 bWAR.  Picked up in the bargain bin after his release from the Brewers, Nunez must not have been expected to do much, because he sure didn’t.  He made his Mets debut in San Diego on June 5 as a pinch hitter.  He grounded out to short.  The results were completely different when he came in to pinch hit three days later.  That time he popped out to short to end the inning.  And so ended the major league career of all Abrahams Nunez.

So why does any of this matter?  Both Abraham Nunezes have game-used bat cards and I, um, bought the wrong one first.  The wrong Abraham Nunez, like every other prospect in 2001, had a bat card in a 2001 Donruss product (plus at least one autograph, but I didn’t fall for that…).  This can be excused because he had not yet begun to suck.  The right Abraham Nunez, like every other player in the late ’90s, had an autograph card in a Donruss Signature product.  His rise to competence was commemorated in 2005 with a bat card in 2005 Donruss Champions.  And that’s the place that Abraham Nunez has in my collection.

10 Lee Mazzilli Autograph Cards Every Fan Should Own

Posted by on 24 September 2012 Comments Off on 10 Lee Mazzilli Autograph Cards Every Fan Should Own

Shamelessly pandering to Mets Police

It’s been a rough nine months here at Collect The Mets as I realize just what is involved in scanning and presenting thousands of cards, especially when I keep buying more cards faster than I can process them.  It doesn’t help when I go off on tangents like game recaps.  The content just isn’t going up as fast as I would like and the readership suffers as a result.  The Twitter followership is doing well by comparison, but that’s probably because I don’t tweet often enough to be annoying.

So it wasn’t too much of a shock that I didn’t make the Mets Police Twitter 86 list.  If anything, I probably owe 86% of my Twitter followers to Mets Police.  I knew what I needed to do to get more attention though – more cowbell, er, I mean more Mazzilli.  And so I reached back into my extensive archives to put together this piece.

Longtime readers will know that Lee Mazzilli has been in my autograph collection since the early ’90s, when I met him at an autograph signing in Filene’s.  When certified autograph cards became all the rage, Mazzilli was sadly absent amid all of the Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Davey Johnson, Mookie Wilson, and even Kevin Mitchell autographs.

2003 Sweet Spot Classic

Presumably, there are no more than 25 Mazzilli fans. Otherwise, this could be a problem…

Fans would have to wait until 2003 for the first Lee Mazzilli certified autographs.  Upper Deck finally ended the drought with three Yankee Greats autographs in 2003 Sweet Spot Classic.  This was a three-tier parallel autograph set featuring blue autographs (not numbered), black autographs (numbered to 100 or less), and red autographs (numbered to 25).  Other notable Mets in this insert set include Dwight Gooden and David Cone.

2003 UD Yankees Signature

It wasn’t a long wait for Mazzilli’s next autograph appearance in 2003 UD Yankees Signature.  The Pride of New York autograph insert set featured just about every notable person ever associated with the Yankees, so finding Mazzilli in there wasn’t a big surprise.  Also featured in this set are Don Zimmer, Dwight Gooden, David Cone, and several other Mets whose first names do not start with D.

Mazzilli was also featured on the Pinstripe Excellence dual autograph insert set with fellow also-Met Mike Torrez.  Like Mazzilli, Torrez was also on the small-town autograph circuit in the early ’90s, though for some reason I have two of his autographs from back then.

Upper Deck was on a massive Yankees kick in 2003.

But that’s not all!  Mazzilli was featured two more times in 2003 Yankees Signature, this time on a pair of Yankees Forever triple autograph insert cards.  Triple autographs are common these days when you can just slap three sticker autos on a card and call it a day, but in the olden days, you had to get three different people to physically handle the card for these sort of things.  With guys like Paul O’Neill and Dave Winfield on these cards, Mazzilli clearly wasn’t the main draw.

2006 Fleer Greats of the Game

Surprisingly, Mazzilli did not have any autograph cards in 2004 or 2005, when products like UD Timeless Teams, UD Past Time Pennants, Topps All-Time Fan Favorites, Topps Originals, and Donruss Timelines went heavy on players from the ’86 Mets.  His next appearance would be in the UD-produced 2006 Fleer Greats of the Game.  In addition to the base Greats of the Game Autographs card, Mazzilli was featured in the Nickname Greats insert set with the inscription “Italian Stallion.”  These would be Mazzilli’s first sticker autographs.  At least he was finally shown as a Met.  Other Mets featured in one or both of these sets include David Cone, Sid Fernandez (“El Sid”), Howard Johnson (“HoJo”), Tom Seaver, and Rusty Staub (“Le Grand Orange”).

2007 Sweet Spot Classic

Things came around full circle when Mazzilli made his final autograph appearance in 2007 Sweet Spot Classic.  Unlike the 2003 version, this one shows him as a Met.  Also unlike the 2003 version (as well as just about every Sweet Spot autograph from the era), only one version of this card was produced, numbered to 199.  Other Mets in this set include Tom Seaver and Keith Hernandez, all with cards numbered to 16.

And that’s all there is.  Mazzilli has never had an autograph card in a non-UD product and has never had a game-used memorabilia card.  If you’re looking for a premium Mazzilli card, these ten are the only ones you have to choose from.

