Tag Archives: Gavin Cecchini

2018 Mets Card Spring Preview

Low expectations all around

The Super Bowl is a distant memory, the Olympics are over, and the snow is melting (tomorrow’s bomb cyclone notwithstanding). Baseball’s back! Down south at least. There’s still another month until games that count, but Topps already has two 2018 releases out the door and we more or less know who will be on the Mets to start the season. As to how the team will do this year… They’ll have some cards, so let’s just see what to expect on that front.

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Product Spotlight: 2017 Bowman

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?

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2017 Mets Card Spring Preview

Bouncing back from a year that fell short

The Mets made the postseason for the second consecutive season last year, but not even a superb outing from Noah Syndergaard could get the Mets past the Giants in the Wild Card game, so it’s been a long offseason. Speaking of Noah Syndergaard, this happened:

We saw lots of Syndergaard in cardboard last year and will likely see a lot more this year. Beyond him though, the cardboard Mets didn’t have a whole lot of depth in 2016 and there could be less in store for 2017. The Mets have two stars shining brightly in Syndergaard and Yoenis Cespedes, which could make everyone else hard to see. Or maybe they’ll be a rising tide that lifts everyone else into prominence. Honestly, I have no clue what Topps (and especially Panini) is doing and I get the feeling that they don’t either.

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2016 Mets Top Prospects (Cardboard Edition)

A very different kind of top prospect list

It’s that time of year again when a young (or not-so-young) man’s (or woman’s) fancy (or dread) turns to ordinal rankings of young baseball players. That’s right, top prospect lists! Everyone’s got one and you usually regret looking at the other guy’s. Why should we be any different here? Now, I am not a talent evaluator, so we’re going to have to come up with some other way to rank these guys. And after a comment I made on For All You Kids Out There (For All You Kids Out There is the official podcast of your Baseball Prospectus Mets Local site), the answer became clear – we’ll rank them by the strength of their cardboard.

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The Essentials: 2014 Mets Autographs

The Prospect Boom Goes Bust

With all of the cards released across dozens of products in 2014, it can be hard to figure out what is worth collecting and what might as well be forgotten. What makes something essential? It’s a mix of collectibility, notability, and attainability. Popular brands/inserts and player debuts will dominate here, not big money low-numbered parallels or big stars. Just about everything mentioned here should still be fairly easy to find on the secondary market at reasonable prices.

2014 continued the Mets prospect autograph explosion that started in late 2013, but that fizzled out late in the year. While that meant lots of autographs for many top Mets prospects who had previously been overlooked, it was bad news for the Mets’ 2014 draft class, which is still waiting for its first autograph card from Topps.

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2013 Mets Cards: Rookie Cards of This Year (So Far)

An 8 month Mets rookie/prospect extravaganza!  Of mostly Jeurys Familia.

We’re coming up on the most hectic stretch of baseball card releases as numerous Topps delays have left late September and October with new releases every week.  For the 2013 rookie class, it’s now or, well, next year.  Once we get through the next six weeks, the focus will shift from current rookies to draft picks.  For players like Zack Wheeler who were highly-touted and debuted in the middle of the season but have yet to have an official Rookie Card, they can be assured a spot in the upcoming wave of releases.  Juan Lagares, still waiting after an April debut, should also be a safe bet.  August debuts like Wilmer Flores, Travis d’Arnaud, and Matt den Dekker could have come too late for this year’s RC class.  The big question though is what will happen with Scott Rice.  14 years in the minors and the Mets’ trademark overuse leading into injury should be enough to get some hobby recognition, but middle relievers are often overlooked, as Gonzalez Germen almost certainly will be.

But before we get to the Rookie Cards that people actually care about, let’s take a look back at the rookies, debuts, not-rookies, and prospect oddities from the first 8 months of the year.  Because I’m not even sure how we got here or what this all means.  Read on for an exhaustive run-down of 2013’s Mets prospects in cardboard.

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