Tag Archives: Matt Harvey - Page 6

Up Close with the 2013 NL All-Star Workout Jersey

Posted by on 7 August 2013 Comments Off on Up Close with the 2013 NL All-Star Workout Jersey

It’s a Harvey Day miracle!

Matt Harvey is pitching for the Mets tonight, so it’s fitting that the Matt Harvey 2013 All-Star jersey I ordered last month got here earlier today. As you would expect, the first thing I did with it was scan it to within an inch of its life. Now wrinkled and creased, it will go into my closet until I have an appropriate opportunity to wear it. Being more than 200 miles from Citi Field (and with no more Mets minor league teams heading out this way until next year), that might not be for a while.

What I can look forward to though is seeing pieces from the Harvey-worn version of this jersey embedded in cardboard in Topps Update this fall. Harvey, David Wright, Carlos Beltran, and Marco Scutaro should all have pieces of their respective jerseys represented in that product, so let’s take a look at what we can expect to see. (The Futures Game jerseys worn by Rafael Montero, Noah Syndergaard, and Brandon Nimmo should also be in this style and can be expected in this fall’s prospect-oriented releases.)

The typical trend with All-Star jerseys is for the style to be whatever will be used for the following year’s batting practice jersey. This year’s BP jersey is in its second season of use and a new style is due up for next year. That means we’re in for something new in this year’s All-Star jersey.

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Player Spotlight: Matt Harvey

Posted by on 25 April 2013 Comments Off on Player Spotlight: Matt Harvey

Once underappreciated, now the real deal

Few people saw Matt Harvey as a future ace even as recently as this time last year.  Wheeler’s talent was plain to see, but Harvey?  He just wasn’t there.  Even after his debut “too long to delay rookie eligibility, too short to make a Rookie of the Year case” season, there were many who were not ready to believe.  Harvey’s still here, but his doubters have turned out to be the mirage.

Matt Harvey was drafted seventh overall in the 2010 amateur draft to indifference with a side of LOLMets.  The consensus seemed to be that Harvey went too high and the Mets played it safe with a signable pick with less upside than some of the younger talent that was still available (like currently drug-suspended catcher Yasmani Grandal).  Harvey’s supporters weren’t particularly vocal, but having a sensible, if not sensational, first round pick was an improvement over some of Omar Minaya’s previous drafts (see: “Kunz, Eddie”).  I’m sure Harvey’s detractors switched over to bashing the Mets for picking a kid who didn’t even play high school ball in the next draft.  They didn’t see the talent in Harvey that the Mets were banking on.

What I saw though were some pretty damn nice cards.  Long-time readers know that draft day(s) is an exciting time for me as I scour the depths of eBay for any pre-pro cards from the newest members of the Mets organization.  What started as a subset in the 1985 Topps set (best known for Mark McGwire’s first card) is now an entire segment of the hobby.  Between various Team USA sets and inserts and All-American game cards and autographs, many of the top amateur players have an extensive checklist before they get drafted.  For Matt Harvey, this included a few autographed jersey cards and some jumbo patch cards from one of his Team USA jerseys.

It didn’t take long for Harvey’s pro cards to materialize.  Topps featured autographs from Harvey in 2010 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects and Panini did the same in 2010 Donruss Elite Extra Edition.

As Harvey worked his way through the Mets’ system in 2011 and 2012, he became harder to ignore.  His efforts were rewarded with an appearance in the 2011 Futures Game, with pieces of his jersey from the event first appearing in 2011 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects.  Only red swatches could be found in 2011, but the black and white secondary colors followed in 2012 Topps Pro Debut.  Shortly after Pro Debut was released, Matt Harvey made his debut in the majors with an 11-strikeout statement that proved once and for all that he was for real.

Or at least it should have.  With arguably the best pitching debut since Stephen Strasburg, Harvey should have been in the discussion with the great young pitchers in the game.  Like R.A. Dickey a year earlier though, few outside the Mets fanbase could see the greatness that was clearly there.  Autograph collectors at least could be forgiven; there hadn’t been any Matt Harvey autograph releases since the 2010 products.  Harvey was on the checklist for autographs in 2011 Bowman Platinum, but the product released in July of 2011 only had this to offer:

As 2011 came to an end, there was no word on redemption fulfillment.  2012 came and went, but Topps could not get the cards, a pen, and Matt Harvey together in the same place at the same time.  Now well into 2013, all we have is a tweet from Topps indicating that the cards may have been dropped off with Harvey during spring training.

