Tuesday, April 17, 2012

1-2 Punch


The last post focused on heavy hitters so now it's time for mound masters (sounds like a great name for another inserts somewhere down the line.) The hook for this one is spotlighting teams with 2 pretty good or even great pitchers at the front of their rotation. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be to put together the checklist. For quite a few teams, the drop off from number 1 to 2 is pretty big. That's why guys like Kershaw and Sabathia are absent here. On the other end of the spectrum, you've got a couple of teams with deeeeeeep rotations that end up leaving off a some great pitchers, Cole Hamels and Madison Bumgarner* in particular.
* I reeeeally hope Timmy gets back to normal or his inclusion over MadBum will look particularly egregious.


Basically we've got player cutouts on top of a gold diamond (mimicking the 1-2 Punch logo shape) on top of a team-color saturated photo. The big 1 and 2 on the side look really cool with the cards stacked next to each other.


The design here is a little more 'sophisticated' than a couple of the other Clubhouse inserts, but I think it's nice to appeal to some different tastes with a low-end set. We have some gold foil here on the 1-2 Punch logo along with the player & team names. I included the fineprint (copyright, MLB and MLBPA logos) on both sides so the number 2 guy doesn't get dumped on. I figure player collectors would probably appreciate having a full side of their guy on a 2-player card.

Here's the 14-card/28-player checklist I came up with. See any blatant snubs?

GIANTS: Lincecum, Cain
PHILLIES: Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee
TIGERS: Justin Verlander, Doug Fister
RAYS: James Shields, David Price
BREWERS: Gallardo, Greinke
RED SOX: Josh Beckett, Jon Lester
DBACKS: Ian Kennedy, Daniel Hudson
ANGELS: Jered Weaver, Dan Haren
BRAVES: Tim Hudson, Tommy Hanson
REDS: Mat Latos, Johnny Cueto
CARDINALS: Adam Wainwright, Jaime Garcia
MARLINS: Josh Johnson, Mark Buerhle
RANGERS: Yu Darvish, Derek Holland
NATIONALS: Strasburg, Gonzalez

2 comments:

  1. Another cool set! I would argue that a few of your 1/2's need to be swapped. Greinke and Price #2? Not sure I agree there. Keep up the great work and I hope Topps gives you a call soon!

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    1. I think Shields had a better season than Price last year, but you're probably right about Greinke/Gallardo. More than a few toss ups in there really.

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