When 2014 Donruss was announced, it looked like it could be the missing piece in the Panini lineup. After all, while Panini has had some success in high end (2012 National Treasures), shiny stuff (2012/2013 Prizm), prospects (various Elite Extra Edition releases and 2013 Prizm Perennial Draft Picks), and specialty retro (2013 Pinnacle and Hometown Heroes), they have no real base product to speak of. With an ever-rotating list of products (National Treasures was demoted to an insert set in 2013 America’s Pastime), there’s nothing to really define Panini as a brand. If you were collecting in the ’80s, you probably associate the Panini name with stickers and not cardboard. It was only fitting then that Panini should launch their first true base product under the Donruss name, a throwback to a simpler time when it was possible to produce licensed baseball card products in competition with Topps.
For me, the Donruss name brings back memories of the 1986 and 1989 designs, Diamond Kings, Rated Rookies, and puzzles that never quite fit together right. There are a lot of classic elements in the history of Donruss but also plenty of bad decisions and disappointments. Unfortunately, 2014 Donruss takes a few of the former and mixes in a lot of the latter, creating a product that is a little too faithful to the brand’s lineage.
Panini dressed up their first attempt at a base Donruss product like a bride. There’s something old (the pre-1986 Donruss logo), something new (quality cardstock and gloss coating), something borrowed (the baseballs in the strips of color on either side of the photo), and something blue (the blue cardback style used in 1988 and 1991 Series 1). Overall, it’s not a bad look, a more refined take on the brand’s design that incorporates elements from across the first decade of Donruss.
At least, that’s how it looks until you consider the photographs. The basic design itself is a bit boring, but that makes sense when you consider that the player photograph is what should draw your attention. You can forgive a border that is devoid of any bright color if it contrasts well with a colorful photo. And that’s where the lack of a license from MLB Properties kicks in. Without the rights to use team names or logos, Panini removed all trace of team identity from the photos they used, right down to eliminating the color orange from nearly every Mets card. The Rated Rookies cards of Travis d’Arnaud and Wilmer Flores use photos from the Las Vegas 51s and the Granderson is obviously a Yankees photo, but everything else looks like it started out as a proper Mets uniform. The end result is a lot of blue and white, just like the border. They would have been better off converting the photos to black and white.
You can’t really fault Panini for their choices here. Two rookies, two hot young pitchers, one captain, the biggest offseason acquisition, and a future Hall of Famer. That’s a good core group right there. And with only 200 cards in the set (30 of which are Diamond Kings with duplicate players), there’s no room for anything more. Only 200 cards? That’s the same size as Topps Archives (not counting SPs; Archives is actually a much larger set when you account for SPs), a product that also mixes current players with retired stars. Shouldn’t this be more in line with base Topps or even Topps Heritage? 200 cards just isn’t enough for this type of product. Two 330-card series would make more sense, especially if Series 2 could be released in late September with All-Star SPs taking the place of the Diamond Kings. Panini did use the insert sets to expand the total number of players (Dillon Gee, Jon Niese, Johan Santana, Ike Davis, Andrew Brown, and supposedly Jeurys Familia all appear in the inserts).
With only 200 cards to work with, there wasn’t much room for variety in the subsets. Panini went with the classics here, starting the set with 30 Diamond Kings and 15 Rated Rookies, each subset inserted at a rate of one every 6 packs. I’m not sure the different level of scarcity between the two subsets makes much sense (each Rated Rookie should fall just over 4 per case on average, compared to just over 2 per case for Diamond Kings), but I guess Panini wanted to pack in the rookies. In terms of design though, these just fall flat. The Rated Rookies have all of the same problems as the base cards while the Diamond Kings are just too bland, though the 1984 Diamond King design is faithfully recreated. Instead of art cards, the Diamond Kings in 2014 Donruss have a pair of photoshopped photographs mimicking the typical Diamond King layout. The large sections of solid color in the border plus photographs with all detail wiped away equals a design that is simply lacking.
The strongest category by far is the array of inserts found in 2014 Donruss. We’ll start though with the ones that don’t factor into the Mets team set. Team MVPs and Power Plus both borrow from the 1989 design and do a good job of remaining distinct despite the common inspiration. Something about the Team MVPs just looks wrong to me though, probably how the MVP logo is at the bottom over the photo instead of at the top under the photo. With hat/helmet logos cropped out, the old design just wouldn’t work. One other criticism is that, like the Diamond Kings subset, the Team MVPs insert set doesn’t have a card from every team. The set is the right size (30 cards), but some teams are featured multiple times with a mix of active and retired players.
The Mets do have representation in four of the retro-inspired insert sets and the results are impressive. The best design by far in 2014 Donruss is the one used for the No-No’s [sic] inserts. The combination of elements from the 1986, 1989, and 1991 Donruss designs is almost seamless and the logo, while new, looks like it could be from that period. I’m actually a bit disappointed that this wasn’t the base design, I would have liked to have gotten a few more cards like this Santana (instead, only 10 cards were produced in this design). You barely notice the horribly mangled photograph.
The formula was a bit simpler for The Rookies with the 1988 colors in a new design with a Diamond Kings nameplate and the Panini RC logo. On top of that, Travis d’Arnaud’s photo is the only one with prominent orange (David Wright’s base card with a visible orange undershirt is the only other card showing a Met wearing orange).
And then we have The Elite Series and Elite Dominators, some nice metallic inserts based on the early ’90s inserts and numbered to match (a more reasonable 999 instead of the original 10,000). It’s strange to see these falling 2 or 3 per box when the original versions were so hard to pull. Print runs sure have changed… Two different Elite insert sets is a bit much though, with the 50 total cards outnumbering the entire Elite print run from 1991-1994. Another reason why a second series would have made sense.
Not all of the inserts in 2014 Donruss look like they came from earlier decades. The Breakout Hitters/Pitchers and Hall Worthy inserts both feature a mix of matte and gloss textures on unique designs. This style has previously appeared in Panini Cooperstown and connects the vintage Donruss elements with the current incarnation under Panini.
And what modern baseball card product would be complete without serial numbered parallels? 2014 Donruss has four, though they only have two different designs. The Press Proof parallels come in silver (numbered to 199) and gold (numbered to 99) varieties and feature the standard base card design with a “PRESS PROOF” stamp and a foil-stamped serial number. The Stat Line parallels are printed on metallic foil and come in season (silver stamp) and career (gold stamp) varieties, though the numbering is based only on the stat shown (with a maximum print run of 400). It would have been nice if Panini had limited the minimum print run as well; Stat Line print runs can be as low as three. Some additional variety would also have been nice; a die-cut version or some different color foils would have really helped to set the different parallels apart.