Was this all a mass delusion?  Could the stress of cheering on the Mets through collapse and utter failure have driven us to conjure up a savior who could lead the team to greatness?  Why could an arm that could throw a high-90s fastball with pinpoint precision not be called upon to put ink to cardboard?

Our fears were put to rest when Panini released 2012 National Treasures in, um, February of 2013.  This product, one of their best half-licensed baseball releases to date, included Matt Harvey’s autographs on cards (with pieces of his ’89 throwback jersey), on stickers, and on manufactured fabric.  The demand for these autographs was so great that the base versions (each numbered to 99) initially sold in the $20-80 range.  Harvey then went on to win his first four starts in such grand fashion that he was mentioned alongside some of the greatest pitchers in Mets history.  One of them, Dwight Gooden, then bestowed Harvey with the moniker “The Real Deal.”

 

The world has finally accepted Matt Harvey as no mere figment of the imagination or hallucination brought on by whatever is in the air in New York City.  And now the world is buying up his autograph cards in a frenzy, pushing the price of even his most common autographs over the $80 mark.  If you don’t already have a Matt Harvey autograph, you probably can’t afford one.  And don’t bother looking in any current Topps products, they can’t even get him to sign cards from 2011.  They do have some jersey and patch cards though, so it’s not like they don’t acknowledge that he exists.  Maybe MLB’s appointed one true card manufacturer has become invisible to Matt Harvey.

Update:

It only took two years…

2012 Mets Debut Autographs

Posted by on 25 September 2012 Comments Off on 2012 Mets Debut Autographs

Familia and familiar faces

The September call-up tradition usually means a big influx of minor leaguers for the season’s final weeks, with teams getting up to 15 additional players to use as they see fit. For the Mets, this meant calling back most of the players who had been up with the club at some point this season plus two new faces. Jeurys Familia made his much-anticipated debut in relief, a role that most of the experts see him in long-term. Fred Lewis, who spent time with the Giants and the Reds before having a quietly solid season in Buffalo, made his Mets debut in the following inning as a pinch hitter. Everyone else shown here was back up with the big league club at the end of the season except Kirk Nieuwenhuis (AAA DL), Vinny Rottino (claimed off waivers), Rob Johnson (DL), Jack Egbert (AAA DL), Omar Quintanilla (given away to the Orioles), and Garrett Olson (finished the season in Buffalo). And this is the way the season ends.

Andres Torres Ronny Cedeno Ramon Ramirez Jon Rauch
5 April 2012 5 April 2012 5 April 2012 5 April 2012
Frank Francisco Kirk Nieuwenhuis Jordany Valdespin Jeremy Hefner
5 April 2012 7 April 2012 23 April 2012 23 April 2012
Zach Lutz Vinny Rottino Rob Johnson Robert Carson
24 April 2012 4 May 2012 9 May 2012 18 May 2012
Jack Egbert Omar Quintanilla Elvin Ramirez Justin Hampson
28 May 2012 29 May 2012 3 June 2012 25 June 2012
Josh Edgin Matt Harvey Garrett Olson Kelly Shoppach
13 July 2012 26 July 2012 8 August 2012 16 August 2012
Collin McHugh Jeurys Familia Fred Lewis
23 August 2012 4 September 2012 4 September 2012

Previous Entries:

Hello, goodbye

Between offseason acquisitions, injury replacements, and general roster crunch, a lot of players have made their first Mets appearance in 2012 – 16 in the first three months of the season. Of those, most have spent time on the DL, been sent down to the minors, or, in the case of Vinny Rottino, been put on waivers and claimed by the Indians. Jon Rauch has been healthy but became a major scapegoat after getting hit hard in a few games and Kirk Nieuwenhuis earned a call-up when Andres Torres was injured on opening day and has stuck around ever since. Omar Quintanilla is the only other call-up with a chance of sticking long-term, largely because of his lack of options and the Mets’ lack of depth at shortstop. With the Mets still in contention, the looming trade deadline should bring in some new faces by the trade deadline.

It’s Harvey time!

Back in April, you may have been wondering how many starting pitchers the Mets would have to lose to call up Matt Harvey before August. The answer turns out to be three, with Pelfrey and Gee out for the season and Santana on the DL. As the Mets spiral out of contention, it’s time to see who’s ready for next year. That means we get to see Harvey pitch for the big league club in late July. For a team that was expected to finish in super-last place and trade all of its players with a pulse for a can of nuts with a springing snake in it, a decent first-half run and a couple months of Harvey in the rotation isn’t a bad deal. While he may have exceeded all expectations in his first start (5-1/3IP 0ER 3H 2BB 11K, plus 1-2/3 scoreless innings from fellow 2010 draft pick and July call-up Josh Edgin), it will take a while to see if he will live up to the hype.

