Baseball Cards: Topps 2013

I have enjoyed baseball cards for the better part of 20 years, ever since I inherited a shoebox full of them as a child. I have no memory of how I acquired this veritable treasure trove, and the only reason I know the rough timeframe is that the most recent cards in the box were from the 1992 Topps and Upper Deck collection. It wasn't long before I started organizing these cards in plastic sleeves. I just had a couple at first, for the top cards in my collection - Frank Thomas, Cal Ripken, Roger Clemens, etc. - while the rest remained jumbled in the box. Once I began expanding my collection, I decided that every card deserved a spot in my plastic sleeves, which eventually filled binder upon binder with immaculately organized cards. I even remember the first card I got as a gift: it was a 1994 Upper Deck foil of Cal Ripken, which I promptly ruined by bending the corner while trying to transfer it from its protective casing into my plastic sleeves...

As you can probably infer, not many of my cards are in mint condition, but resale value was never high on my list of reasons for buying baseball cards. I like them more for aesthetic reasons (there are few things more comforting to a fan's heart than the look and feel of a brand new pack of baseball cards) and of course because each one represents a snapshot of a particular player at a particular time in his career but also in baseball history. And you know what I like to do with snapshots of specific players at a particular time: make lineups out of them.

Last week, I picked up some baseball cards with the express purpose of seeing what kind of lineup I could craft with the limited options available to me. I got two promotional items from Topps: a four-pack of 2013 Series 1's (including an exclusive chance to participate in the "Million Dollar Chase" giveaway) and a double pack of the "Opening Day" variety. What follows is a starting lineup resulting from the cards in the packs I opened.

Before getting into the lineup, a few brief observations about the cards themselves. The two versions have the same layout: a white background with the player's name and team logo in the bottom left and right corners respectively, the Topps logo in the upper left or right corner (depending on the picture), and a stylized home plate just above the name, which extends into a border around the picture in the team's colors. The obvious way to distinguish the two is the Opening Day April 2013 banner stamped on the (you guessed it) Opening Day variation, but the more observant viewer will notice that while the player names and Topps logo are printed in a nice shiny silver chrome in the Series 1 set, they are in a simple matte gray and white, respectively, in the Opening Day set. I noticed this by looking at both versions of the only duplicate card I got (Josh Beckett) side by side. The two sets are also numbered differently, despite looking nearly identical: my No. 4 starter is 219 in Series 1 and 192 in Opening Day.

I'm also convinced that the colors are a little bit more vibrant in the Series 1 versions, which is unfortunate, because not only do the Opening Day cards generally include better players, but it's clear that they were also printed more recently than their counterparts. You can tell because free agents from the Opening Day pack who were signed during the off-season (namely B.J. Upton and bench player Nick Swisher) appear in their new uniforms, whereas Series 1 free agents (fellow benchers A.J. Pierzynski, Jeff Keppinger, and inactive roster member Stephen Drew) appear in the uniforms of their former teams. But whatever teams they play for, the players listed above form the best starting lineup/rotation assembled from the approximately 75 cards included in the packs I bought.

Looking at his sub-.300 OBP and negative WAR values so far in 2013, B.J. Upton looks like a terrible choice to lead off and play CF, but he's there because I'm an admitted rankings slave: the elder Upton ranked between 50 (MLB) and 90 (ESPN) places better than his next best competition Angel Pagan, both of whom showed up in the Opening Day pack. In addition, 3/4 of my starting infield came from the promotional pack: 1B (and cover boy of Topps 2013) Prince Fielder, 2B Brandon Phillips, and 3B Will Middlebrooks (who is filling in for another injured Opening Day player Aramis Ramirez, currently on the 15-day DL). We've already seen the depth at 3B (the position also includes yet another O.D. contributor Kyle Seager), but the other two positions are well-stocked too, with Freddie Freeman and Chase Utley (both also from the O.D. pack) backing up Fielder and Phillips, respectively. The only shallow position on this roster is SS, which has Ben Zobrist at his third position (behind 2B and RF) as the best option in front of fellow Series 1 members Stephen Drew and Clint Barmes.

The rest of the outfield includes AL Central stalwarts Josh Willingham and Alex Rios, but the most surprising dark horse here has been Starling Marte (in a Rookie Card edition), who inexplicably has the seventh-highest point total among all batters, ahead of such luminaries as Robinson Cano and Mike Trout. The only position in which Series 1 has a marked advantage over Opening Day is behind the plate, where Buster Posey and Joe Mauer act as C and DH, while still leaving A.J. Pierzynski available off the bench. In the rotation, the most impressive (and GIF-worthy) starter is clearly Yu Darvish, the highest-ranked pitcher on this squad and the second-highest scoring pitcher in all of baseball. It's no surprise that both he and his number 2 in the rotation, Adam Wainwright, also comes from the Opening Day pack, as does star closer Jonathan Papelbon. The top pitchers from Series 1 are Braves lefty Mike Minor and Giants closer Sergio Romo, after whom there is a big drop indeed.

I realize that most of the fun associated with baseball cards flies out the window when they're represented as a simple list, so I've included a visual representation of my depth chart made out of my cards. And although seeing a picture of them doesn't let you hold them, turn them over, and feel the permanence of them in your hands, I hope that this can at least begin to capture the excitement of playing with baseball cards again. Writing this post certainly did for me, so don't be surprised if you see further instances of me dipping into my archive to present similar projects of card sets from years past.