Update: Two more Lee Mazzilli autographs for the obsessive collector

What a difference a year makes.  After not having any certified autograph cards for five years, Lee Mazzilli was back in action with more autographs and not just for Upper Deck.  Still nothing from Topps though…

2012 SP Signature

Technically, this 2012 SP Signature Mazzilli autograph existed back when I originally wrote this piece.  However, being from the unlicensed Upper Deck and featuring no player photograph, it was an easy one to overlook.  Upper Deck didn’t even release a checklist for this product, instead letting the product “speak for itself” and encouraging collectors to check out YouTube and eBay for more information.  So yeah, this exists, Lee Mazzilli’s autograph on a sticker stuck on a generic card.  Mazzilli’s autograph also exists on a 6-player autograph card (numbered to 10) and an 8-player autograph card (numbered to 2).  I will almost certainly never own these, so we’re done having all of Mazzilli’s autographs here.  Oh well.

2013 Panini Hometown Heroes

It only took a decade, but the Upper Deck monopoly on Lee Mazzilli autograph cards has been broken!  Panini included Mazzilli in 2013 Panini Hometown Heroes, their response to Topps Archives.  Hometown Heroes / Fan Favorites, get it?  Already without team names or logos because of that other baseball card monopoly, Panini went with a rather uninspired design and color scheme on Hometown Heroes, one that brings back memories of 2005 Diamond Kings, one of the ugliest products in recent memory.  Blue ink on a light green background just doesn’t work.  At least there’s an actual picture of Mazzilli this time…  Though it doesn’t look like he’s in a Mets uniform.  Parallel versions numbered to 25 and 1 also exist, but what’s the point?  A different border color isn’t going to save this card.

So there you have it, two more autograph cards (plus four low-numbered variants) for you to chase if you need to have everything Lee Mazzilli.  Ball’s in your court, Topps.

Update 2: A long overdue conclusion

2014 Panini Prizm

So I might have skipped an update in 2014 and neglected to add Mazzilli’s 2014 Panini Prizm autograph to the list in a timely manner… Panini’s back with a second helping of Mazzilli after his appearance in the (thankfully) one-off 2013 Hometown Heroes. It’s a sticker autograph and shows him in what apparently started as a Mets jersey before Panini’s crack Photoshop team sucked the soul clean out of the iconic racing stripe jersey. This time around, there are no parallels, just a lone abomination. Still waiting on you, Topps…

2020 Topps Archives

Eight years after I started this post, it has finally happened – Topps has released a Lee Mazzilli autograph! It only took them to the, um, 72nd Mets Fan Favorites Autograph (and 79th base Mets Archives autograph overall) to get him into Topps Archives. Still, it’s a beauty – portrait orientation, on-card autograph, full MLB licensing, and a proper Mets pinstripe jersey. An early ’80s Mets pinstripe jersey from his first stint with the team and not the iconic mid-’80s racing stripe jersey… It’ll have to do, we might not get another one of these. Well, other than the multitude of parallels. Four parallels join the base version, including a gold border 1/1 not shown here. That brings our total to 22 different Lee Mazzilli autographs, five of which I may never see. And I’d say that’s enough.

Player Spotlight: R.A. Dickey

Posted by on 4 March 2012 1 comment

For the first Player Spotlight, I’m going with the Mets’ biggest star over the last two years.  No, not David Wright.  Or Jose Reyes.  Or Carlos Beltran.  OK, all of those guys have a decent case, but I’m going with knuckleballing face-maker R.A. Dickey.  While I would ordinarily focus on game-used and autographed cards, Dickey’s greatness has thus far been overlooked by Topps.  Instead, here’s a sampling of Dickey’s few cards released since 1997.

Powerless without the beard

Dickey’s story is the same as most underappreciated heroes.  He started as a promising young pitcher drafted in the tenth round of the 1993 amateur draft, but chose to go to college and improve himself and his draft position.  His work paid off, resulting in a first round selection by the Texas Rangers in the 1996 amateur draft.  Everything was going right for Dickey until the Rangers discovered that he was a misunderstood freak of nature.  Dickey was forced to settle for a reduced signing bonus and toiled in the minors for the pitching-starved Rangers for most of the next decade.

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Gary Carter: A History in Cards

Posted by on 19 February 2012 2 comments

In the wake of his death, countless words have been written about Gary Carter and all that he did in his life.  I’m not going to try to duplicate any of that.  I didn’t know Carter, I never met him, and I only saw him play in person twice, both from high stadium seats (once in 1986 and once in 1988).  All I have of Carter is in cardboard and ink, so that will have to do.

The start of Gary Carter’s tenure with the Mets just happens to coincide with the start of my time as a Met fan.  As with any fan of the Mets in that era, I saw Carter as part of the team’s foundation and, essentially, the face of the franchise in the late ’80s.  This was perhaps shown best when it came to boxes of wax packs.  While Keith Hernandez (1985 Topps), Dwight Gooden (1986 Fleer), and Darryl Strawberry (1990 Score) would all have their cards featured on a wax box, Carter’s smiling face took up most of the space on the top of the boxes and sets of 1989 Fleer.  He was such a dominant baseball figure in that day and continued to have a strong presence in the baseball card hobby right up to his death and hopefully well beyond.

Alpha to Omega: Carter’s rookie card and the final card released in his lifetime

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