Tag Archives: Thomas Szapucki

2021 Mets Debut Autographs

Posted by Matthew Lug on 4 August 2021 Comments Off

Playoffs or bust! Probably bust.

So, um, right. The Mets! After falling face-first into the All-Star break somehow still in first place in the NL East, the Mets were looking like their days atop the standings were near an end. Then Noah Syndergaard had a setback, Jacob deGrom and Francisco Lindor hit the IL, and the team lost games in the worst ways. All while remaining in first place. And they did it with the help of, let’s see… Billy McKinney, Jerad Eickhoff, Tylor Megill, Robert Stock, Jerad Eickhoff, Anthony Banda, Jerad Eickhoff… Pitchers were landing on the 60-day IL or getting claimed/traded faster than the Mets could re-sign Jerad Eickhoff. Because that’s what first-place teams do. Wha?

With the trade deadline fast approaching, help was sure to be on the way. New owner Steve Cohen gave the green light to push past the luxury tax threshold and the Mets had loads of holes to fill, including one shaped exactly like Kris Bryant. With the Cubs (and the notoriously cheap Ricketts family) in “Everything must go!” mode, the Mets got, um, Javier Báez. For 2020 1st round pick Pete Crow-Armstrong. But the Cubs also threw in 5th starter candidate (and soon-to-be Syracuse resident) Trevor Williams and enough cash to bring their salaries down to the league minimum. Woo.

On the pitching front, the Mets had a clear need for someone better than Rich Hill, acquired earlier that week. The big prize was José Berríos, but the Mets front office was not thrilled with the Twins’ asking price, reportedly something in the vicinity of Ronny Mauricio and Dominic Smith. Clearly, the Twins weren’t getting anything close to that, until the Blue Jays offered up Austin Martin, the star of 2021 Bowman, and former Mets prospect Simeon Woods Richardson. Whoops.

At least we could look forward to Jacob deGrom returning soon. Until the Mets announced, just after the trade deadline, that deGrom was being shut down for another two weeks and would be back in September. At the earliest. Carlos Carrasco made his first start for the Mets that night with the much anticipated/dreaded return of the black jerseys and Báez hit a home run in his first game with the Mets the next day, but it was taking all this team had left to pull off a few one-run victories between crushing defeats. Oof.

And yet, they still sat in first place at the start of August, though with the replenished Phillies and Braves on the hunt for a winning record. At least nothing else could go wrong…

Well, other than not signing their first round draft pick over nebulous health concerns. The Mets!


Kevin Pillar	Francisco Lindor	James McCann	Trevor May
5 April 2021	5 April 2021	5 April 2021	5 April 2021

Aaron Loup	Jonathan Villar	Albert Almora Jr.	Jacob Barnes
5 April 2021	5 April 2021	6 April 2021	7 April 2021

Joey Lucchesi	Taijuan Walker	Trevor Hildenberger	Sean Reid-Foley
7 April 2021	8 April 2021	17 April 2021	22 April 2021

Stephen Tarpley	Jose Peraza	Patrick Mazeika*	Jordan Yamamoto
24 April 2021	2 May 2021	5 May 2021	5 May 2021

Tommy Hunter	Jake Hager*	Johneshwy Fargas*	Khalil Lee*
7 May 2021	15 May 2021	17 May 2021	17 May 2021

Cameron Maybin	Brandon Drury	Yennsy Diaz	Billy McKinney
19 May 2021	21 May 2021	23 May 2021	27 May 2021

Mason Williams	Travis Blankenhorn	Jerad Eickhoff	Tylor Megill*
31 May 2021	2 June 2021	21 June 2021	23 June 2021

Thomas Szapucki*	Robert Stock	Nick Tropeano	Anthony Banda
30 June 2021	7 July 2021	9 July 2021	19 July 2021

Geoff Hartlieb	Rich Hill	Akeem Bostick*	Carlos Carrasco
20 July 2021	25 July 2021	29 July 2021	30 July 2021

Javier Báez
31 July 2021

*MLB Debut

2017 Biggest Pulls: 21-32

Posted by Matthew Lug on 9 January 2018 Comments Off

Most of the Mets

Now we get to the fun stuff. The $20-30 range is where you’ll find your expectation-level hits. As in, this is usually the best you can expect to get from a box. Now, when you’re spending $60-100 per box, you’re sure hoping for something at least this good to be in there. But all too often you’ll get a 99 cent “hit” and a base card will be the prize of the box. Enjoy it when these fall regularly, even though they won’t make back half of the price of the box.

Product Spotlight: 2017 Bowman

Posted by Matthew Lug on 31 May 2017 Comments Off

Too much of a good thing or just too much?

The base Bowman franchise is one of the cornerstones of the Topps product line. As such, it is a rock, always there, yet always changing in subtle ways. It’s frustrating sometimes, refreshing sometimes, but always there. 2017 Bowman is no exception – it’s there, there’s a lot to like, and there’s a lot that just makes no sense.

In 2015, Topps seemed to be headed in the right direction. 2014’s excess of confusing and unnecessary parallels yielded to the order of 2015 Bowman’s sensible parallel structure. 2016 Bowman did away with the ice parallels and wave refractors introduced in 2012, which was probably due, but it introduced full-size shimmer parallels in green and gold, numbered the same as their non-shimmer counterparts. 2016 Bowman Draft turned this concept into blue and gold wave refractor autographs. And 2017 Bowman combined both ideas and cranked it up to 10 – 10 shimmer refractor parallels, 5 base and 5 autographed. Double the autographs, double the fun?

2015 Mets Draft Class Autographs

Posted by Matthew Lug on 1 September 2015 Comments Off

No first round pick? No problem.

Full list of 2015 Mets draft picks

Thanks to the Michael Cuddyer signing, the Mets didn’t make their first pick in the 2015 draft until #53. While you can understand (even if you don’t agree with) the reasoning behind reluctantly giving up a first round pick when the goal is to win now, it certainly makes it hard to get excited about the draft. The Mets had to be hoping that some signable top talent would fall into the second round. As a collector, I was just hoping for someone who would make it into the fall’s autograph lineup (though last year’s top Mets pick Michael Conforto is still waiting for his Bowman Chrome autograph, due out this Friday). September is here and there is reason to hope for some nice prospect autographs from this group in the coming months.

With their top pick, the Mets took Desmond Lindsay, who was left off most amateur top prospect lists due to injury. The Mets obviously thought he was worth the risk and saw him as clear first-round talent. So far, he has performed well enough to earn a promotion to Brooklyn and should be the obvious choice for a Mets representative in upcoming draft products.

Once again, this year’s draft class had plenty of autographs available on draft day thanks to Leaf. After Lindsay, Max Wotell, Thomas Szapuki, Sixto Torres, Brendan Illies, and L.T. Tolbert (who apparently goes by a variety of names) all have Leaf Perfect Game autographs. Of them, all but the last two signed with the Mets.


2 Desmond Lindsay	3 Max Wotell	4 David Thompson	5 Thomas Szapucki

6 Chase Ingram	7 Corey Taylor	8 Patrick Mazeika	9 Kevin Kaczmarski

13 P.J. Conlon	17 Sixto Torres	18 Jordan Humphreys