Pretty much everyone who blogs about baseball cards is offering his or her opinion about the newly-released 2017 Topps Series One set this week.
I’m not there yet. In fact, I just got my 2016 Topps Update Mets team set today.
I’ve gotta admit, the 2016 Topps design has not aged well. I was never a fan of the smoke effect seen in one upper and one lower corner of every card in the set, but the partial team logo in the other lower corner didn’t really bug me last year. It does now.
On the plus side, Topps found some really cool photos. Kelly Johnson, Brandon Nimmo, Asdrubal Cabrera, Jose Reyes and Alejandro De Aza have awesome baseball cards, despite the disappointing design. And it doubles as a checklist card, but how amazing is it that Bartolo Colon has a baseball card commemorating his first career home run?
The player selection makes me wonder why Topps still releases its flagship set over three series, though. Player selection ranges from Neil Walker, Asdrubal Cabrera and Alejandro De Aza, who all made their Mets debut on April 3rd, to Jay Bruce, who made his Mets debut on August 2nd. There is no benefit for collectors when Topps breaks up the main portion of its set into two series if off-season trades and free agent signings aren’t reflected in Series Two.
(I’m also confused by Michael Conforto‘s MLB Debut card appearing in this update series, released more than a calendar year after his first MLB game, but I’ve long sense given up on trying to understand anything related to rookie card rules.)
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
PaulHadsall.com 