David Wright base Diamond King shown as reference for scale
I don’t know why more products don’t throw a box topper card in every box. Back in the day, boxes used to have cards printed on the bottom as a small bonus for buying so much at one time. Box bonuses eventually shifted to the inside of the box with improved quality and decreased frequency. Today, box toppers tend to be extremely limited with box prices starting at $60 for most products. Every box of 2014 Donruss includes one of 25 jumbo 5″ x 7″ Diamond King cards as a box topper, with autographed versions of 24 of them randomly inserted at an unspecified rate (while not serial numbered, these are most likely limited to 50 copies or fewer). Some of the box topper Diamond Kings don’t appear in the base set and vice versa, which seems a bit odd. Otherwise, this was a great touch and a welcome callback to the jumbo Diamond Kings from decades past.
Donruss was one of the first products to feature autograph cards (Upper Deck beat them by just a few months) and the Donruss/Leaf Signature products in the late ’90s are still some of the best autograph products ever produced. A strong autograph set was therefore a must for 2014 Donruss. Sadly, the Donruss Signatures name is the only element that draws from the Donruss legacy. The card design looks like a reject from 2013 Panini America’s Pastime and the checklist is mostly prospects and young players, the type who sign autograph stickers by the thousand (all of the big names are on low-numbered autograph inserts that fall one every two cases on average). Four Mets are featured in the 50-card set, but Andrew Brown’s first certified autograph is the only one you are likely to find. Zack Wheeler’s autograph appears to be a short print and no copies of the Jeurys Familia or Wilmer Flores autographs have surfaced so far.
The original Recollection Collection autographs, which ran from 2002 to 2005 in various Donruss and Leaf products, set the standard for buyback autographs. Featuring diverse checklists of hundreds of players who had appeared on a Donruss or Leaf card of some sort from 1981 to the early 2000s, these cards featured a foil logo stamp, embossed authenticity guarantee, and foil-stamped serial number on the back. In recent years though, Leaf, now under separate ownership, has had the buyback autograph market to themselves. 2014 Donruss brings back the Recollection name with buyback autographs focused on rookie cards and featuring an embossed logo and handwritten serial number. Ron Darling, Dwight Gooden, and Darryl Strawberry are the Mets featured here. A total of just over 1,000 Recollection Autograph cards were produced, making them fall less than one per case on average. It’s a shame Panini couldn’t have gotten a few hundred more so they could make this a guaranteed case hit.
Four Mets are also on the 50-card Game Gear checklist, but this time all four are fairly common. As 14,000 Phillies pointed out, the Game Gear design borrows from the 1980 What If design from 2002 Donruss Originals. The Game Gear name itself is a remnant from Pacific, which last produced baseball cards just before Donruss returned under Playoff in 2001. The material provided an additional throwback; most of the jersey swatches in the Ike Davis, Dillon Gee, and Jon Niese cards are from their 1993 throwback jerseys. Like the Game Gear inserts in 2001 Private Stock, cards with jersey swatches also have a patch parallel (numbered to 25 in this case).
It has nothing to do with the Mets, but Donruss announced a wrapper redemption good for a three-card pack of Rated Rookies that will be cards 201-203 in the set. While the names have not been announced, the Yankees’ Masahiro Tanaka is believed to be among the three. The wrappers just might be the most valuable thing inside boxes of 2014 Donruss.
So far, 2014 Donruss looks like a mild success. The designs are, for the most part, strong with a good mix of elements from across three decades of Donruss products. The minuscule set and some truly awful photographs take it down a notch and the lack of a license from MLB Properties hurts its collectibility. The biggest problem though is figuring out just what kind of product 2014 Donruss is trying to be. It doesn’t have the checklist to be a base product, it’s not heavy on prospects, the cards aren’t all that premium, and the price isn’t comparable to a discount product. The guarantee of two autographs and one relic (though two per box is common) per box brings it to a price point comparable to base Topps or a product like Heritage or Archives, but the quality and value of these “hits” is not on par with those Topps releases. So just what does that make 2014 Donruss?
A disappointment, especially if you open it by the case. Doing some math puts the print run of 2014 Donruss at around 1,400 cases, give or take. Spread across those 1,400 cases are 765 premium autographs (plus autographed box toppers), 1018 Recollection autographs, and 1089 patch cards. The Stat Line parallels add about another 6,000 cards numbered to less than 99. That gives you a best case scenario of getting one good autograph, a patch card, and four parallels numbered to around 50 in a 16-box case with no other serial numbered autograph or memorabilia cards. For a $1,000 case, that’s not a whole lot of value. With perfect collation, the rest of the case should give you two full 200-card sets, 14 155-card base sets, 4 Power Plus insert sets, 2 The Rookies insert sets, 2 Hall Worthy insert sets, 1 No-No insert set, most of the Breakout Hitters and Breakout Pitchers insert sets, half of the Team MVPs insert set, more than half each of the Elite Series, Elite Dominators, Donruss Signatures, and box topper sets, and less than half of the Game Gear insert set, plus plenty of parallels and extra Rated Rookies.
But you’re not going to get perfect collation, even inside a sealed case where collation shouldn’t be a problem. I took a chance on a team break of a case of 2014 Donruss (done by Brent Williams) knowing that it wasn’t spectacular but expecting a minimum of duplicates of the more limited inserts. With four Mets each on the autograph and memorabilia checklists, at least there would be a few interesting cards to look forward to. What I wasn’t expecting was for the collation to be another aspect of the older Donruss sets that was faithfully reproduced in 2014 Donruss.
The Donruss products of the late ’80s and early ’90s were produced in tremendous quantities, but building a set was no easy matter. This was due to collation so spectacularly bad that you could pull dozens of one card before finding just one of another. Getting the same card twice in the same pack was not all that unusual. This problem was hardly unique to Donruss, but Donruss was a prime example of collation that could be infuriating at times.
These days, smaller print runs and more controlled packouts help to keep collation more reasonable, especially within a single sealed quantity like a box or a case. After all, duplicates in small amounts of a product are largely worthless to most collectors and reduce the value in the product. With ever-narrowing profit margins, any cheap way to increase value is worthwhile. So what happened with 2014 Donruss?
