Thursday, July 9, 2015

A Rant: Favorite Teams and Topps Cards

Harris is a well-known polling company here in the United States. They take America's pulse on a variety of subjects too -- everything from people really not trying to become more energy efficient at home to an increasing sentiment that some books should be banned completely (which is terrifying to me) to the still-strong belief  (61% of people) that the death penalty should be used in some circumstances. 

But I am not here to talk about politics. Frankly, I have strong opinions on a lot of issues, but most of those opinions relate to sports and our hobby. In particular, I have been pretty strong in my calling out Topps for its abominable distribution of cards within sets.  In particular, I have railed in the past about how Topps will jam as many Yankees as it can into a particular year's cards -- whether in inserts, parallels, or straight-up base cards -- at the cost of ignoring the "smaller" markets or teams such as the Tigers, the Twins, the Indians, and my Brewers.  Note that all of those teams are Centrally located...there's a theme there too.  

Harris, though, has been tracking America's Favorite Major League Baseball teams among all adults who follow baseball since 1999. Yes, the Yankees always do well in this poll, and the Red Sox have finished second every year since 2009. 

But here's the thing that is interesting: check out number 9 both this year and last year: the Minnesota Twins.  Who's that in 13th place in 2013 and 2014 and now in 10th? The Cleveland Indians.  Looking at 5th in 2013, 6th in 2014, and 5th again in 2015? There's the Detroit Tigers.  And, look at #8 last year and #13 this year -- the Milwaukee Brewers.  Ahead of the Mets, ahead of the Orioles, and ahead of the Nationals too.  

How did the card world look from Topps's perspective last year? According to Beckett, there were 6918 Yankees cards from Topps last year, 6546 cards of the illegally snooping St. Louis Cardinals, 4984 cards of the Mets, and 3517 cards of the Washington Nationals....and 3318 Milwaukee Brewers cards.  To be fair, that's still a lot, but when there are literally more than twice as many Yankees cards as Brewers cards -- indeed, of current teams, only the Marlins, the Twins, and the Padres had fewer (and, if you add the Florida Marlins to the Miami Marlins, then the Marlins move ahead of Milwaukee also).


This is not a one-year fluke, either. In 2013, Topps issued 6726 cards with Yankees players on them, 5282 with Cardinals, 3232 with Twins, and 2670 with Brewers.  Of active teams, only the Houston Astros had fewer cards issued in 2013, as their players appeared on 2226. 



2012 was different, as the Brewers were coming off a first place finish in the NL Central and an NLCS loss in 6 games to Satan's Messengers on Earth. That year, Milwaukee appeared on 3068 cards issued by Topps -- good enough for 12th overall and about 100 behind the 3rd-place-in-the-Central-finishing Cincinnati Reds. The Yankees stood at 6014.


But come on, Topps -- look at which teams are supported by their fans and create cards accordingly. Just because you are in the Yankees backyard shouldn't mean that you only serve the East Coast or that you should only print cards of teams you perceive to be popular.  I get that you are a business, but you are also a monopoly in terms of licensed products.  In that position, you need give up some autonomy and serve the greater good. 

And, I don't mean that you should compensate with more "wall art" money grabs. People from Milwaukee are smarter than that.  No, really -- we know grammar and everything, unlike your New York-based staff, apparently:


Seriously, though, that's a low blow. But, we are not ones to want to feel taken advantage of or, worse, being ignored.

And that's where we are, really -- Topps puts Brewers cards in packs because it is contractually obligated to do so.  But if Topps wants to grow sales, shouldn't it be tracking who the popular teams are and issue cards accordingly?

One would think that should be the case.  

Thanks for reading. After being away from the blog for a few days with sorting and organizing and, then, networking, for some reason I felt it was time for my yearly bitching about Topps post.

Fun stuff will return tomorrow (or over the weekend)!

16 comments:

  1. I have yet to find a collector take my Marlins, Diamondbacks, or Rays off my hands. Barely any collectors seem to clamor for my Padres, Brewers, Giants, White Sox, or Royals either. Though to be fair, even teams like the Indians and Braves which used to have a ton of fans in the blog-o-sphere seem to have dropped off. I'm not sure where I'm going with this other than to say I liked your post.

