Cy Young and MVP in the Same Season - Can it happen again: Tigers Justin Verlander 2013 Topps Triple Threads

Clayton Kershaw took home the NL Cy Young Award tonight, now we await what is probably the biggest question mark in the 2014 Awards Season. 

2013 Topps Triple Threads Relic TTR-JV1 Verlander (2/18)

Can Clayton Kershaw take the dual Cy Young/MVP Award Hardware. Personally I am from the Pitchers get there own award, Position players should get the other award school of thought.  However, this season the NL really hasn't had a standout candidate. Cases can be made for Andrew McCutchen, Giancarlo Stanton, and Jonathan LuCroy. For me the strongest case among the hitters is McCutchen. In addition to putting up good offensive numbers at the plate, he really carried the Pirates.  When he was out of the lineup the Bucos struggled, upon his return, they made a run that got them into the playoffs. Curiously according to B-R Andrew McCutchen is an average fielder. Had he had a +1 or +2 dWAR season, his overall number would have been more comparable to Kershaws.

The Last time a Pitcher took both awards was relatively recently. In 2011 Justin Verlander won the award over Jacoby Ellsubry, Dustion Pedroia, Miguel Cabrera and others - Ben Zobrist won the WAR crown that year, but a significant portion of the number was defense based. 

2013 Topps 3x Threads
Topps noted Verlander's 2011 double dip on the above Triple Threads card. I am not a big relic or serial collector but those two features combined with the magnitude of the player featured pushed this card onto the buy side at a recent card show. The "M" in MVP is to large and somewhat mars the overall look of the card, otherwise it is decent looking. The Card went for $8 which is probably the most I have ever paid for any relic, including Phillies.

Philly Show
Double duty for this post, this gives me a chance to return to Philly Show coverage. I originally began posting info on pickups from the show on October 1. If you want to see some vintage from taht day and an index to other related postings click here.  


Sources and Links
Philly Show 2014 09 28
Philly Show 2014 09 28 Auto-Relic Summary
Baseball-ref

2013 Topps FIrst Pack

Team Phungo picked up our first Pack of 2013 Topps last week and here are the contents:

First Card

2013 Topps #116 Brian McCann

When I first saw the 13 Topps design an eon ago, my first thought was way to white  - I have warmed up to the design since then - I don't know why Topps ignored the position for the 2nd straight year, but otherwise it is a good look. 

I apologize for the remaining scans - experimenting w/ new smart phone - and I think I am too dumb to use it.

First Phillies Card

2013 Topps #197 Tyler Cloyd

 One of the Phils 2012 rookies. Cloyd was something like 14-1 in AAA last season before his callup.   He was more mediocre at the major league level.  The Photo on this card is from Cloyd's major league debut on 2012-08-29.  I figured that out by checking out the scoreboard behind Cloyd.  8/29 was the only time Tyler pitched when the Tigers visited KC.

Speaking of Tigers

2013 Topps #35 Justin Verlander  
2013 Topps #179 ALCS Game 4

If this pack was made for anyone it was Tigers Fans.  Picked up both their Ace and the ALCS card.  Verlander's card number is his also his jersey number.

The Rest

2013 Topps Anthony Rizzo RC, Kyle Farnsworth, Kendrys Morales, Johnny Cueto 

2013 Topps Jarrod Parker, Geovanny Soto, Jeff Karstens, stupid chase card

The Soto card may look like one but as far as I know it isn't one of those crazy out of bounds SP variations. Topps produced an OOB SP for Anthony Rizzo but this isn't the SP, this is his base card.

The Verdict
As noted above, it is a decent design. Much better then 2012. In addition to this single pack I also bought a hanger pack. In general I am not building new sets right now - but I do like having a few cards and inserts from each year. For Topps sets I am not building I have been building a team rep set - 1 card for each MLB team. That is what I intend to do with 2013 Topps.  I am not sure if the hanger pack will fulfill that goal.  I will likely pick up a pack or 2 of S2 and Update as the card season continues. 

     

Topps Allen & Ginter's 7 Year Club

2006 Allen & Ginter Chase Utley

A few weeks ago Topps Released the 7th edition of the Allen & Ginter product.  This coupled with the upcoming retirement of Chipper Jones and the recent move of Ichiro Suzuki got me thinking about the players that have been featured in Allen & Ginter.

The set is good size but at 350 cards it is not nearly as big as Flagship or Heritage.  Therefore most stars get included, but not all of them.  350 cards would average out to less than 12 players per team.  In addition slots are lost to non-baseball celebs, subjects, and retired players so the number of cards per team averages closer to 10.

Ichiro and Chipper are among the players that have appeared in all seven Allen & Ginter releases.  And up unitl this point they have always appeared for the same team.  If Ichiro sticks around to play in 2013, he very possibly could appear in that set as a Yankee or with another organization. 