The results of this case break were not pretty. Of the 32 autographs, only 23 were different (one appeared three times). The Game Gear inserts weren’t much better: 16 different out of 21 base versions. 11 of the 16 box toppers were different with one triplicate among them. Results for other limited inserts were similar. By the time the break was halfway through, duplicates had already appeared in all of the major insert sets with checklists 50% or more greater than the number of cards that would be found in a case.
For the Mets, the results were mixed. The Hall Worthy and The Rookies inserts delivered two each as expected. The number of Breakout Pitchers inserts was two, as expected, but both were Dillon Gee. No Elite Series or Elite Dominators inserts turned up, but only two of the 50 are Mets and only 35 (30 different) were in the case. Only one of the four Mets Game Gear cards were in the case, as were two copies of the Andrew Brown autograph. One of the two box toppers was a Met, which is reasonable for the checklist size (2 Mets out of 25 cards, 11 different of the 16 in the case). No-No’s (What’s with that apostrophe, Panini?) massively overdelivered, 6 actual vs. 1.6 expected. Diamond Kings also came out ahead (3 actual vs. 2.2 expected) while the expectation of 4.3 of each Rated Rookie was accurate for Wilmer Flores (5 in the case) and way off for Travis d’Arnaud (only 1 with bad surface damage in the entire case). Base cards fell 13 to 15 of each, a bit under the 16+ that would be expected with good collation (each box should have more than 155 base cards, so this indicates bad box-level collation). Three parallels rounded out the team lot, though none of them had print runs lower than 200. Overall, it was a slight disappointment with some very significant over and under deliveries that should be extremely rare outliers in a properly managed packout. Unfortunately, there is no indication of any care taken to manage this product’s packout.
And as for the big hits in the case, the only cards numbered to less than 99 were three Stat Line parallels and an Edwin Encarnacion patch card, with no autographs beyond the base Donruss Signatures cards. That’s poor even for this product’s checklist, which isn’t that great to begin with. On the plus side, this means that there will be some cases with multiple limited autographs. There will also be some cases with no cards worth more than about $10. For a $1,000 case, that’s just not acceptable.
File this one under “Missed Opportunity.” The concept was a great one and parts of the execution were outstanding. On the other hand, other parts ranged from puzzling to awful. Why wasn’t there a Diamond King and Team MVP for every team (not to mention only 10 No-No’s [sic])? Why were all of the photographs photoshopped to oblivion? Where are the Jeurys Familia and Wilmer Flores autographs? Who thought a 155-card base set made any sort of sense? And how did the collation go so horribly wrong? Panini clearly put a lot of effort into bringing together three decades of an iconic brand into one product, why did they stop short of taking the steps necessary to make it a success?
I just can’t recommend buying large quantities of this product to anyone. A few packs or even a box may make sense for some fun nostalgia, but a case has nothing to satisfy anyone. Set collectors will be out of luck unless they buy several cases. Hit collectors won’t see any sort of return. Team collectors won’t have much to chase with this tiny checklist. And anyone who appreciates good photography will want to stay far away from this one. 2014 Donruss missed the mark and in the process delivered the modern equivalent of its 1991 predecessor. This was not the product collectors wanted or the product collectors needed, just a mindless diversion until something better comes along.
Another offseason is coming to an end, so it’s time to take a look at what it all means for card collecting. 2014 was supposed to be the year Sandy Alderson’s plan came together, but significant gaps and questions put that in jeopardy even before Matt Harvey was lost for the season. In terms of cards, the lack of notable veterans has left most sets a mix of David Wright and various prospects and young stars. Are there enough new veterans and rising stars to give the Mets respectable representation in this year’s products? Or, like the master plan, will it take another year for everything to fall into place?
Alderson’s big trade of 2013 sent Marlon Byrd and John Buck to Pittsburgh for infielder Dilson Herrera and MLB-ready reliever Vic Black. Byrd and Buck went on to the postseason and, as expected, didn’t return to the Mets. Buck was no longer necessary with the arrival of Travis d’Arnaud, but Byrd was the Mets’ top outfielder offensively.
As I predicted, the 2013 Topps Series 2 Mets team set is a “Where are they now?” article waiting to happen…
The non-tender deadline gave us another batch of departures. Jordany Valdespin, Omar Quintanilla, and Scott Atchison were cut as expected, with Justin Turner and the injured Jeremy Hefner joining them unexpectedly. Hefner and Quintanilla were re-signed, Jordany Valdespin gave in to destiny and signed with the Marlins, Scott Atchison signed with the Indians, and Justin Turner joined teammate Mike Baxter with the Dodgers.
On top of that, oft-injured pitchers Johan Santana and Shaun Marcum also landed elsewhere, Santana with the Orioles and Marcum with the Indians. Santana missed all of 2013 after his second shoulder surgery and Marcum saw his season end early after a shoulder surgery of his own.
As mentioned before, the Mets bolstered the ranks of their top 20 prospects with the acquisition of Dilson Herrera and Vic Black from the Pirates in August. Black should get a good amount of work as a late-inning reliever this year while Herrera is still a few years out. Not a bad return for a few weeks of a couple of players who wouldn’t be back this year anyway.
And here are the big offseason acquisitions. If nothing else, these guys bring a veteran presence in cardboard dating back to the late ’90s. More on that later.
The last few months have given us plenty of new autographs. Bowman Sterling closed out 2013 with the first autographs from L.J. Mazzilli. Panini Elite Extra Edition started 2014 with the first autographs from Jared King and Akeel Morris, plus the first live autographs from Rainy Lara. Last month’s 2014 Donruss was largely a bust but did give us Andrew Brown’s first autographs. Notably absent is Juan Lagares, who should be in line for a lot of attention after his performance in 2013.
Autographs are also plentiful further up in the system. Noah Syndergaard and Rafael Montero should get called up sometime in 2014 and will hopefully get some more autographs along the way. Travis d’Arnaud and Wilmer Flores are the first of the top Mets prospects with autographs in 2014 products.
Notable autographs in upcoming products include the first from Dallas Green and Frank Lary in 2014 Topps Heritage (though not as Mets) and the first from Jeremy Hefner in 2014 Topps Gypsy Queen. More will hopefully follow in 2014 Bowman and 2014 Topps Archives, though the lack of Mets autographs in Heritage is troubling.
