Tag Archives: Colton Plaia

The Essentials: 2013 Mets Game-Used

Posted by on 24 December 2013 Comments Off on The Essentials: 2013 Mets Game-Used

The year in tiny pieces of fabric

A lot of baseball cards have been released in 2013.  Between Topps (MLB and MLBPA licenses), Panini (MLBPA license), Leaf (no licenses), and Upper Deck (MLBPA license but strict MLB oversight), more than 40 baseball products have been released this year.  So which cards stand out from the rest?  To answer that question, we’ll break down the key Mets cards from 2013 in The Essentials.

Game-used memorabilia cards have been a popular mainstay in the hobby for over a decade, but the concept seems to have gotten stale in recent years.  Gone are the days when anything a player wore, touched, or even saw at a game could be found embedded in a cardboard slab.  Today, cards are mostly limited to swatches of fabric or wood with little to identify where they came from.  Luckily, you have this site to use as a reference for all your fabric identification needs.  Or at least you will whenever I finish scanning and cataloging all of this stuff.  Which is to say, likely never.  At the very least though, I can walk you through the new and notable material of 2013.

Mets Patches

Let’s start with the big stuff – patches.  Patch cards are somewhat hard to find these days, particularly ones with great big interesting patch pieces like this card:

I’m a sucker for sleeve patches, especially when so much of one is contained on one card.  Unfortunately, most of the Mets patches in circulation are tiny nondescript scraps from numbers or the team name.  Panini probably did it best this year with the patches in 2012 National Treasures.

Not only do these have nice big chunks of patch, but they also feature on-card autographs.  Since they’re dated 2012, they are also sort of rookie cards, though the jury’s still out on that one.  While not all of the 135 copies of each (99 + 25 + 10 + 1) have patch swatches, a significant number do, putting these at some of the most prolific patches of 2013.  And for Matt Harvey, some of the most valuable.

And then there’s Dickey.  Building on the pinstripe swatches first seen in last year’s Triple Threads, R.A. Dickey had Mets patches released in several products in 2013.  Above are pieces of the “NEW YORK” from the road gray jersey (left) and the “KID 8” sleeve patch worn in honor of Gary Carter (right).  Dickey would also have a few pieces of Blue Jays patch (from a camouflage jersey) in 2013 Triple Threads.

Jeurys Familia and Zack Wheeler are the final Mets with their first Mets patches in 2013.  I’m still working on getting the Wheeler though…

Piping

One step down from a patch is a strip of piping.  For pants swatches (which are what the white Niuewenhuis swatches appear to be), this is about as exciting as things get.  R.A. Dickey, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, and Matt Harvey all had a few piping cards for the first time in 2013.  Nieuwenhuis’s are some of the largest strips I’ve seen in cards.

Multicolor Swatches

Matt Harvey’s jersey swatches in 2012 Panini National Treasures were from his 1989 throwback jersey, which means lots of multicolor swatches from the racing stripe on the sides and shoulders.  One more reason why National Treasures was such a big hit, shame about the smudged signature…

Stripes

Zack Wheeler is the latest test subject for the Curse of the Pinstripes.  Will he pitch in 2014?  Only time will tell.

The Blues

With the 2012 batting practice jersey now retired and a new version, similar to the 2013 AL All-Star workout jersey, due in 2014, we’ve gotten a few more swatches from these jerseys in 2013.  David Wright, Matt Harvey, Jeurys Familia, and maybe Zack Wheeler joined Jordany Valdespin with this type of fabric.  Matt Harvey also had a few mesh variants in 2013 Topps Tier One.

Green

The big surprise in 2013 Topps Triple Threads was the first swatch of green fabric from a St. Patrick’s Day spring training jersey.  From Kirk Nieuwenhuis.  At least it’s from someone who’s still with the organization, I guess.

2013 World Baseball Classic

Interestingly, some of the most common patches in 2013 were from the 2013 World Baseball Classic.  Seven Mets were featured in the 2013 Topps Tribute WBC patch set: David Wright, R.A. Dickey, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Angel Pagan, Marco Scutaro, and Jae Seo.

