Mixed on the first card of 2014. Matt Davidson has been on my radar since last summer when Team Phungo took in the 2013 Futures Game. He hit a home run and took home the MVP honors for the day. This is all great, a RC of a player I am familiar with - The flip side of all this is that Davidson was traded a little over a month ago. He is now a member of the Chicago White Sox. So yes my first 2014 Topps card is a player show representing an outdated team.
The Pack - Base Highlights
2014 Topps #211 Dioner Navarro
During the 2013 version of the great WAR vs RBI vs Playoff debate Josh Donaldson's name came up as a second thought behind the big guns of Trout & Cabrera. Donaldson was a factor because he had WAR cred and played on a contender. So yes he beats out Miguel Cabrera in WAR and he is on a Playoff team which knocks out Mike Trout. Of Course we have a Topps fail here as Mr Potential MVP Josh Donaldson doesn't get any type of hero number. He gets stinkin #134.
I posted Dioner Navarro just to showcase Topps photography. Catchers are great for pix and this is a nice example.
The Hits
This is one of two inserts I picked up in pack one. I will cover this set more in a future post, but will mention here that I like the look of the cards.
Last year the Target Reds moved to a deeper shade which is maintained in 2014. I prefer the red in previous sets as it seems closer to the Phillies colors.
Remaining Base
Verdict
In my opinion the sole purpose of the extension of the white borders into the pix frame is done exclusively for use in creating parallels. Other than that and the duplication of the team name on the tab the design is decent. The photography throughout the set is good. On day 1 I picked up the above pack plus 2 more and a hanger. The roughly 100 card sampling yielded strong pix throughout with interesting shots at an decent rate.
Over the next couple o weeks we will take a look at some specific elements of 2014T as well as some of the different insert sets.
Previous Debut Packs
2013 Topps
2012 Topps
2010 Topps Opening Day
2010 Upper Deck
Sources
Beckett
Good point on the "unnecessary" extra white space. I thought the same thing, too.
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