2015 Clubhouse

Time to check in with Spirit's "low-end" set, Clubhouse. This is traditionally a bright and colorful design and this year is no different.

I seem to be alternating between horizontal and vertical each year so I guess we're back upright following the 2014 design. The front of the card has solid team-color stripes along the top and bottom with team-colored baseball close-up in the center. The players are cut out and overlapping the stripe at the top which also is an anchor for the team logo. The last names are big and spaced out with the player first name running off-center above it.

On the back, the color stripes return to house the player name and vitals. There's a circle bleeding over from the edge for an additional player photo with the position following that curve below. Right in the middle is an even bigger team logo with a pretty full stat box below. Underneath that middle section is a screened-back version of the baseball from the front. For some of the younger players, there's plenty of room below the stats for a few lines of more information.

Unlike last year, I decided to keep these parallel-free so hopefully they'll be more inserts to fill out the packs. I already have the annual All-Star design done and ready to write once I get around to it, so it looks like I'm well ahead of last year's pace.

2914 Spirit Base: 431-440

#431 - Scott Feldman
Feldman's been a decent starter for Houston this year. He'll help eat up some innings the next couple of seasons while the Astros young guys get better.

#432 - Salvador Perez
Probably the best catcher this year in the state of Missouri.

#433 - Raul Ibanez
I feel like there's probably some hidden Ninja Turtles story about an uncle named Raul.

#434 - Josh Beckett
It's hard to believe that the current edition of Josh Beckett was the one to toss his first no-hitter instead of the bad ass from 10 years ago. Almost as weird as Lincecum tossing 2 since he fell into the stinkhole.

#435 - Casey McGehee
Another blast from the past. McGehee's OPS+ is sitting right at 100, which is league average. The last time he was at 100 or above was 2010! Yet he was still up for the All-Star Final Fan vote in July. Even though I root for a team that has Ryan Vogelsong in its starting rotation, I'm still amazed at all the out-of-nowhere comebacks in 2014.

#436 - Ryan Braun
It'll be hard to tell if Braun's decline is a result of him not "juicing" or if it's just plain aging. I bet I know which one most people will believe. I'm still on the fence I guess.

#437 - Samuel Deduno
Deduno may or not be making an appearance in Series 3. He's on the Astros now but we'll see how much room there is on the checklist for a middle reliever to get his second card.

#438 - Curtis Granderson
Grandy's numbers have taken a bit of a dip since leaving Yankee Stadium.

#439 - Jacoby Ellsbury
Hard to believe Ellsbury's only been an all-star once in his career. (2011)

#440 - Luke Gregerson
Literally the only photo I could find of him in an A's uniform that would work for these cards.

2013 Spirit Team MVPs

Just like with Award Winners, every year will see a return of the Spirit Team MVP insert. To me, it's a no-brainer. A 30-card set with every team represented by their best player. Why Topps hasn't embraced this idea is beyond me. Maybe since it was Donruss' thing they want to keep their distance.

Let's start off with the checklist.

MVP1: Mike Trout (Angels)
MVP2: Jose Altuve (Astros)
MVP3: Yoennis Cespedes (A's)
MVP4: Jose Bautista (Blue Jays)
MVP5: Brian McCann (Braves)
MVP6: Ryan Braun (Brewers)
MVP7: Yadier Molina (Cardinals)
MVP8: Starlin Castro (Cubs)
MVP9: Paul Goldschmidt (Diamondbacks)
MVP10: Clayton Kershaw (Dodgers)
MVP11: Buster Posey (Giants)
MVP12: Asdrubal Cabrera (Indians)
MVP13: Felix Hernandex (Mariners)
MVP14: Giancarlo Stanton (Marlins)
MVP15: David Wright (Mets)
MVP16: Bryce Harper (Nationals)
MVP17: Chris Davis (Orioles)
MVP18: Chase Headley (Padres)
MVP19: Cliff Lee (Phillies)
MVP20: Andrew McCutchen (Pirates)
MVP21: Adrian Beltre (Rangers)
MVP22: Evan Longoria (Rays)
MVP23: David Ortiz (Red Sox)
MVP24: Joey Votto (Reds)
MVP25: Troy Tulowitzki (Rockies)
MVP26: Billy Butler (Royals)
MVP27: Miguel Cabrera (Tigers)
MVP28: Joe Mauer (Twins)
MVP29: Chris Sale (White Sox)
MVP30: Derek Jeter (Yankees)

Some of these selections were tough. The Braves have a handful of guys that are good but none that really rise above the rest. I went with McCann because he's been there the longest. Castro has had a down year so Anthony Rizzo could possibly replace him. The Rays' pick could've been David Price or even Ben Zobrist. Carlos Gonzalez has a good case for the Rockies since Tulo is always hurt. The Royals guy could easily be Alex Gordon or James Shields. And since Jeter has been out all year, it would probably make sense to put Cano in there, too.

Anyway, onto the design.

Like last year, the biggest feature here is the MVP relic windows. I figured the easiest way to differentiate from 2012 would be to make them vertical instead of horizontal. So the M-V-P letters are stacked on the right side leaving a vertical window for a player photo. To add some depth, I had part of the guys overlap into the team color section. Below is a the secondary team color section to house the player name along with the cap logo. The square-ish space for the logo helps balance things along with keeping it from looking to symmetrical (which I have a habit of doing.) There's some silver foil along the relic windows and all the text, minus the "Spirit Certified Game-Used Relic" small print below the P.