From Fenway to Flushing

And then there were two. With Johan Santana out for the season, only Jon Niese and R.A. Dickey have lasted this far in starting rotation. I thought Jeff Kent was supposed to be on Survivor, not the Mets starters… Taking Johan’s slot (initially at least) will be Collin McHugh, who has had a great year so far in Binghamton and Buffalo, despite being overshadowed by Zack Wheeler at both stops. McHugh’s last minor league start before his call-up was at Fenway Park for Futures at Fenway, where he pitched 7 scoreless innings in Buffalo’s 2-0 win over the Pawtucket Red Sox. His next destination would turn out to be another big league park as he was tapped to start at Citi Field the following Thursday, where he went another 7 scoreless innings against the Rockies. Kelly Shoppach made a similar trip by way of the Boston Red Sox. Claimed on waivers and traded for PTBNL Pedro Beato, Shoppach was acquired in an attempt to improve offensive production at catcher. The deal also gives the Mets staff a close look at Shoppach, who will be a free agent at the end of the season and was in their sights last offseason. Shoppach homered for his first hit with the Mets and has been a big part of the team’s recent resurgence.

CTM Mailbag – June 2012

Posted by on 15 June 2012 1 comment

Jerseys, autographs, no-nos, and boxes overflowing with cards, oh my!

I’m sitting here with about half a dozen pieces about 90% finished, so of course I skip over all of those and crank out another mailbag feature! It’s been a big month or so in the hobby with new releases every week, so here’s an update on the important issues facing Mets collectors.

Tilly wrote:

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Don’t get too excited about the Matt Harvey jersey cards in Pro Debut, they aren’t from the Mets jersey Topps obtained in Spring Training. Remember last year’s Bowman Chrome Draft Picks & Prospects, which featured Futures Game jersey cards for Matt Harvey and Jefry Marte? Only the primary color of those three-color jerseys made it into the cards back then, so what happened to the rest? The good news is that you can now get all three colors for both Harvey and Marte in 2012 Pro Debut; the bad news is still no Mets jerseys for either of them. For Harvey, it’s clearly only a matter of time.

Segota wrote:

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Things have turned around a bit from last month in the Mets representation department. Archives and Pro Debut each featured eight players in their respective small base sets, plus several more in insert and parallel sets. Topps Series 2 increased the diversity of Mets featured in the insert sets, though most of them were still either retired players (Seaver, Ryan, Carter, Strawberry, and Gooden), former Mets (Pagan), or David Wright; the only others were Museum Collection holdovers Dillon Gee and Ike Davis, plus a few Jose Reyes 1/1 letter patches. While the base set situation seems to have sorted itself out and the inserts are getting there (some game-used from new players would be welcome…), the lone remaining area of concern is prospect autographs. Between Bowman and Pro Debut, two sets that focus heavily on prospects, only Jordany Valdespin and Brandon Nimmo have been featured on autograph cards. Adding in Panini’s “2011” products from this year gives you Chris Schwinden (playing for [insert team here] this week) and a few more 2011 draft picks. That leaves a huge gap between the 2011 draft class and the Buffalo-to-Flushing shuttle, or basically all the hope for success in 2014. While a lot of them had autographs last year, guys like Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Matt den Dekker, Jeurys Familia, Jefry Marte, Wilmer Flores, etc. are no-shows (no-signs?) so far this year; heck, Matt Harvey still hasn’t signed his cards from 2011 Bowman Platinum! I had to go to a game to get an autograph from Jefry Marte (many thanks, Jefry!) and that’s not practical for a lot of fans.

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Don’t expect much of a hobby reaction to Johan’s no-hitter. Between the lead time to produce cards, two perfect games so far this season, and Santana losing a bit of his luster with a couple of sub-par starts following the no-no and being outshined by a more dominant but imperfect R.A. Dickey, there’s not much hope for a big celebration of the Mets’ first no-hitter in this year’s products. If you want something to commemorate the occasion and don’t want to spend big bucks on reproduction tickets or whatever else the team is selling, I would recommend The7Line’s HI57ORY shirt.

SWLVguy wrote:

I might have a few of these….got any doubles of decent 90+ Gary Carters?