I did a little resarch and found that there were 48 players that appared in every set from 2006-2012.  Of those 26 made all 7 appearances representing a single team.  The Cover Card for this post features Chase Utley who is among those 26 players to make 7 A&G appearances all for one club.   

48 Players to appear in every year of Topps Allen & Ginter's 2006-2012: 

	Player	Team			Player	Team
1	Adam Dunn			25	Johan Santana
2	Adrian Beltre			26	Jonthan Papelbon
3	Albert Pujols			27	Jose Reyes
4	Alex Rodriguez	Yankees		28	Josh Beckett	Red Sox
5	Alfonso Soriano			29	Justin Morneau	Twins
6	Aramis Ramirez			30	Justin Verlander	Tigers
7	Brian McCann	Braves		31	Lance Berkman
8	CC Sabathia			32	Mariano Rivera	Yankees
9	Carl Crawford			33	Mark Teixeira
10	Carlos Beltran			34	Matt Cain	Giants
11	Carlos Lee			35	Michael Young	Rangers
12	Carlos Zambrano			36	Miguel Cabrera
13	Chase Utley	Phillies		37	Nick Markakis	Orioles
14	Chipper Jones	Braves		38	Nick Swisher
15	David Wright	Mets		39	Paul Konerko	White Sox
16	Ervin Santana	Angels		40	Prince Fielder
17	Felix Hernandez	Mariners		41	Rickie Weeks	Brewers
18	Grady Sizemore	Indians		42	Robinson Cano	Yankees
19	Hanley Ramirez	Marlins		43	Roy Halladay
20	Ian Kinsler	Rangers		44	Ryan Howard	Phillies
21	Ichiro	Mariners		45	Ryan Zimmerman	Nationals
22	Jason Bay			46	Todd Helton	Rockies
23	Jimmy Rollins	Phillies		47	Torii Hunter
24	Joe Mauer	Twins		48	Victor Martinez

Some of the 7 timers on 1 team 2006 style:  

2006 Allen & Ginter's Joe Mauer
2006 Allen & Ginter's Brian McCann


A couple of catchers.  Both of which should stick in A&G for a while.     

2006 Allen & Ginter Justin Verlander
2006 Allen & Ginter Paul Konerko


AL Central featured here.  Konerko had a couple of seasons outside Chicago, but they were all pre-A&G.  A-Rod and Josh Beckett both fell into the same category - multiple clubs, but were with teams other than their current one prior to the initial A&G release.


Several players missed the 7 by one year.  For whatever Reason Derek Jeter and David Ortiz were not included in 2010 A&G.  I don't recall all of the 6 timers, but Jim Thome was one of them.  I think Huston Street was also in there.   



Sources:    Baseball-Card-Pedia
AllenAndGinter.net

Game Report 2012 05 08 Tigers 6 @ Mariners 4

The Team Phungo trip to SafeCo field in Seattle went pretty well.  Seattle is a little out of the way from our Philadelphia base, but we had the opportunity to include the game in a trip to the Pacific Northwest and were happy to make the extra stop.

The hometoown Mariners lost the game 6-4 to a Detroit Tigers squad which sent out their ace Justin Verlander.  Former Phil Kevin Millwood took the mound for Seattle. The Tigers got to Millwood early getting 5 runs in the first 2 innings.  Verlander wasn't overpowering - but pitched well despite having issues with the plate umpire - Jim Leyland's disagreements with the umpiring crew got him ejected from the contest early in the game.  Verlander only went 6 innings, he was over 100 pitches and still hit 97 on the gun.


Snapshots

Justin Verlander

Miguel Cabrera (fore), Ichiro

The Mariners don't make it to our area often, and this may be the last time I see Mr Suzuki play live.  Ichiro was able to get one of the 7 hits that Verlander allowed to the Mariners.   

 PCL/Seattle and Baseball Card History Display

The Mariners have struggled the last few years was evidenced by their modest draw on a chilly Tuesday night, but even if the team isn't doing well, they have a lot of nice things for fans to check out like this Display of Seattle related baseball cards. 

There is a Mariners Hall of Fame, and several other cool features at the stadium.  Insane food selections are featured at the park as well as a pre-game happy hour.  Another nicety at Safeco is that they have free re-entry as long as you scan your ticket when you leave. 
.

Shawn Kelley

Another nice feature of SafeCo is how close you can get to the field, especially in the bullpen areas.  This is how Mr Kelley appears when warming up prior to giving up a mamoth Home Run to Prince Fielder.

