2017 PENNANT BOX BREAK - PACK 16

212. Steven Matz

11. Edwin Encarnacion

160. Christian Friedrich

178. Alex Colome

82. David Price

292. Francisco Lindor

223. Aaron Judge RC

203. Ryon Healy RC

34. Robinson Chirinos

TI14. Clayton Kershaw - The Incumbents

A bit of a rebound from the last pack. The Judge RC is probably the best pull though the Kershaw insert is pretty nice, too. Lots of red and blue in these cards.

2016 Spirit Deluxe

The flagship, "low-end" and retro base designs have been in the books for a while now, so it's time to finish up the Spirit quartet with Deluxe, the "high-end" set.

I tried to keep the elements to a minimum and keep the cards from getting too busy. The player names are along the bottom left, stamped in silver foil. Additionally, there's a silver line below and the Deluxe "D" in the upper right corner, all three elements stamped with a bit of an embossed effect. The look is mimicked by the team cap logo in the bottom right corner, though the embossing there is strictly a design effect and not physically embossed. You can see why in the autograph parallels below.

With the white feather coming up from below to help ensure the autographs are visible, the fake embossed look for the logo is a necessity so the players don't have any issues when actually signing.

The backs probably look pretty similar to previous years of Deluxe cards with a good sized photo up top with the rest of space devoted for stats/write-up/other info. Here we have full-size team logos as well as a single stat line encompassing the players's whole career. Also, I actually took the time to do the "write-up" instead of using lorem ipsum text like I usually do, so enjoy more of my meandering writing if you'd like.

The next design post will probably be the Clubhouse All-Stars insert I've done every year but I may do a "review" post with an exciting new format! (Mostly because I've been reeeeeally bad at keeping up with reviewing the 2016 releases from Topps and Panini thus far.)

2014 Spirit Base: 841-855

#841 - Chris Owings, #842 - Tyler Pastornicky, #843 - Brian Matusz
I wonder how many NL Rookie of the Year votes Owings will get?

#844 - Joe Kelly, #845 - Justin Grimm, #846 - Eric Surkamp
I'm glad these three pitcher shots have some variety.

#847 - Pedro Villarreal, #848 - Josh Tomlin, #849 - Boone Logan
If trading cards had stooped to the level of greeting cards and added the little sound plug, I could imagine this Tomlin card would say "alright, alright, alright."

#850 - David Price, #851 - Jose Veras, #852 - Raul Ibanez
I thought I had better give Price a normal-looking card for Series 3 since his previous one features him with a cow and all.

#853 - Mike Morin, #853 - J.P. Howell, #854 - Andrew Heaney
I really like Heaney's card. Probably because it's one of the few Marlins' images that fits the color scheme.

Spirit Base: 321 - 330

#321 - Cody Asche
That's a long E at the end there.

#322 - Edinson Volquez
That's some intense pitchface.

#323 - Adam Wainwright
2014 Cy Young candidate?

#324 - Yonder Alsonso
I wonder if Dick Enberg has ever been able to make a "way over Yonder" call on a line drive to right field?
 

#325 - Jake Dunning - I'm sure nobody outside of the Giants fanbase has heard of Dunning. He pitched enough in 2013 I figured he deserved at least one MLB card, even if it's a fake one.

#326 - Nick Franklin
I can't help but think the Mariner's could've gotten a bigger return for Franklin than Austin Jackson if they would've traded him directly after signing Cano. Oh well, they seem to be doing just fine.

#327 - David Price
Speaking of said trade, I figured since Price will be getting another card with the Tigers in Series 3 (ha), I could use this WTF-photo here.

#328 - Mitch Moreland
Like a lot of Rangers, Moreland didn't make it out of 2014 unscathed. He only got 52 games in before season-ending surgery.

#329 - Esmil Rogers
Rogers pitched less than impressively for 16 games before the Blue Jays waived him. The Yankees picked him up and have squeezed some Yankee Magic out of him.

#330 - Ryan Zimmerman
Poor Zim can't stay healthy these days.

Spirit Deluxe Portraits

Trying to come up with 'new' or 'innovative' ideas for cards isn't as easy as I thought it was going to be. Even though there are plenty of complaints to levy at Topps for some of their product choices, they actually do quite a few things that are pretty successful and cool. At this point, most of their missteps come from constructing releases and not so much the actual cards themselves. People like autographs and minis and parallels and short prints and die-cuts and memorabilia and just about every other 'gimmick' out there to varying degrees. But all in all, these are basic elements that go into constructing a set.

This blog has basically been me just rearranging some or all of these elements into what I think would be fun to manufacture. If there were another licensee out there releasing product in 2012, these are things I could see fitting into the marketplace, acting as either a supplement or an alternative to Topps.

That brings us to the cards in this post. I was looking for another 'insert' or whatever you'd like to call it for the Deluxe set. I didn't feel like doing one of those triple swatch, nickname cutout sticker autos that you find in Triple Threads. Even though Deluxe is Spirit's 'high-end' product, it's probably more in tune with something like Finest (which is definitely the very top of my own personal price range.) I see that Topps plans on having some die-cuts in Finest this year, but hopefully this doesn't come across as copy-catting.

So for the Deluxe Portraits insert, there are 3 different versions you could get your hands on. The first would be the standard Deluxe Portraits insert base, seen here with Jaime Garcia. The design features a tightly cropped portrait with the Deluxe-familiar team-color cloth background. The only other thing adorning the front of the card is the Spirit Deluxe logo in silver foil. Somehow, these seem to come across as more personal and intimate without the player name cluttering the front. The back continues the team-color cloth with a brief write-up.

The second version is the die-cut parallel, here with David Price. The design is basically the same except the obvious die cut edges around the player. And finishing off the trio is the die-cut auto version, seen at the top with Brett Lawrie.

Even though parallels can sometimes be redundant and annoying, I feel like this insert captures the best aspects of paralleling a design. Each version offers something different other than just a different color border or refraction. The whole 'cut-out head' thing may seem a little hokey for a 'high-end' set, but I think it's fun. And if you ask me, fun is definitely something we could all use more of in card design these days.