The elements make a 90° turn for the back side while the secondary bar moves to the top. Below a horizontal player photo is a brief bit of text. To the left is a block of copy about the relic authentication along with a code to enter online for more info about this particular swatch. And I'm looking out for everyone with having the numbers in the upper right corner so they're easy to see when stored in a cardboard box.

2013 Spirit Deluxe

Directly on the heels of the low-end offering from Spirit comes the singular high-end release. It's kind of a cross between Stadium Club and something like Tribute, only with out the avalanche of randomly numbered parallels.

Like last year we have full-bleed photos on a glossy stock with silver foil accents. The team logo sits in the center, flanked by three team-color swatches. The subtle knit texture from last year makes another appearance. Beneath it all is a soft white fade leading from the bottom edge to keep things from getting too harsh.

For the back we have the player photo taking up most of the top half with a solid black background below. The team-color polygons from the front make an appearance here to tie together both sides. Underneath the name, position and team is a brief write-up of the player's 2012 season.

Being a high-end set, we also have an autograph and relic variation. The auto just has the white fade up a little further from below. For the relic, I figured it would be nice to have a nice big swatch for such a set. The semi-circle allows for a bigger patch without intruding too much into the photo.

I'm not a big fan of the idea of spending so much for a box of something like Tribute or Triple Threads to where all that matters is the autos or relics as the base cards barely register any notice. The Deluxe set would have a sizable base set with the hits coming like every few packs or something. A standard pack would have 6 base cards with and come with either a pair of inserts or a hit, with relics being about twice as common as autos. I think that would place the price somewhere around $10-$15 a pack, which is still a lot but not ridiculous. To me, that's about as high as I'd like to go on "high-end."

Triple Crown Candidates

There was quite a disparity between the National League and American League MVP races last season. The NL was a 2-man race between a two all-around studs, one on a playoff team and the other on an also-ran. Over in the AL, there wasn't really a dominant enough everyday player to overtake Justin Verlander and he became the first Cy Young/MVP since Dennis Eckersley in 1992.

This season, there are probably a half-dozen players between the 2 leagues that could lay legitimate claim to being the MVP and almost all of them are putting up strong triple crown numbers (AVG, HR, RBI.) So that brings us to this Triple Crown Candidates insert, featuring those players that put up big numbers in these traditional categories.

Design-wise, we're starting out with a big, full-bleed photo of the subject at the plate. Towards the bottom, we have a team-color arc with some secondary color notches to house the player position and their respective league. In the middle is the player and team name set on a subtle rhombus pattern to represent a bit of 'royalty.' To finish off, we have some textured silver lines leading to the shiny-shiny Triple Crown Candidate crown logo.

On the back, we have a closer cropped photo up top with the team logo separating it from the bottom team color field. Below the player name is their 'triple crown credentials.' I took these from their Baseball References pages that show their career 162-game averages. Part of me thinks this isn't the best way since McCutchen is having a much better season in 2012 than his previous three, so the numbers are a little dulled. Perhaps after this season is over, their 2012 numbers would be the best representation.

The other guys in the set would be names like Miguel Cabrera, Matt Kemp, Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and the like. I'm sure there would be some others to pop up in upcoming seasons that would work their way onto the list.

Diamond Market - Part 2

Yesterday I introduced Spirit's answer to Topps' annual web-code-giveaway-thing, called the Diamond Market. Basically, you pull code cards that look like credit cards and redeem the codes on the back for credits, which can be used to 'buy' exclusive cards of players you might actually collect. Fairly simple. Today, we're unveiling the actual 'buying' structure along with the kind of cards you can get your hands on.

Like I mentioned yesterday, the credit values you unlock with a code are 25, 50 and 100. There are 4 tiers of cards:

• Base cards: 100-player checklist, numbered of 249, purchased for 10 credits
• Relic cards: same 100-player checklist, numbered of 149, purchased for 40 credits
• Jumbo Relic cards: same 100-player checklist, numbered to 99, purchased for 80 credits
• Autograph cards: same 100-player checklist, numbered to 49, purchased for 150 credits

As you may have noticed, the code credit values don't correspond to the card purchase values. Here's where the Diamond Market gets fun. Say you get a 25 credit code. Do you use it up immediately buying 2 base cards of players you like? Or do you let that balance sit while you try to find another code to add in hopes of getting enough for a jumbo relic or auto? Or say you're later into the collecting season and a lot of the cards are no longer available. Do you take the last auto of guy you're not too crazy about or do you snatch up 15 different base cards?

Maybe at the end of it, if you have unused credits and you can't really find anything left of interest, you can turn those credits into packs of other Spirit products. Or maybe they could partially carry over to next year's contest.

I'm not sure if the numbers for the print runs or checklists are right. Right now they add up to just under 55,000 total cards. But those could be manipulated to fit logistically. We could add another tier with a refractor or something, number it at 149. For now, this is a good start.

So what do you think of this concept? Anywhere you could see improvements? How does it stack up to Topps' apparatus? More fun than collecting virtual rings?