Oh, you have no idea… And, frankly, neither do I. I likely have a lot of base cards from Topps and Upper Deck, but I wouldn’t know where to even start looking. Too many old cards around here… I could always use some help thinning out the collection a bit, but even charities that give out cards to kids don’t want stuff as old as my excess commons. Anyone willing to give some old cards a good home?

Product Spotlight: 2012 Bowman

Posted by on 3 June 2012 Comments Off on Product Spotlight: 2012 Bowman

After 10 years without opening a pack, I’m off the wagon

10 years ago, I officially gave up on opening any current-year baseball card product.  After more than two years of opening packs, boxes, and cases (probably close to 1,000 packs in all) and getting squat for big hits (Babe Ruth bat cards were barely worth more than a box of cards by the time I finally pulled one), I called it quits and stuck with singles on the secondary market.  I never did finish the 2002 Fleer Tradition set…

In May of 2012, my days of not opening a current-year product were over.  I had expected this to happen when 2012 Topps Archives was announced, but surprisingly it was 2012 Bowman that did me in.  Bowman?  A product that I had never bought more than two packs of since it became relevant in 1992 (though that year’s packs yielded a Mariano Rivera RC)?  I’m still not sure why this was the product that brought me back, but I have no regrets.

Card Design

There’s been a lot of praise for this year’s Bowman product, or at least that’s what shows up on the @toppscards Twitter feed (and they couldn’t be biased, right?).  Still, at least a few people are raving about it, and for good reason.  For the first time since being introduced in 1997, the red-blue-green color coding for stars, first cards, and rookies/prospects is gone, replaced by a simple team-based color stripe around the photo.  Topps abandoned a formula?  I’m shocked.  The result is a classic baseball card look that reminds me a bit of 1990 Fleer (one of the few times Fleer got it right in their 25 year run).  Topps also managed to give the base and prospect sets distinct designs that clearly belong together.  The design is simple and elegant, a rare but welcome combination.  New among the variants this year are ice parallels and wave refractors, both of which are very visually interesting (unlike most previous attempts to jazz up parallels).  The ice parallels remind me a bit of 1999 UD HoloGrFX, a great-looking product that was doomed with a terrible follow-up in 2000.

Mets Representation

The downside to this product is that it continues the trend of underrepresentation of Mets players in 2012 products.  While three Mets made it into the 110-card prospect set (including Spring Training star Josh Edgin) and another three made the 25-card Bowman’s Best prospect set, only four made the cut in the 220-card base set: Wright, Davis, Dickey, and Duda.  That puts the Mets somewhere around the bottom quartile of teams by base set representation.  It’s better than the Astros (1 card), but do we really need every Yankees starter?  Couldn’t someone be bumped for Johan Santana and Daniel Murphy or Ruben Tejada?  Topps didn’t even find room for Jason Bay, which is quite unusual.  Oh well.  Jordany Valdespin (retail autographs white/blue/orange/red) and Brandon Nimmo (Bowman Black autograph) round out the Mets roster.  Of note is that Valdespin’s autographs hit retail at about the same time as this game-winning 3-run home run against the Phillies:

Set Overview

This part is a bit complicated.  Inside packs of 2012 Bowman, you’ll find cards from three somewhat distinct products: Bowman, Bowman Chrome, and Bowman’s Best (and their various parallel sets).  These were all separate products back when I last bought packs, but the days of downsizing have crammed them all into a single product.  That makes sorting out the checklists a bit of a challenge.

Let’s see if we can get this straight.  The base Bowman product is 330 cards, with 220 cards in the regular base set and another 110 BP-prefixed prospect cards (with 4 of them misnumbered, oops).  The base set has several “RC” designated cards, but only one of them (Cespedes) is also a first Bowman card; the prospect set has lots of cards that are one or the other, but none that are both.  Bowman Chrome is exclusively parallel to the 110-card prospect set (with fitting BCP prefixes) and Bowman’s Best is a 50-card insert set with 25 BB-prefixed Bowman’s Best cards and 25 BBP-prefixed Bowman’s Best prospect cards.  Did you get all that?

