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.
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?
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:
I’ve been discounted?!?!? WHAT….THE….@%&$!https://t.co/ikx4fyb3hC
— Noah Syndergaard (@Noahsyndergaard) February 21, 2017
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.
If you look at the biggest failures of the last few years for Topps, two factors are recurring themes: mini cards and novelty factory sets. Topps Mini was a no-show at this year’s national convention after last year’s version hit 75% off at the Topps web site. Bowman Chrome Mini has been a tough sell even at 50% off the wholesale price (and shows no signs of coming back for 2015). Topps Heritage High Number ditched the factory set format after two years of dismal sales and turned into one of the best products of the year. 2015 was the year of Topps learning its lessons, apparently.
But old habits die hard. Unable to resist temptation, Topps dipped back into the well of failure twice in late 2015. Topps Mini returned in factory set form, embodying the worst of both worlds and trying to make work what even Bowman Chrome couldn’t succeed at. And Topps Heritage ’51 Collection came seemingly out of nowhere, adding a fourth 2015 Topps baseball product to the Heritage lineup. The only one in factory set form. And with lots of minis! This is not the product the hobby needed or wanted, though it isn’t without redeeming value. Not entirely.
With Cespedes on board, the Mets cruised to their first NL East title since 2006. But not without getting some extra relief help first. Eric O’Flaherty got the first shot, but that didn’t work out so well. Next came Addison Reed, who has earned a spot on the postseason roster. Barring an emergency postseason call-up, the 2015 list wraps up with Tim Stauffer, who was picked up to bolster the AAA staff. As usual, the “throw a bunch of relievers against the wall and see who sticks” method of bullpen construction doesn’t yield the best results, but at least the Mets had some time to experiment in games that didn’t really matter.
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| Michael Cuddyer | John Mayberry Jr. | Jerry Blevins | Alex Torres |
| 6 April 2015 | 6 April 2015 | 6 April 2015 | 9 April 2015 |
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| Sean Gilmartin* | Daniel Muno* | Kevin Plawecki* | Hansel Robles* |
| 10 April 2015 | 17 April 2015 | 21 April 2015 | 24 April 2015 |
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| Jack Leathersich* | Johnny Monell | Noah Syndergaard* | Darrell Ceciliani* |
| 29 April 2015 | 9 May 2015 | 12 May 2015 | 19 May 2015 |
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| Akeel Morris* | Logan Verrett | Steven Matz* | Michael Conforto* |
| 17 June 2015 | 18 June 2015 | 28 June 2015 | 24 July 2015 |
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| Kelly Johnson | Juan Uribe | Tyler Clippard | Yoenis Cespedes |
| 25 July 2015 | 25 July 2015 | 28 July 2015 | 1 August 2015 |
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| Eric O’Flaherty | Addison Reed | Tim Stauffer | |
| 5 August 2015 | 1 September 2015 | 13 September 2015 |
*MLB Debut
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