One of the big surpises so far this year was the pair of Rookie pinstripe jersey cards in 2013 Panini America’s Pastime. These (along with camo patch variants) are the first memorabilia cards from Juan Lagares and Scott Rice and mark the first time that multiple current Mets have had Mets pinstripe jersey cards in the same year since 2009. Travis d’Arnaud was the first 2014 Rookie with his first MLB-worn material in 2014 Topps Series 1 and 2014 Topps Tribute. It’s a good start after some pretty rough years, but there’s still more ground to cover.
2014 Donruss has given us the first oddity of the year in the form of pinstripe jersey cards from Ike Davis, Dillon Gee, and Jon Niese. Their Game Gear cards all contain a type of pinstripe only seen at the MLB level back in the ’90s. This would mean that they could only be from the 1993 throwback home jersey worn on the road in Colorado on April 16, 2013.
Check out the jerseys for #Rockies v #Mets #TurnBackTheClockNight next Tuesday, 4/16. Buy tix: http://t.co/k3QvIaTOdp pic.twitter.com/NPPxWrte0u
— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) April 11, 2013
Leaf had a couple surprises of its own in 2013 Leaf Trinity. In addition to autographs from Noah Syndergaard, Rafael Montero, Dominic Smith, and Domingo Tapia, Leaf released autographed cards with memorabilia from Smith and Tapia. These all included piping or patches, a rarity for minor league players.
At the big league level, Travis d’Arnaud had his first autographed patch cards in the Strata insert set in 2014 Topps Series 1. Numbered to just 25 (and released as redemptions), these are not easy to get a hold of. Hopefully we’ll see more from him later in the year.
Like last year, Daniel Shoptaw from C70 At the Bat polled the Mets blog community to get a picture of where the team stands as of spring training. Also like last year, I offered up my unique insight that may or may not be particularly insightful.
You can read all of the responses here: Playing Pepper 2014: New York Mets.
It’s hard to go much higher than a B considering that the team still has some big holes and big questions, but the moves the team made should be at least enough for a B, so… It’s another year in a holding pattern, so a B it is. The outfield needed an overhaul, which it got in the form of Curtis Granderson and, to a lesser extent, the other Chris Young. The rotation needed a veteran and some Mejia insurance, which Bartolo Colon, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and John Lannan should provide. The bullpen has a few cheap new options, which is probably the best that could be expected. First base is still unresolved and shortstop… No shortstop solution equals a B.
In a different light though, this offseason earned an A for filling some of the Mets’ most glaring holes: All-Star memorabilia. Since All-Star workout jerseys started getting sold into tiny cardboard prisons in 2000, the Mets have had a representative from each AL All-Star team no later than the following spring each year. Sometimes it was a former player stepping up with a new team (Jason Isringhausen ’00, Melvin Mora ’05, Ty Wigginton ’10), other times it was a big-name offseason acquisition (Johan Santana ’07, Francisco Rodriguez ’08, Jason Bay ’09). This ended with the start of the Alderson regime. With no big free agent signings and an emphasis on building the farm system, there were no former or future Mets to be found on the AL All-Star Roster. It looked like 2013 would turn things around with both Jose Reyes and R.A. Dickey in Toronto, but that didn’t quite work out.
That all changed with this past offseason. In the span of a few days, Sandy Alderson checked off the 2011 (Curtis Granderson), 2012 (also CG), and 2013 (Bartolo Colon) AL All-Star teams and threw in the first Met from the 2005 Futures Game USA team (Chris Young) for good measure. Later, the signing of Jose Valverde to a minor league deal added a possible second 2011 AL All-Star. A bounceback season from Reyes and/or Dickey could put us back on track to have a Met on every AL All-Star team.
Yeah, about that… Over the years (well, two of them at least), I have identified two predictors of doom that can be found in cardboard. From 2010 to 2013, only one player each year appeared with the Mets and had a Mets pinstripe jersey card released in the same year. None of the first three played a game with the Mets in the following year. The fourth is Zack Wheeler. In 2013, I noticed that a lot of Mets pitchers who signed a lot of autographs that year suffered from arm injuries. Zack Wheeler was one of the few who has, so far, remained injury free. Does this mean Zack Wheeler is now cursed and has no chance of throwing a pitch in 2014? Of course not. But with the run of injuries Mets pitchers suffered in 2013, nothing is certain.
Seriously though, you can’t really look at it is having a gap to be filled. With or without Harvey, the rotation needs five pitchers to start with and some depth to fill in as needed. The Colon signing added a much-needed veteran and 200 innings from Wheeler would certainly help, as would strong seasons from Jon Niese and Dillon Gee. That just leaves the #5 spot, which has some decent (and cheap) options that could also provide depth later in the season. Add in possible appearances by Noah Syndergaard, Rafael Montero, and/or Jacob deGrom in the second half and the Mets might just have a legitimate group of starting pitchers to work with while Harvey rehabs.
I’m not really intrigued by it, but the one everyone seems to be interested in is who will be batting leadoff. “Leadoff Hitter” isn’t really a position, but you wouldn’t know that from the reporting these days. Eric Young Jr., the reigning NL stolen base champ, is the favorite for the job, but he’s a 4th outfielder at best. Do the Mets demote Juan Lagares to give EY a starting job to put him (and his mediocre OBP) at the top of the order? Or do they keep EY as a potent weapon off the bench and pick a leadoff hitter from the remaining options? This is the classic case of logic (EY’s value is highest as a bench player) vs. emotion (stolen bases!).
That would be Travis d’Arnaud. Wilmer Flores will probably start the season in AAA and there’s little chance of seeing any of the big pitching prospects until late June or July. That puts d’Arnaud in the rare position of spending a full season with Rookie eligibility. He has already shown that he is ready behind the plate, but he didn’t impress much with the bat in his brief stint in the majors last year. If his bat comes around (and if he can put injury questions to rest), he could provide significant value at a position that hasn’t produced much for the Mets in recent years.
I’ll go out on a limb and go with 80-82, 3rd place in the NL East. As with last year, this will depend more on how the other teams in the division perform than how the Mets perform. Will the Phillies continue to falter? Is the Marlins’ emergence still another year away? Did the Braves and Nationals make the right moves to stay at the top of the NL East? If everything breaks right, the Mets could stay relevant past the All-Star break. If not, well, pick any recent year to see the result. I’m not quite sold on 90 wins, but 80 is still in play. Of course, so is 70.