But wait, there’s more!  The autographs are even more confusing, with Bowman autographs (all stickers) exclusive to retail packs and Bowman Chrome autographs (all on-card) exclusive to hobby packs.  Some of the autos in each are parallels of their respective Bowman/Bowman Chrome cards while others are from players who do not appear in the respective set or players who aren’t anywhere else in the 2012 Bowman product.  And then there’s the Bowman Black autographed insert set…

As for the other parallels, well, there are base parallels, chrome parallels, and ice parallels, with some serial numbered, some not, some (gold) only of the 220-card base set, some others (purple, all chromes) only of the 110-card prospect set, and yet others (international, blue, orange, red, ice, red ice) covering all 330 cards; the autographs have similar parallels without any gold, purple, international, or ice/red ice variants (among others).  Oh, right, and the Bowman’s Best cards all have die-cut parallels numbered to 99, 25, and 1.  Still with me?

Luckily (or not), you won’t see most of these in a pack.  A typical pack will contain one gold parallel card, two Bowman Chrome cards, two prospect cards, and five base cards.  Autographs are one per hobby box (and three per jumbo box, not that you can find any).  The blue and red wave refractors aren’t in any packs, those are a limited wrapper redemption that I just barely got my wrappers in for before the 10,000 packs were claimed less than a week after the product launched.  Like the silver and red ice parallels, the blue and red wave refractors are new parallel styles and look great.  It’s nice to see some parallels that aren’t simple color variants or bizarre checkerboard patterns.

Here’s the breakdown of what I pulled from four boxes, your results may vary:

1 complete 330-card Bowman set (1-220, BP1-BP110) + lots of extras
83/220 of the gold parallel set + 13 extras
12 International parallels
4 Blue parallels (#d/500)
2 Orange parallels (#d/250)
5 Ice parallels
2 Red ice parallels (#d/25)
90/110 of the Bowman Chrome set + 78 extras
3 Refractor parallels (#d/500)
1 Blue refractor parallel (#d/250)
2 Chrome autographs
2 Blue refractor autographs (#d/150)
16 Bowman’s Best cards

And via wrapper redemption:
18 Blue wave refractor parallels
1 Blue wave refractor autograph (#d/50)
1 Red wave refractor parallel (#d/25)

Big hits:
Rookie Davis Blue Wave Refractor Autograph BCP43 37/50
Andrew Susac Blue Refractor Autograph BCP97 142/150
J.T. Wise Red Wave Refractor BCP67 12/25
Justin Nicolino Red Ice Parallel BP1 08/25

As far as value for the money goes, it wasn’t bad.  Finishing off the base set was a big plus, but it would have been nice to get the chrome set as well ($5 on eBay fixed that).  Two red ice parallels was a big surprise (those are supposed to be about one per case), but those were the only cards numbered to less than 150 straight out of the box (two more came from the wrapper redemption).  The one-per-box autographs were nobody special, though getting two blue refractor autos was nice; the best autograph was the Rookie Davis blue wave refractor auto.  And one of the base blue parallels was Cespedes, so that was a decent pull (the same box also yielded the base and gold versions as an added bonus; that was much better than the box with gold and ice Shane Victorinos).  The biggest Mets hits were a Bowman’s Best Zack Wheeler and gold parallel David Wright, nothing to write home about.  The wrapper redemption yielded the biggest pull and accounted for about half of my eBay sales, making the value for future purchases look much poorer.  And now on to Archives…

2011 Mets Game-Used Year in Review

Posted by on 31 December 2011 Comments Off on 2011 Mets Game-Used Year in Review

2011 was another dismal season for the Mets on the field, but who needs actual games when you have baseball cards?  It was a fairly uneventful season there too until the last few weeks, but there were several bright spots.

Going into the first year of the reborn Topps monopoly (Upper Deck still managed to put out a 2010 product with just a MLB Players Association license before getting sued by MLB Properties), I didn’t exactly have high hopes.  Take out all that Upper Deck and Donruss have given the hobby on the game-used front over the preceding decade and you would be left with mostly mediocre offerings.  Even after just the loss of Donruss and Fleer in 2005, variety in game-used offerings has taken a nosedive; taking Upper Deck out of the picture certainly isn’t going to help.  Gone are the days of finding pieces of hats, gloves, shoes, and other random items embedded in cardboard (I can live without game-used dirt cards).  Gone too are the days of even having any details of the item mentioned on the card – “Congratulations! You have received pieces of stuff used in a game of some sort!”  Based on how Topps seemed to be dumping its excess game-used inventory into cards in 2010 (some cards featured pieces of jerseys from events dating back to 2002), the days of timely and relevant game-used pieces (aside from the annual All-Star game insert sets) seemed long past.  2011 had a few surprises though, giving hope for some interesting products in the years to come (especially now that Panini, aka Donruss Mk. III, is in the market with a license from the MLB Players Association).

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