2013 All-Star Game

As usual, Topps Update featured swatches from the workout jerseys from the 2013 All-Star Game held at Citi Field.  The Mets were represented by David Wright and Matt Harvey, with Carlos Beltran and Marco Scutaro also on the NL team (Bartolo Colon will be the Mets representative from the AL team when he gets his first start with the team in 2014).  The jerseys prominently feature Mets colors with orange front panels, orange mesh back panels, and blue mesh side panels.  Swatches from all three types of fabric were included in the All-Star Stitches inserts in Topps Update and Topps Chrome update.

2012 Futures Game

Last year, only the primary fabrics from the 2012 Futures Game jerseys worn by Wilmer Flores (World) and Zack Wheeler (USA) were featured in the various memorabilia cards commemorating the event.  The secondary fabrics, gray/gray mesh for the World team and white/white mesh for the USA team, made their way into circulation in several products in 2013.  Unfortunately, being so generic makes identifying the plain white and gray swatches a bit difficult, especially for Wheeler, who had fabric from several different jerseys released in 2013.

2013 Futures Game

The 2013 Futures Game featured two Mets pitchers (Noah Syndergaard for the USA team and Rafael Montero for the World team) as the starters, which was perfect for a game at the Mets’ home stadium.  Outfielder Brandon Nimmo was elected by the fans as the final member of the USA team (before injury replacements were made).  Only Nimmo and Montero were featured in the Futures Game jersey cards in 2013 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects, and with only the primary fabric.  The status of Syndergaard’s jersey is unknown.

Other MLB Fabric

On the more boring side of things, several Mets had their first jersey cards featuring plain swatches from white or gray MLB jerseys this year.  R.A. Dickey, Matt Harvey, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, and Zack Wheeler all had a variety of white and gray fabric released in 2013.

Other Stuff

Several (well, two at least) players who were new to the Mets in 2013 and are now gone had memorabilia cards released in 2013 showing them as Mets.  None of the material is from a Mets jersey; Marcum’s is probably from Brewers jerseys and Byrd’s is from a Cubs jersey.

Bats

Rounding out the year’s significant memorabilia cards are a bunch of bat cards.  R.A. Dickey had his first bat cards in Topps Triple Threads, shown in a Blue Jays uniform.  2013 15th-round draft pick Colton Plaia had a Team USA bat card in Panini USA Baseball Champions.  And that’s a nice Darryl Strawberry bat card, so let’s close out this year’s memorabilia on that.

2013 Mets Draft Class Autographs

Posted by on 1 December 2013 2 comments

The top three are on the board

Full list of 2013 Mets draft picks

Less than six months after the draft, we’re seeing the first certified autographs from the 2013 draft class. Dominic Smith is all over the hobby with autographs in Topps, Panini, and Leaf products. Andrew Church and Ivan Wilson are somewhat less prolific with autographs in one product each. It’s a start, I guess.

1 Dominic Smith 2 Andrew Church 3 Ivan Wilson 3 Casey Meisner
4 L.J. Mazzilli 5 Jared King 6 Champ Stuart 7 Matt Oberste
8 Ricky Knapp 9 Patrick Biondi 10 Luis Guillorme 11 Tyler Bashlor
12 Jeff McNeil 15 Colton Plaia 17 John Magliozzi 25 Ricardo Jacquez

The Mets sign those who don’t sign cards

The general consensus on the Mets’ 2013 draft was fairly positive. They got the draft’s best pure hitter in Dominic Smith and a lot of top talent across the board. What they didn’t get were a whole lot of guys with baseball cards on the market. In fact, of the 41 picks the Mets made, only five of them have any available cards. Colton Plaia and Ricardo Jacquez have certified autograph and Team USA memorabilia cards, while Dominic Smith, Ivan Wilson, and John Magliozzi have a few base All-American game cards (some of which have been signed but are not certified). Really guys? That’s the best you could do? How am I supposed to fill out this piece when there aren’t any cards to show? I guess we’ll have to wait a few months for Topps and Panini to get caught up on these guys…

Previous Editions:

2012 Mets Draft Class Autographs
2011 Mets Draft Class Autographs

23 July 2013 – Brooklyn Cyclones at Lowell Spinners

Posted by on 24 July 2013 Comments Off on 23 July 2013 – Brooklyn Cyclones at Lowell Spinners

Missed opportunities abound in the Cyclones’ return to Lowell

The last time the Cyclones visited Lowell, they had a rotation full of all-stars,  This time around, the arms aren’t quite as hot.  This is the New York Penn League though, so you don’t really need a 95mph fastball and precise control to get the job done, just one or the other is usually more than enough.  Last night, Spinners starter Mario Alcantara brought the heater while Cyclones starter Seth Lugo had the control, combining for four scoreless innings en route to a 2-1 Cyclones loss.