Sigh. Will Matt Harvey’s rehab be televised?
Here at Collect the Mets, we guarantee you one card-related crackpot conspiracy theory every year. It’s part of the differentiated value we offer in our efforts to deliver content that you won’t find anywhere else (often with good reason). Last year, we broke the story about the Curse of the Pinstripes, which has yet to claim any victims in 2013. So far, no current-year Mets players have had Mets pinstripe jersey cards released in 2013 (Update: Zack Wheeler was the lone current-year Met with pinstripe jersey cards released in 2013), though at least Matt Harvey and Jeremy Hefner are known to be out for 2014. If either of them has a Mets pinstripe jersey card in one of the final products of the year, that provides retroactive validation of the curse. If not, well, then we don’t get any nice pinstripe jersey cards, which is frustrating for collectors.
This year, the Mets suffered injury after injury from even before Day 1. Johan Santana was the big question mark for 2013, but it turns out that he was little more than an underscore. After an injury in spring training, Santana went back under the knife and was lost for 2013. That’s how it went for Mets pitchers for the rest of the year, right up to Matt Harvey’s postseason announcement that he would be undergoing Tommy John surgery and would miss 2014. With bookends like that, much will be written about the Mets’ injury woes in 2013, but most blogs will leave out one crucial element: the fact that so many pitchers signed large quantities of autograph cards right before their injuries. Can this be a coincidence? In a word: absolutely. Everyone is looking for a pattern in pitcher injuries (see our own Good Pitcher Effect), but their commonality masks any clear causality. Which makes it just as likely as anything else that signing autographs leads to pitcher breakdowns.
Jeurys Familia (Topps Series 1, Topps Gypsy Queen, Bowman, Bowman Inception, Panini Pinnacle, Topps Tier One, Topps Chrome, Topps Finest)
Jeurys Familia was once considered one of the Mets’ top pitching prospects alongside Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler. By the time he made his MLB debut in 2012, he was projecting more as a late-inning reliever or closer than a starter. He entered 2013 as one of only two Mets eligible for Rookie Cards but was no sure bet to make the team out of spring training. While he did just barely make the Opening Day roster, he made only eight appearances before going on the 60-day DL on May 9 in need of elbow surgery. After three months of rehab, Familia returned to Queens for his final appearance of 2013, giving up one run on two hits and two walks while striking out one to open the 9th in an 8-5 Mets loss.
Familia was the go-to guy for Mets autographs in 2013. His Rookie Card eligibility made him a safe bet to appear in most of the products released in 2013 and an attractive option for autographed inserts. With autographs in Topps Series 1, Topps Gypsy Queen, and Bowman, he must have been signing well before the start of the season. The timing lines up, but were the autographs a factor in his injury? Let’s just say yes for the sake of the narrative. His continued presence in just about everything else this year means that he must have been signing autographs during rehab. Could that sabotage his recovery?
Luis Mateo (Bowman Platinum, Bowman Chrome)
As part of the 2012 Brooklyn Cyclones all-star rotation, Luis Mateo saw his prospect status rise considerably. While not as polished as teammate Gabriel Ynoa, Mateo was the highest-regarded pitcher from that Brooklyn rotation and made the jump to St. Lucie for the 2013 Season. After one start for St. Lucie, he was called up to AA Binghamton to make a spot start, which is where everything went wrong. He suffered an elbow injury during the game, spent more than a month rehabbing in an attempt to avoid more severe injury, and then had Tommy John surgery in June after a pair of relief appearances for St. Lucie.
And then he had his first autograph cards released in July in Bowman Platinum. As with Familia’s first autos, these were almost certainly signed before the start of the season. Mateo would also have autographs released in September in Bowman Chrome, but it is not known when he signed these (Rafael Montero and Matt Reynolds signed theirs in the summer). That’s two big autograph signers and two busted elbows. But wait, there’s more.
Shaun Marcum (Topps Series 2, Topps Tier One)
There were many people who doubted that Shaun Marcum would ever throw a pitch for the Mets. With a reputation for being injury-prone, Marcum’s signing came at significant risk. So it came as no surprise that his season ended in July with shoulder surgery.
And then he had 670 autograph cards released in Topps Tier One the next month. He was also supposed to have autographs in Topps Series 2 in June, but those were issued as redemptions. Did his spring training injury delay his signing until May or June? If so, the timing lines up with his injury. That’s two elbows and a shoulder now, though we have no causative link. But when has that ever stopped anyone?
Corey Oswalt (Topps Heritage Minor League Edition)
Knee injury, only signed for one product late in the season – let’s just mark this one “Not Applicable” and move on.
Matt Harvey (2011 Bowman Platinum signed in July 2013)
And the big one. Matt Harvey was one of the few reasons to watch the Mets in 2013, so the news in August that he had a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) was devastating. Harvey drew out the decision of whether to have Tommy John surgery until October, when he announced that he was opting for surgery. That takes him out for all of 2014 and makes it questionable as to whether he will be back at full strength in 2015.
Matt Harvey has no autographs in any 2013 products. He signed about 500 total autograph cards for Panini’s 2012 products, which were released into this spring. Before that, you have to go back to 2010 to find any Matt Harvey autograph cards. So why is he here? It turns out that Harvey signed his 2011 Bowman Platinum autographs on July 25, almost two years to the day after that product was released. And about a month before his injury was announced. Based on a carefully-selected small sample of cases, we can conclude that autographs kill elbows and maybe shoulders. What happens if we widen our sample a bit and take a look at a few more 2013 Mets pitchers?
Johan Santana
Let’s just all agree that the Curse of the Pinstripes has been working overtime here and take Santana out of the running for this one. In fact, of the three Curse victims, Santana is the only one to ever play for the Mets again afterward, throwing the Mets’ first no-hiter in the process. Before getting stepped on and having it all come crashing down. Maybe the Curse is stronger than I thought… Santana has never been a big autograph signer, so he doesn’t really fit here.
Jonathon Niese
The 2013 (and likely 2014) Opening Day starter, Niese had high expectations this year even with the emergence of Matt Harvey as an ace and the anticipated arrival of Zack Wheeler. Now in the role of the veteran following the trade of R.A. Dickey and Johan Santana’s re-injury, it was up to him to stabilize a rotation out of control. So it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise to see him hit the DL in June with a partially torn rotator cuff. The injury only sidelined him for a month and a half though and Niese closed out the 2013 season at Citi Field.