2012 Topps Opening Day Rack Jr

The always maligned Topps Opening Day release is live - 24 card Rack Packs Retail at Target for $3.19 (3.21 w/ combo of Target discount and PA sales Tax) - They are single packs and about 1/3 smaller then the Rack Packs for 2012 Topps, thus I have chosent to refer to them as Rack Juniors.  

The price point is slightly cheaper then 9.99 for a 72 card Hanger Pack of Topps Flagship.  The single packs are a dime more then a year ago at 1.09.  77 card blasters are $10.49 I believe.


Here is a glance of what you might find in your Rack Jr. 

Phillies

 
Wrapper

Copare with 2012 Topps

Serialed Blue Parallels

Rookie Cups

Inserts

Photo Shopping

Etc
Over the next couple weeks I plan on giving 2012 Topps Opening Day a little overanalysis by elaborating on some of the above cards - I am sure that is much more then TOD deserves. 

Did 2012 Topps Sandbag Stars out of Series One?

While reading reviews and opinions associated with 2012 Topps I notices a handful of bloggers commenting that their packs and breaks lacked star power. 

2012 Topps #319 AL LL Wins Verlander, Sabathia, Weaver 

Indeed 2 of the 3 players on the AL Wins League Leaders Card were not honored with Series 1 base cards.

This poses the following Question:

Did Topps Sandbag Series One in 2012 in an attempt to Backload the Stars into Series 2?

This is an odd assumption.  I have thought that Series 1 was a little more star laden in the past few years, but maybe I am just jaded by the time Series 2 hits the streets.

To look into whether Series 1 is Star Deffered I had to find a way to measure Stardom.  Depending on what the researcher values this can be measured a number of ways.  Baseball-Reference has an incredible warehouse of information easily accesible.  In the end I decided to use something that is pretty unscientific, yet I believe highly fitting -  The MVP Voting.  The MVP voting is definitely a subjective excercise - but so is Superstardom.  Chances are unless your a fantasy geek you first learned about a star player from outside your club via word of mouth, not analyzing their OPS in the Internation League.

Between the 2 leagues there were 72 Players who recieved either an MVP or Cy Young vote for the 2011 season.  Of those 72, 10 were duplicated pitchers who also were on MVP Ballots (ie. Justin Verlander).  I removed 4 players that were either FAs or we expected to move teams during the off-season (Pujols. Fielder, Reyes, Beltran) although in the end 2 of them were sort of issued cards :)

That left us with 58 "Stars" In theory half of these players (29) should have been issued Cards in Series 1 while the other 29 would get into Series 2.  Let see how they fared

In each column pair, the player name is preceded by their series 1 card number.  If no number is given that indicates that the player was not in 2012 Series 1.  Pardon the weird psuedo-alphabetical order.    

Card	Player		Card	Player		Card	Player
213	A Avila		290	Grandrson		288	Montero
130	A Cabrera		150	Halladay		165	Morse
50	A Gonzalez		190	Hamels		120	Pence
294	Axford		300	Hamilton			R Cano
100	Bautista		280	Howard			Romero
	Beckett		76	I Kennedy		117	Ruiz
310	Beltre			I Kinsler			Sabathia
	Berkman			J Shields		185	Sandoval
1	Braun			J Upton			Stanton
103	Bumgarner		250	Jer Weaver		110	Teixeira
155	Cain		330	Kemp		140	Tulowitzk
270	Castro			Kershaw			V Martinez
	CJ Wilson		20	Kimbrel			Valverde
	D Haren		105	Konerko			Verlander
	D Pedroia			Lee			Victorino
206	D Robertson			Lincecum			Vogelsong
	E Longoria		200	M Cabrera			Votto
	Ellsbury		180	M Rivera		195	Zobrist
	Gallardo		55	M Young
	Gordon		174	Molina

From the chart we see that 33 of the 58 stars received S1 cards.  that is 4 more than half, or 57% to be more specific.  Even if you add Fielder and Beltran as misses, Topps was above the 50% threshold. 

This doesn't necessary mean 2012 Topps contains as many stars as years past - it only means that cards were issued for over half of the "stars" in our pool.  There is typically some overlap of some cards between S1 and S2 so that may account for the extra 7%.  In years past this number may have been greater - if I get the energy we will look at 2011 Topps to compare and cotrast. 

There may be some other factors at play - I am only investigating Stars, there may just be more unkown or little known players this year - this adds to the perception of less stars.  The 2011 release calendar may have hampered getting some rookies into 2011 Series 3 and Topps added them to the inaugural 2012 set. 

I also think that there are less know stars in the post-steroid era.  Stars stick around less time and age out sooner.  There is more new talent and we are less likely to know who they are.  Also there is the agism factor - the older I get, the harder these things are to track.

Sources:

2012 Topps Series 1 Checker - Baseball-Cardpedia

2011 MVP and Cy Young Award Voting - Baseball-Reference