2018 Clubhouse: Houston Astros

51. José Altuve

52. Alex Bregman 

53. Carlos Correa

54. George Springer

55. Justin Verlander

Finally, my first perfect team set. Nobody to bump, nobody to add :)

Altuve and Springer are the auto subjects. Again, with these 5, any two picks would be solid.

I'm a sucker for orange and black so the black parallel works for me here.

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…

2015 Spirit All-Rookie Team

Last year I decided to copy Topps and made my own all-rookie squad. So here I am pulling another page outta Topps' playbook and recycling the same idea again with just a new design. But really, though, I think it's a sound decision to have an insert devoted to the previous year's rookies. Keeping with the whole "team" format can prove to be difficult, though, as you'll see from the checklist below.

1B: Jose Abreu

2B: Kolten Wong

SS: Danny Santana

3B: Nick Castellanos

OF: Billy Hamilton

OF: George Springer

OF: Ender Inciarte

C: Travis d’Arnaud

LHP: Roenis Elias

RHP: Jacob deGrom

RP: Dellin Betances

M: Matt Williams

There a no-brainers like Abreu and Hamilton, but sometimes there just isn't a stand out in one particular position. OR you have the inverse with way too many guys competing for one spot. The left-handed and right-handed pitcher situation up there is a perfect example. Last year's best newcomers on the mound were almost all righties. That means a southpaw like Roenis Elias makes the checklist while guys like Masahiro Tanaka, Marcus Stroman and Matt Shoemaker don't. Maybe I'll rectify that next year. Anyway, let's look at the design.

We're going horizontal again. There seems to be more room for the action shots this year with a sliver of the background staying on the card instead of them being complete cutouts. There are big team logos again just a layer behind the players with a subtle stripe motif behind them. A big silver foil band stretches across the bottom with the 'ALL ROOKIE TEAM' "logo" revealing some of the stripes from below. Player names & positions are in black on the foil bar so hopefully they're readable in most light.

Oh yeah,  here's the autograph parallel version. Same design but with a white fade coming from beneath and the certification text below the bar.

The back mimics the front but with the bar moving to the top and turning white. The only issue with this choice would be finding photos with enough open space up top as to not have the 'ALL ROOKIE TEAM' thing overlap a guy's dome. I lucked out with Hamilton here.

Overall I think these fit in with the rest of the 2015 Spirit designs thus far. Colorful without being too ornate and utilizing negative space in some capacity. I'd like to say that's on purpose but it's probably just a happy accident.

2014 Spirit Base: 871-885

Okay, we're finally here. The last 30 Spirit base cards of 2014. One more for each of the 30 MLB clubs...

#871 - Jordan Pacheco, #872 - Shae Simmons, #873 - Steve Lombardozzi
I've mentioned the Doug Fister trade before and how perplexing it is, but Detroit really ramped up the absurdity by shipping Lombardozzi off to Baltimore before the season even began.

#874 - Burke Badenhop, #875 - Neil Ramirez, #876 - Javy Guerra
The secret MVP of this whole project has been the Chicago White Sox. They consistently required the least amount of photo editing. Whenever it came time to do a White Sox card, it was like a little break from Photoshop for me.

#877 - Tucker Barnhart, #878 - Jose Ramirez, #879 - Justin Morneau
The Rockies cards were also a fun to layout. The purple was a nice break from all the blues that needed tweaking.

#880 - Bryan Holaday, #881 - George Springer, #882 - Bruce Chen
You know, all these blues. Both the Tigers' and Astros' "blue" gear is basically black.

#883 - John McDonald, #884 - Chris Perez, #885 - Sam Dyson
Maybe it's just an unflattering angle but I never thought of Chris Perez as such a large fellow.