After having plenty of autograph cards from 2009 to 2012, Niese has been a no-show so far this year except for a few multi-player sticker autograph cards (numbered to 15). With no recent autographs, we can’t blame any injuries from this year on signing. Maybe not signing autographs is the culprit here.
Jeremy Hefner
2013 was Hefner’s opportunity to step up and claim a spot in the Mets’ diminished rotation. After securing the spot start / long reliever role in 2012, Hefner found himself at the back end of the rotation when Santana and Marcum were unavailable to start the season. After a shaky start in his new role as a regular starter, Hefner dominated over a 6-week stretch starting in the beginning of June, pitching 51 innings over 8 starts with an ERA of 1.76, 40 strikeouts, and just 8 walks over that span. His next start would be the shortest of the season, lasting only two plus innings with 8 runs and 10 hits given up. His next four starts weren’t much better, going no longer than 6 innings and giving up no fewer than 3 runs in any of them. By mid-August, Hefner was on the DL with Tommy John surgery looming in his future.
You sure can’t blame this one on autographs because Hefner doesn’t have any. He remains one of the most prominent Mets without a certified autograph card, a problem that won’t be helped by elbow surgery.
Update:
Hefner signed his first autographs while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. And then went back under the knife for a second round…
Bobby Parnell
After Frank Francisco went down with injury, the Mets needed a new closer. Bobby Parnell stepped up and pitched better than the results indicated, falling victim to blown saves resulting from the actions of the players behind him on more than one occasion. And then a neck injury sidelined Parnell, with his season ending in surgery.
Parnell hasn’t signed autographs in a few years, plus this is a neck injury and not an arm injury. There’s no connection here, so this is another one to mark “Not Applicable.”
Update:
Well, that escalated quickly… Parnell seemed to recover from that neck injury without incident, but something didn’t seem quite right going into the 2014 season. After an Opening Day blown save, it was revealed that Parnell had a partially torn UCL. And in case you missed it, he also had autograph cards in 2013 Panini Select, released during the offseason. Looks like we’ve got another one.
Jenrry Mejia
Once considered one of the Mets’ top pitching prospects (sound familiar?), Mejia made his debut in 2010 when Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel were desperate to keep their jobs. Mejia became the sacrificial lamb, called up to pitch middle relief in low leverage spots as you would expect competent management to do with one of your top starting pitching prospects. Or not. Mejia’s development was further derailed by Tommy John surgery in 2011, making the fact that he even still existed news for Mets fans when he returned to the majors in September 2012. His 2013 spring training injury on the other hand was nothing unexpected. Injury #2 had him working his way through the minors on rehab until late July, when he made his 2013 debut with a trio of sevens: 7IP, 7H, and 7K to go with zeroes in the runs and walks columns. Top prospect Jenrry Mejia was back, and not a minute too soon for a rotation with a rotating cast on the DL. Which Mejia would rejoin a month later with bone spurs in his elbow for injury #3.
Mejia hasn’t signed autographs since 2010, so there’s no way to connect them to his 2013 injury unless Topps is sitting on an unused stockpile somewhere. But did those 2010 autographs, combined with his erratic use on the mound that year, contribute to his 2011 injury?
Michael Fulmer
Ranked as one of the top prospects in the Mets system at the start of 2013, Fulmer has endured setback after setback. A torn meniscus during spring training delayed his start to the season, then just nine starts in he was hit by a batted ball and removed as a precautionary measure. Following that, he returned to the DL with a shoulder strain. He is expected to be ready to go for spring training next year.
As the 44th overall pick in 2011, Michael Fulmer made the rounds in the draft pick autograph products that year. Since then though, we haven’t really seen much from him. Topps used a few of his sticker autographs in 2013 Bowman Chrome, but those were almost certainly old stock. Unless he did some signing for an upcoming product over the summer, there’s nothing to see here. Except for a series of unfortunate injuries.
Cory Mazzoni
Speaking of a series of unfortunate injuries… Elbow neuritis in April, strained hamstring in July… It sure seems like a lot more than that. Mazzoni only appeared in 13 games in 2013, none of which were any of the times I saw the B-Mets.
As for autographs, Mazzoni is another one with lots of 2011 autos and not much since then. The only 2013 Mazzoni autograph I’ve seen is the one I got from him in person at a game (while he was on the DL of course). Another unrelated case.
Taylor Whitenton
After an injury in spring training, Whitenton has completely dropped off the map. Let’s just call this the bottom of the barrel and stop here.
A few prominent pitchers made it through the 2013 season without injury and with a few autographs to show for it. Do they provide evidence disproving our hypothesis or do they have injuries coming in the near future? Only time will tell.
Zack Wheeler (Bowman Platinum, Topps Chrome, Topps Finest)
Scouts reported that Wheeler was MLB-ready in spring training, but a strained oblique during batting practice caused him to lose key prep time, making a start in the minors inevitable. From there, it was just a matter of which money-saving deadline the Mets would hold out for. Wheeler made his MLB debut in June and nearly reached his innings limit when he was shut down for the season in September after complaining of shoulder stiffness. The injury wasn’t considered to be serious and likely would have only caused him to miss a start if it had taken place earlier in the season.
Wheeler only had about 30 total autograph cards as a Met released before his MLB debut, then had hundreds between Bowman Platinum, Topps Chrome, and Topps Finest. Was the impact of these signings starting to catch up to him in September? He’s one to keep an eye on next year.
Update:
Even with the Curse of the Pinstripes piled on after 2013 Topps Triple Threads, Wheeler remained healthy for the 2014 season. He also signed a few more autographs, but surely not enough to be cause for concern, right?. He will miss all of the 2015 season following Tommy John surgery.
Rafael Montero (Bowman Chrome, Leaf Metal Draft)
Montero is one of the next top pitching prospects due to debut for the Mets, assuming that he isn’t traded first. After a year split between AA and AAA, Montero could be ready at any time in 2014. This past July, Montero signed his first certified autograph cards. No injury followed. So there’s that.
Domingo Tapia (Leaf Metal Draft)
Tapia has been one of the Mets’ top pitching prospects in the low minors, though his 2013 wasn’t quite in line with his past performance. A cooking injury sidelined him for a bit in May, but otherwise he’s been fairly consistent at 100+ innings over each of the last two seasons. Tapia was a surprise to see with an autograph in 2013 Leaf Metal Draft.
