2018 Spirit: AL West

#88. George Springer, Houston Astros

#269. Garrett Richards, Los Angeles Angels

#103. Matt Olson, Oakland Athletics

#26. James Paxton, Seattle Mariners

#40. Joey Gallo, Texas Rangers

Trying to spread the love around is why you may notice the lack of Trout or Ohtani in the Angels slot. I think for future releases, I'll just go ahead and do the best players since the volume of designs I'd be doing is sure to decrease.

2017 PENNANT BOX BREAK - PACK 1

260. George Springer

59. Russell Martin

101. Trevor Story

29. David Dahl (RC)

214. Yulieski Gurriel (RC)

276. Andrew Benintendi (RC)

71. Jacob deGrom

35. Garrett Richards

169. Todd Frazier

TI13. Mike Trout - The Incumbents

Here’s pack one with the unveiling of the base design. As I’ve designed the Pennant brand through the years, I’ve tried to make it “retro” without being tied down to a specific era. That keeps me from having to find a way to put a new coat of paint on the same basic design, a la Topps’ Allen & Ginter. 

This year’s design has a few elements that callback to some classic card designs without outright aping a specific set. Homages to the 1960 and 1963 Topps designs are the most apparent. There are also some nods to the 1983 and 1984 sets as well. Mashing together those two decades creates something distinct from those particular areas.

I added a bit of grain along with a dull gray to mimic the pre-90s cardboard most of us grew up with. The Trout insert is a brilliant white, though, with a nicer paper stock used to make the insert cards a bit more “premium.”

It’s funny that I’ve been doing The Incumbents insert sets long enough that Mike Trout is now the longest-tenured member of the Angels. That’s pretty crazy. Almost as crazy as pulling three rookie cards in the first pack. I’m sure that won’t be the norm going forward. There will be some other surprises, though…

2014 Spirit Base Series 1: 101-110

#101 - Jonathan Villar
On MLB: The Show 13, I played a franchise as the Astros for a few years and got really frustrated by Villar. He kept teetering on the edge of potential but could never really make an impact, even on a crappy team with lots of playing time. We'll see if he can do better in real life.

#102 - Alex Gordon
Anytime I can use a semi-close up of something "unusual" happening, I'm gonna. I'm already struggling to keep things from getting stale and redundant. So here's a goofy shot of Gordon tossing his plate armor off.

#103 - Garrett Richards
This image would be perfect for a Panini release. Shouldn't be too hard to airbrush the sleeve and cap logos off.

#104 - Adrian Gonzalez
I always thought Gonzalez was kind of bland and mild-mannered. But going through the photo options, there seems to be a lot of images where he's pointing or gesticulating or something. I guess it's the Dodger Way.

#105 - Adeiny Hechavarria
I'm starting to realize I should have switched the blue and orange colors for the Marlins template. There's basically zero blue represented on their uniforms and it really clashes with the design.

#106 - Scooter Gennett
SCOOTER!

#107 - Chris Parmelee
The Twins roster is filled with guys of which I have absolutely no knowledge. Sorry, Twins fans.

#108 - Travis d'Arnaud
Too bad this name font doesn't have any lowercase characters for the stencil style. It's really bugging me to see that capital D there.

#109 - C.C. Sabathia
Sabahtia's pretzel limbs are just too weird not to share with the world. Cropping his lower body probably adds to the confusion as well. Awesome.

#110 - Eric Sogard
Is this Sogard? Or Orel Hershiser wearing a crappy disguise out on the diamond?