Topps released the official checklist for the first series of its 2015 baseball card set today, and I’m pretty excited about it.
With an official release date of Feb. 4th through hobby channels, scattered cards will probably start to turn up soon since individual Target and WalMart stores never seem to be all that concerned about keeping to day-and-date. (Mine, unfortunately, are more likely to put out the cards late than early.)
We’ve got a 700-card base set to look forward to in 2015, split into two series of 350 – and it does look like that will help us get cards of some middle relievers and bench players who might have been skipped in recent years. (How you feel about this is going to depend very much on your reaction to the news that Carlos Torres is getting his first baseball card since 2006 – if you said “who’s Carlos Torres?,” you probably would have preferred fewer cards to collect. I’m happy and wouldn’t mind going back to the 792-card sets that were the norm in the late 1980s, when there were only 26 teams and they employed a 24-man roster.)
By my count, there are 16 Mets players in the base set, and 14 of them are still Mets as I write this (though Dillon Gee‘s days in New York definitely seem to be numbered.) Daisuke Matsuzaka will be pitching for the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks this season, and Eric Young Jr. is still looking for a job.
To make up for that, we’re getting the first Mets baseball cards of the aforementioned Torres (and it only took 106 appearances over two seasons, not bad for a 26-year-old middle reliever who’s not exactly a household name) and rookie Dilson Herrera. Most of the Mets’ stars appear in Series 1, with Matt Harvey and winter acquisition Michael Cuddyer the biggest names who are waiting for Series 2.
Here’s the Mets team checklist:
- 4 Curtis Granderson
- 24 Team card
- 83 David Wright
- 129 Jacob deGrom
- 133 Daisuke Matsuzaka
- 149 Daniel Murphy
- 166 Jenrry Mejia
- 173 Carlos Torres
- 199 Eric Young Jr.
- 236 Zack Wheeler
- 237 Lucas Duda
- 241 Dilson Herrera
- 244 Bartolo Colon
- 263 Dillon Gee
- 306 Juan Lagares
- 313 NL Home Run Leaders (Stanton/Rizzo/Duda)
Former Mets fan favorites R.A. Dickey and Jose Reyes also appear in Series 1, on cards #316 and #249 respectively – just in case anybody else is still collecting their baseball cards.
I’m not super happy about the Derek Jeter love-fest continuing into 2015 – he’s getting the honor of being the first card in the 2015 Topps set even though everyone knew he wouldn’t be playing this season – but I can live with it as long as Topps isn’t tempted to put out a 3,465-card insert set commemorating each of Jeter’s career hits.
As usual, there will be a bunch of parallels and inserts – I’ll leave it to you to check out the Topps Series 1 sell sheet for the full rundown. I’m happy to see Juan Lagares on the checklist for the Career High Autograph insert set – to the best of my knowledge, this will be his first certified autograph release.
And there’s another set that looks like it could be fun, even though I don’t know who many of the subjects are. The checklist for the “First Pitch Insert” set features 15 cards, including 50 Cent who made one of the worst ceremonial first pitches in MLB history at Citi Field last year.
(Also on the First Pitch insert set are Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder and Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney)
So who’s excited about the first baseball cards of 2015?
PaulHadsall.com 
Not too jazzed about the design.
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I’m happy they’re going with something other than plain white borders. I have to flip the cards over & check the stat lines to get the year right on the last few sets.
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I’m happy with the design; last year’s was so…well, I’ll go with boring…that I didn’t collect the set for the first time in ages–just the Mets and some random packs. I still prefer the old style borders, but this year’s will be the first time ever Topps has had colored borders that are team specific. In fact, it might be the only major set ever with team specific colored borders. (There have been color borders–a la 75–and team specific colors on lots of white or grey bordered cards, but no team centric color borders). So that’s something pretty big by Topps standards.
I’m also happy to see David Wright in Series 1. He never seems to get a series 1 card. I don’t know if Herrera has “earned” a card, yet. Personally, I wish they’d go back to the two person rookie cards (and not just in Heritage). Then we could get Herrera and Alvarez on a card. But I am happy to see Carlos Torres get a card. Since we got a Dice-K last year (and he ain’t no Met no more), I’d have preferred a card of Recker or Eveland or Carlyle. Overall, though, not a bad Series One crop o Mets. At least you could almost field a team with them (and they haven’t been close to that in Series One Mets in years). Of course, a lot of time is going to be lost, due to the ball rolling all the way to the backstop since there’s no catcher.
And, sigh, I guess I’m going to have to get that 50 cent card.
You can never really tell until you have them in hand but, yeah, I’m stoked.
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I’m going to reserve final judgement on the design until I have the cards in my hands, but I think Topps might have a winner this year.
I didn’t realize it at first, but most of the extra cards Topps added by expanding from 660 to 700 will be taken up by the new team cards…we won’t really see that many extra players.
I guess Dana Eveland won’t be getting a Mets card…it’s being reported tonight that he’s headed to the Red Sox organization. I hope Anthony Recker gets a shot in Series 2.
I’m on the fence about the 50 Cent card… If it costs any more than that, I’ll find it pretty easy to skip 😈
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They’ve had team cards for a good many years–maybe not last year, but most of the years prior. Of course, if they’re the old style team cards with an actual team photo (which I doubt), then count me in favor. Point is, I don’t see an impact since they’ve been doing some kind of team card forever.
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I took a quick look at my Mets team sets, and 2011 was the last time they had a team card. It does feel like a waste of 30 cards, but I’ll change my tune if they go the old-school route with a traditional team photo.
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this years cards suck there is mostly pictures after 26 packs I still do not see the mets catcher or short stop… where is the catchers?
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I imagine Travis d’Arnaud and Wilmer Flores will have cards in Series 2. (I wouldn’t count on seeing one for Anthony Recker.)
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