Inconclusive. There’s really nothing that can be said with any certainty without a more comprehensive analysis. For our purposes though, we can come to a completely unscientific sensationalistic conclusion based on a carefully-selected set of data points and declare that signing autographs contributes to pitcher injury. I was joking when I started this, but the timing in some of these cases makes me wonder if there might be something to it after all. While it certainly isn’t a direct cause, could autograph signing be one of many factors that make pitchers susceptible to arm injuries? There’s so much we don’t know about pitcher injuries that it could be possible.
This time last year, R.A. Dickey set out to earn his 20th win in front of an enthusiastic crowd. This year, the big milestone on the line was Eric Young Jr’s pursuit of the NL stolen base lead as the Mets attempted to equal last year’s record of 74-88. Backing them up was a sellout crowd that came to see Mike Piazza inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame and stayed to see the Mets close out the season with a 3-2 win.
Mike Piazza evokes memories of home runs, playoff appearances, and black uniforms. There would be none of those for the Mets from here on out, but it’s fun to look back at better days. Denied entrance to Cooperstown this year, the Mets made Piazza the newest member of the Mets Hall of Fame surrounded by his family and the family of Mets greats from years past.
And a whole lot of cameras. Absent were Al Leiter, whose job with MLB Network was keeping him busy as the Indians, Rangers, and Rays fought for the last two playoff spots, and Tom Seaver, who was all but ignored aside from a brief first-name mention from Piazza.
This wasn’t the time to look back at the Mets’ lone representative in Cooperstown as Piazza looks poised to join him whenever the writers get their act together. Piazza graciously accepted the award, spoke highly of his former teammates, and let the fans know how much their support has meant to him over the years. It was a true class act from a Mets great who hasn’t had much to do with the team lately, so this could be a changing of the guard. Next up: Cooperstown and the Citi Field wall of retired numbers.
Terry Collins, not especially beloved by the fans but respected by the players and the front office, entered the game with a two-year contract extension all but finalized. A progression of injuries and a team straight out of Las Vegas certainly didn’t help his case, but it does give some context to three losing seasons with the Mets. Collins does know how to work with people, in stark contrast to his previous managerial roles. In this regard, it makes sense that he made a special trip to the outfield before the game to thank the fans for their support. It was a simple gesture, but it shows that someone in charge of something understands that the team needs the support of the fans. Now let’s see what he can do with some better players.
Eric Young Jr. has proven that the Mets’ lack of a leadoff hitter is a significant deficiency. While I wouldn’t say that he’s proven that he deserves to be a starter in 2014, he should be a safe bet to make the team. Tied for the NL lead in stolen bases, Young put himself in position to get the top spot for himself with a leadoff single in the bottom of the first. To the surprise of nobody, he was off in advance of the first pitch and easily took second for his 45th steal of the season.
Would he stop there? Of course not. A few pitches later, he took third when Milwaukee catcher Jonathan Lucroy couldn’t get a good grip on the ball and threw far too late to catch Young. With one out, David Wright popped out to shallow right field, too shallow for a runner to tag up at third and score.
Or so you would think. This should have been an out. Even with Young’s speed, the ball got to Lucroy in plenty of time. Lucroy on the other hand couldn’t get to Young in time to make the tag, catching the ball well into the infield and needing to spin around 180 degrees for any chance at getting Young. Young did his job as a leadoff hitter and put the Mets on the board first. That should have been enough, but this wouldn’t be a Mets game if it were that easy.
Jon Niese, who cruised through the first three innings, started the fourth with three singles. Jeff Bianchi tried to score on the third, but Eric Young Jr. didn’t want anyone else to take away his spotlight, so he fired a throw to Juan Centeno, who made the tag for the inning’s first out. Niese walked Yuniesky Betancourt to load the bases, but he looked like he would escape the inning without incident when Sean Halton hit an easy double play ball. Umpire CB Bucknor thought otherwise and a run scored on the blown call, tying the game at 1.
Terry Collins did his part by arguing the call, but nothing he could say would change the call or, apparently, get him ejected. Logan Schafer followed with a dribbler that nobody could get to, driving in a run to give the Brewers a 2-1 lead. Scooter Gennett hit the fifth single of the inning, but someone didn’t get the memo about not running on Juan Lagares. Centeno tagged Halton to end the inning, for real this time. With the Mets’ bats silent since Young’s leadoff single, that blown call could decide the game.
Vic Black is a contender for high leverage relief appearances next year, so it’s good to see how he reacts under pressure. After an out and a four-pitch walk to Norichika Aoki, Black was determined to undo his mistake via pickoff. A little too determined. On the third consecutive pickoff attempt, Josh Satin couldn’t get a glove on the ball and Aoki took second. With the pressure on (largely due to his own efforts), Black got the next two batters to fly out to end the inning.
Juan Lagares gunned down Sean Halton to end the Brewers’ scoring in the 4th and Lagares came out on top again when their roles were reversed leading off the bottom of the 8th. On a ground ball to short, Lagares reached first safely when Halton couldn’t keep his foot on the bag and made no attempt at a tag. Juan Centeno followed with a perfectly dropped bunt that he was able to turn into an infield single. Milwaukee second baseman Scooter Gennett was caught off guard despite this being Centeno’s second bunt attempt and, after bumping into Bucknor, couldn’t get into a stable position to field the throw. That opened the door for Lagares to score and tie the game at 2.
Juan Centeno, not David Wright or Daniel Murphy as had been rumored, would be the only Met to lifted for a pinch runner, though it wasn’t to give him an ovation. Matt den Dekker took over as the runner at second, which apparently Lucroy didn’t pick up on when he fielded Wilfredo Tovar’s bunt and threw to third instead of first. With the lead run on third and nobody out, most fans would expect a run here. Between the Brewers’ inept defense and the Mets’ absent offense though, nothing was certain. Josh Satin popped out for the first successfully recorded out of the inning, bringing the offense full circle to the player who started the day’s scoring and now had a chance to end it.
Eric Young Jr. didn’t need to do much. A base hit or a deep fly ball would bring den Dekker home. Instead, he smashed the ball into the ground just in front of home plate for a groundout that the Brewers executed without an error. As den Dekker slid across home plate. With the lead secured, Justin Turner and his beard came in to put the Mets’ offense to bed for the year.