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    1. I know what you mean in that regard. I'd love to ship my Marlins cards back to Topps in exchange for, say, a pack of 2004 Topps. At least then I'd have a possibility of needing one of the cards.

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  2. That is very interesting. I complained to Topps on Twitter when the checklist for Series One came out about how the Royals weren't as well represented as other teams, and their reply was, "we have quite a few of them in subsets". The problem is that for small market teams, they keep using the same 2-3 guys all the time in the inserts, especially the older players. I like George Brett and Bo Jackson, but I'd love to see other guys represented. I was surprised to see David Cone as a Royal in the set. I guess though according to the fan chart, its a moot point for me since the Royals fan base is roughly in the middle-low part of the pack. Which is a bit surprising for this year, I understand all those other years though. I thought they'd maybe make top 12 at least.

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    1. Bingo! For the Brewers, it's always Yount and Molitor -- whom I collect and love getting new cards for -- and, on occasion, you might get Rollie Fingers, Cecil Cooper, or Ben Oglivie thrown in. It's a stars' world.

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  3. I personally don't consider the fact that there are too many Yankees in sets a problem since I don't collect any of those Yankees. But once Luis Torrens finds himself having 50,000 cards released in a single year and my wallet start taking bigger hits I'll be right there complaining with you.

    That said I'll be quite honest, I think it's in the entire world's best interest if the AL Central and NL Central both disappeared. Those teams don't merge into the other divisions, they all just disappear. Except the Brewers, they can still exist and come back to the AL East and replace the Rays whose less than small market became their undoing. This way there won't be an injustice anymore because there won't be any more central teams to cater too. And the number of unwanted and unloved Rays cards produced in a given year becomes the number of unwanted and unloved Brewers cards produced in a given year. It's a win-win. Or I think so :P.

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    1. Yes, but if we contracted the Centrals, we wouldn't have Cubs fans to make fun of any more either. ;-)

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    2. The city of Chicago has suffered enough. From Al Capone to the great Chicago fire to Hawk Harrelson's awful announcing to being the namesake for a really shitty rock band. And on top of that the infestation of Cubs fans. We need to put the city out of it's misery by getting rid of the Cubs and White Sox entirely. It's for the greater good and you know it ;).

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  4. The Twins make all kinds of sense as they've been terrible for the last 4 years - I think Sano, Buxton, and some of the other prospects could have something to say about that. In other news, #VoteDozier why don'tcha?

    The Brewers, though... Seems like they deserve a little more love.

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    1. I see your point, and perhaps sheer numbers isn't a fair way of looking at it. Or maybe it is. Since we are in an insert-and-hit driven world now....

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  5. This is continued proof that the Marlins should not exist and the Expos should. Nice going, Selig.

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    1. "Come to the Selig Experience at Miller Park! If you're from Montreal, we'll bankrupt you and move you to Washington, DC! Free!"

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  6. Hey, I taek affence for that grammer ranking chart! Lets go Met's!

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    1. As long as you don't take responsibility for it! :-)

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  7. The Brewers need to replenish that minor league system so they can get some Bowman and Chrome love. Trade Lucroy!

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    1. Well, that's just it -- the Brewers have a great set of prospects at Double A Biloxi right now. But, if you look at Bowman, you wouldn't know it.

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  8. I wish I could feel bad for you... but I'm one of those lowly Padres fans ;)

    On a more serious note... I'm definitely going to be in the minority when it comes to this debate. Personally... as long as they include a fair number of Padres in the base set, I'm fine. I think their standard base product should be balanced and each team should have an equal amount of cards distributed between the first two series. On the other hand, those higher end sets like Five Star and Museum Collection are built on stars. And neither of my favorite teams typically have a lot of star power. It's fun to cheer for both of them as underdogs... but it's sometimes hard to find individuals to build collections around and when I finally do... I wonder if they'll end up being traded away to the Yankees, Dodgers, or Red Sox.

    But that's okay... because it actually allows me to focus on favorites from the past... like Rickey Henderson and Tony Gwynn. Both of these guys tend to have a fair share or cardboard in Topps mid to highend products.

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