Topps Update baseball cards were officially released this week, marking the traditional end of the collecting season that started when Series 1 came out back during spring training.
I wanted to pick up a couple of packs when I stopped in Target this afternoon, but they hadn’t made their way to the retail shelves yet. So I’m left looking at the pictures of other people’s cards online instead,
(I’m not likely to see one of these in person anyway.)
I’m pretty happy with Topps’ player selections for the Mets.
- US-16 Andrew Brown
- US-50 Jacob deGrom
- US-57 Jacob deGrom (MLB debut)
- US-72 Chris Young
- US-102 Daniel Murphy (All-Star)
- US-126 Omar Quintanilla
- US-244 Daisuke Matsuzaka
- US-278 Rafael Montero
- US-298 Bobby Abreu
- US-321 Josh Satin
Just check out the eBay prices – everyone is excited about Jacob deGrom‘s “official” rookie card.
After two seasons with the Mets, Daisuke Matsuzaka finally got an official card recognizing his time in Queens. And we don’t have to wonder if Topps will give Bobby Abreu a post-retirement card next year to see him on cardboard as a Met.
Omar Quintanilla and Andrew Brown are also making their first appearance on a Topps baseball card as a New York Met. (I thought Chris Young was too, but he’s supposed to be in this year’s Mets team set that I never got around to opening.)
Rafael Montero got his “official” rookie card (much less of a big deal considering the number of Bowman baseball cards he appeared on over the last two years) and Daniel Murphy was recognized for his first trip to the All-Star Game.
The only card that feels like a waste is Josh Satin, who got his “official” rookie card in 2012 and had just 35 at-bats for the Mets in 2014. The spot should have gone to Anthony Recker, who caught 90 games for the Mets over the past two seasons and has yet to appear on cardboard for his current team.
I’ll wait a few days for prices to stabilize before I decide how I feel about all of the photo variations on the Mets cards in the set. I love the photo on Bobby Abreu’s much more than the one on his regular card, but the rest are all cards I can take or leave.
PaulHadsall.com 
I bought a pack of this today and got Satin and Abreu. And I said to myself (not having seen a checklist), “Watch. We STILL won’t get a Dice-K card”. So I’m glad to see they went and done it afterall. On the down side, darn few of those players figure to be Mets next year. I’d say deGrom is the only certainty. I’d put Brown and Montero at about 60%, Murphy at about 35%. And the rest of the crew has between 0 and 2% chance of returning. Of course, with Topps, that means we’re virtually guaranteed to see them all occupying space as Mets in Series 1 next year. (Didn’t know about the variations, though. That kinda sucks).
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Matsuzaka, Abreu, Montero & deGrom all have photo variations that I know about.
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By six months after release, the average price of the “short” print variations is usually about $2. There are actually more of them than the /2014 gold cards. The “super-short” prints are different but I doubt the Mets ones are SSP, though that might remain to be seen, particularly for the deGrom. Aside from the Montero, the Mets got some really nice photo variation cards this time.
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I was over on eBay a bit earlier. Some of the sellers are listing deGrom as an SSP (most aren’t), but there are tons of them up there. I think I counted more than 25. Which would be a lot if it were an SSP, given that the product just came out. Prices are all over the map–from 99 cents to $60 (neither of which are the final selling price for the cards involved). The autographed deGrom variation is over $500 with three days left. I’m nuts, but those people are crazy.
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The deGrom prices seem insane to me too. If he wins Rookie of the Year, maybe there’s a little room for his card value to go up…but down the road? How many pitcher’s rookie cards hold value like this?
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