Frank Francisco was brought in to be the Mets’ closer, but things didn’t exactly go as planned. After a disappointing 2012, Francisco missed most of 2013 while rehabbing from injury. With the Mets up 3-2 going into the 9th, Francisco was handed his first save opportunity of the year and an opportunity to end his Mets career back on track. His first test would be former Met Carlos Gomez, who popped out to start the inning. A strikeout brought in Aramis Ramirez as a pinch hitter and Milwaukee’s last chance. Ramirez watched as Francisco sent strike three over the plate to end the game. If you picked Frank Francisco to save Game 162 for the Mets, well, you must not follow baseball. Still, that’s the way it happened as we say goodbye to Citi Field for 2013.
Look, I don’t buy boxes of premium products. If I’m going to drop hundreds of dollars on cards, I either want a good number of cards (preferably enough to build a set) or just the premium inserts that I want. I’m not in this for the gambling, so missing out on a slim chance at a big score is worth it if I can get the cards I want at a reasonable price. In the case of 2012 Topps Tier One, I spent less than the price of four boxes and got cards that are better than could be expected from four boxes, which is a win in my book.
So beautiful
Got ya, there are no base cards! If there’s one thing that I hate in sports card products, it’s filler. No, not those blank cards that are used to thicken packs to make it harder to find high-dollar cards by feel. It’s the base cards in those one-big-ass-hit-per-pack products that seem the most pointless. I mean, how do you collect base cards when the packs cost $100+ each? Mix in a few levels of parallels and some inserts to thin things out and you have, at best, some singles you can get a few dollars for because the people who want them aren’t going to drop a few thousand dollars to pull one. That’s why it was refreshing to see Topps basically say “Look, this is a pure gamble, there’s no collecting to be done here, just a big win or a big loss,” with 2012 Topps Tier One. Each box contains one pack that in turn contains just three cards, two with autographs and one without (plus a bonus relic in every fourth box). Based on the Twitter buzz about this product, you would assume that there was a 1/1 bat knob in each pack, but that of course was not to be. There was still a lot to like about this product, when purchased on the secondary market of course (good advice for any premium product).
If one is boring, three is, um, also boring
Single Relic: Numbered to 399 or 150
Double Relic: Numbered to 50 or less
Triple Relic: Numbered to 25 or less
Autographed Single Relic: Numbered to 99
Autographed Double Relic: Numbered to 25
Autographed Triple Relic: Numbered to 1
Mets: David Wright (Autographed Relics have not been seen)
Non-Mets: Eddie Murray (Relics only), Gary Sheffield (Autographed Relics only)
These are the filler relic cards, with even Wright’s triple relic commanding less than $10. If you pulled one of these as your non-autographed card, well, my condolences. And stay away from the slot machines. Like last year’s cards, these are largely forgettable and don’t really get any better with more material. The usual boring gray jersey swatches don’t help much either. How long has it been since we’ve seen a pinstripe jersey card from Wright? Autographed versions may exist for some players, but the checklist doesn’t match up with what has been seen.
The thin blue line makes a crappy patch
Relic: Numbered to 10
Autographed Relic: Numbered to 10
Mets: Dwight Gooden, Rickey Henderson (Autographed Relic only), Eddie Murray (Autographed Relic only), David Wright (Autographed Relic only)
Non-Mets: Willie Mays (Relic only), Nolan Ryan (Relic only), Tom Seaver (Relic only), Warren Spahn (Relic only)
A better relic pull would be one of these jumbo relics. Most of these are patches, but Wright has large pieces of gray jersey with blue piping instead (Topps and I clearly have different definitions of ‘patch’). Gooden and Murray have nice big Mets patches, which at least explains why Murray is shown as a Met here. In general, I’m really getting tired of seeing Murray, Henderson, and Ryan shown as Mets, but I’ll allow it if the purpose is to match the material in the card.
Numbered to 1
Mets: Gary Carter, Jose Reyes, Tom Seaver
Non-Mets: Carlos Beltran, Rickey Henderson, Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield, Duke Snider, Darryl Strawberry
And here’s the real relic draw. With going rates around $800 for most players, a bat knob pull would make up for a few boxes of garbage. It is also extremely unlikely (odds are 1 in 204 packs). Pulls of a lifetime tend to be somewhat rare. But they sure look nice.
Blue: Numbering Varies
White: Numbered to 25
Silver: Numbered to 10
Gold: Numbered to 1
Mets: Ike Davis, Ed Kranepool, David Wright
Non-Mets: George Foster
On the autograph side of things, you have several mostly identical insert sets. Crowd Pleasers are landscape-oriented cards featuring on-card autographs in either blue ink on a white background or White/Silver/Gold ink on a black background. These are some sharp-looking cards and have ink colors that you don’t really see much anymore now that Sweet Spot is gone. The player selection is fairly standard but better than most products, with David Wright and Ike Davis representing the current Mets and Ed Kranepool representing retired Mets. It’s always nice to see more Kranepool, but some more variety would have been welcome. Luckily, there are plenty more autograph insert sets to work with.
Blue: Numbering Varies
White: Numbered to 25
Silver: Numbered to 10
Gold: Numbered to 1
Mets: Jon Niese
Non-Mets: None
These are essentially the same as Crowd Pleasers, only with portrait orientation. Jon Niese is the lone Mets representative here.
Blue: Numbered to 50
White: Numbered to 25
Silver: Numbered to 10
Gold: Numbered to 1
Mets: Nolan Ryan
Non-Mets: Willie Mays
Same as above, more or less. Of course they throw in Nolan Ryan here as a Met…
Single Relic: Numbered to 50
Double Relic: Numbered to 15
Non-Mets: Willie Mays
Numbered to 25
Non-Mets: Willie Mays
Mays never stops signing autographs apparently.
Nothing worth noting.
There’s some nice stuff here, but it feels awfully redundant sandwiched between Museum Collection and Triple Threads. It was refreshing for Topps to drop the pretense that anyone is buying these for anything other than the big hits, but what does that say about this product’s identity? For Mets fans, this product is all about the autographs, but even that is only a draw because of how little variety there’s been in other products. Outside of Archives, there’s been little to choose from in on-card autographs beyond Wright and Ryan, and even Tier 1 only adds Kranepool, Niese, and Davis (plus some very nice parallel ink colors). Beef up the autograph offerings in the other products and Tier 1 becomes completely unnecessary. Next year, Topps should drop the non-base cards from this product and come up with some new ideas. How about autographs on manufactured material, has anybody done that yet?
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