Box Score

Yeah, it was that kind of game

Offense is at a premium in the NYPL and the Brooklyn Cyclones should be reminded of that with their return to Lowell.  After all, they scored only a single run in each of the three games they played here last year.  You have to go back to September 1, 2011 for a game with multiple runs, a 7-1 victory to close out the Spinners’ home season.  So when Alcantara walked the first two Cyclones batters to start the game, it was the perfect opportunity to take control of the game and not add another 1-run game to the streak.  The first of several opportunities to be squandered over the course of the game.  Three outs later, it was Lugo’s turn to show his stuff.

That stuff isn’t particularly overpowering, but it will get the job done at this level.  Lugo’s speed tops out at 90mph, but his control gives him an edge with plenty of called strikes.  And balls put in play.  It’s the swinging strikes that aren’t part of his repertoire that prove to be a problem for Lugo, but some solid defense, particularly from second baseman L.J. Mazzilli, went a long way toward keeping the Spinners off the board.  Mazzilli watched a grounder roll into the outfield in the bottom of the first (which is listed as a fly ball in the play-by-play for some reason, must be one of those really low-flying ones…) but was otherwise on the mark for the rest of the game, fielding seven ground balls and one pop fly out of the 18 balls put in play for outs.

Familiar sights at last night’s game

Lowell threatened again in the second with a pair of two-out singles, but that would be the end of the offense in the first four innings except for a throwing error that put Alex Sanchez on second with two outs in the top of the fourth.  Brooklyn once again couldn’t make use of a runner in scoring position and then Lowell went down in order in the bottom half, the second of five times they would end an inning without a runner.

Colton Plaia singling to put runners at the corners

James Roche set things back up the way they were left in the top of the 4th with a leadoff double to start the 5th.  Colton Plaia followed with a fly ball to shallow center that nobody could get to, putting runners at the corners with no outs for Anthony Chavez, who struck out.  Patrick Biondi followed that with a broken bat single, plating Roche and sending Plaia to third.  After either an attempt to steal home or a botched hit and run was stopped by a foul ball, Biondi pushed his luck with his second stolen base attempt of the night and Juan Gamboa struck out to end the inning.  Three times in the first five innings, Brooklyn stranded a runner in scoring position.  With Alcantara exiting the game after the 5th inning, they wouldn’t get another chance.

If in the 1st you do succeed, don’t try again in the 5th with a runner on third

By the bottom of the 6th, Lugo clearly didn’t have his best stuff anymore.  He had his best pitch sequence in the 5th on a 74-90-79-82 with two called strikes, a ball, and a swinging strike to finish the strikeout.  In the 6th though, his speed was down around 85 and his control just wasn’t there anymore.  The Spinners got their leadoff man on with a slow roller that Lugo and Mazzilli both tried for but couldn’t reach in time to get the out.  The apparent confusion on that play proved costly as a sac bunt and a groundout put the tying run on third with two outs and Lugo issued his first walk of the night.  With nobody warming in the pen, it was up to Lugo to get out of this mess.  He responded by giving up a two-run double that gave the Spinners the lead.  Lugo ended the inning on a called strike three, but Brooklyn’s one run wouldn’t be enough anymore.

Kevin McGowan pitching a 1-2-3 8th inning

And that was pretty much the game.  If not for some substandard fielding from the Spinners, there wouldn’t be anything else to say.  Lugo put the Spinners down in order in the 7th thanks to the defense behind him and Kevin McGowan did the same in the 8th with a pair of strikeouts and the requisite groundout to Mazzilli.  Gamboa singled for Brooklyn in the top of the 8th, but then Mazzilli hit a double play ball that for some reason Lowell second baseman Cleuluis Rondon couldn’t hold on to long enough to make the throw to first.  Oberste hit a routine grounder to short with one out in the top of the 9th, but Lowell shortstop Tzu-Wei Lin forgot to put his glove under the ball.  Both times, the runner was stranded at first, leaving the final score 2-1 Spinners.

Matt Oberste putting one just under the shortstop’s glove for the final Brooklyn baserunner of the night