Airbrushed Fridays: 2015 Topps #467

I wonder how Cat Latos is doing these days.

Who is he? Mat Latos is a starting pitcher who will be heading into his 8th big league season this year, although he's currently a free agent. Latos came up with the San Diego Padres before being traded to the Reds when he seemed to be on the cusp of breaking out. His best season to date was in 2013, his second with the Reds.

How did he get here? The Reds have been in a slow but steady full rebuild process in the last year to two years, and Latos was one of the casualties. Miami picked him up in a trade for Anthony DeSclafani, one of five rookie starters to hold down a regular rotation spot for the Reds in 2015. After a lackluster stint with the Marlins, Latos actually made appearances for both L.A. area teams down the stretch.

Repeat offender? Yes

Other versions of this card: Here's Mat as a Dodger, later in the season. And here's the source photo for this card:

Embed from Getty Images

Airbrushed Score: 7

Comments: Los Rojos indeed.

Airbrushed Fridays: 2015 Topps #684

It's a new year... full of doctored photos!

Who is he? Wil Myers is a former top prospect who was the AL Rookie of the Year in 2013. He's also been traded twice. He's a mixed bag, basically. Myers has primarily played the outfield in the majors and came to the Tampa Bay Rays by way of Kansas City as part of a blockbuster deal that sent James Shields and future closer Wade Davis to the Royals.

How did he get here? Many expected Myers to be a building block of the Rays future, but after struggling in 2014 he was traded to San Diego in a three team deal that included the Nationals, mostly seeing young players changing uniforms. San Diego was on a buying binge at this time last year, but Myers struggled to separate himself from the pack offensively and missed a significant portion of the season due to injury.

Repeat offender? No

Other versions of this card: None, but here's the source photo --

Embed from Getty Images

Airbrushed Score: 9

Comments: The Padres have a number of uniform looks these days, but I'm pretty sure none of them look quite like this.

Airbrushed Fridays: 2015 Topps #587

Dirty Dan Does Denver.

Who is he? Daniel Descalso is a utility infielder who won a World Series with the Cardinals in 2011. While he was essentially a replacement level player, he filled in at a number of positions when the Cardinals were short-handed and even pitched an inning or two. He isn't much of a hitter, but did provide some key hits in some of the Cardinals recent playoff runs.

How did he get here? The Cardinals eventually let Descalso hit free agency after the 2014 season, and he ended up signing a two year deal with the Rockies, filling a similar role in Colorado

Repeat offender? No

Other versions of this card: None, but here's the source photo --

View image | gettyimages.com

Airbrushed Score: 9

Comments: This is dreadful Photoshop, folks.

Airbrushed Fridays: 2015 Topps #432

Not everyone gets to playoff.

Who is he? Alexis Rios is a two-time All-Star outfielder who until very recently held the distinction of being the longest-tenured active MLBer who had never participated in the postseason. In recent years, the postseason has been opened up to a larger pool of teams than we're used to, but it still took Rios 12 big league seasons and 1691 games before he played meaningful October baseball. Rios split most of his time with the Blue Jays and the White Sox, but prior to this season he had spent a season and change with recently eliminated Texas.

How did he get here? Strangely enough, Rios lost pretty much all of his speed and power in recent years. The Rangers found him expendable after last season, but he caught on with defending AL champs Kansas City with a one year deal. Though he once garnered MVP votes as recently as 2012, his production never recovered with KC. And yet, there he is, in the playoffs, helping the Royals to a Divisional Series victory and a shot at the upstart Blue Jays. And now the playoff-less crown belongs to Adam Lind.

Repeat offender? No

Other versions of this card: None, but here's the original photo --

View image | gettyimages.com

Airbrushed Score: 5

Comments: I wish the Cardinals were still in the playoffs.

Airbrushed Fridays: 2015 Topps #384

A season of disappointment in the Emerald City.

Who is he? Justin Ruggiano is a journeyman outfielder who, mostly as a reserve, has spent parts of 7 seasons in the majors with 5 different teams. Ruggiano was drafted by the Dodgers but broke into the bigs with Tampa Bay. Although he appeared in the World Series, he never really cracked the Rays lineup and ended up with the Marlins (by way of Houston) in 2012. The following year in Miami was the closest he came to a full season's worth of appearances, but he was off to the Cubs in 2014.

How did he get here? Ruggiano found himself on the other side of another exchange for a minor leaguer late last December when Seattle came calling. After a relatively strong showing the previous season, Ruggiano wasn't used much in Seattle and didn't perform all that well. The Dodgers became the latest team to acquire him at the deadline, and he's done well there so far (small sample size alert).

Repeat offender? No

Other versions of this card: None, but here's the original photo --

View image | gettyimages.com

Airbrushed Score: 10

Comments: This is an atrocity. Does this look at all like Seattle's dark jersey? Does that even look like a '2'? It's funny, because you can still see Ruggiano's old Cubs jersey number (20) on the knob of his bat.

Airbrushed Fridays: 2015 Topps #626

The trade deadline is upon us.

Who is he? Hanley Ramirez was once upon a time a top prospect in the Boston Red Sox system. Very early in his career, he was dealt to the Marlins where he'd become a three-time All-Star shortstop. A few trade deadlines ago, he found himself on the Dodgers where he would reignite his flagging career.

How did he get here? Coming full circle, Boston signed the guy who took his first two MLB at-bats in a Red Sox uniform and moved him to the outfield as he'd never been a strong defender in the infield. It hasn't exactly gone swimmingly for Ramirez in Beantown, but then again, not much has at Fenway this season.

Repeat offender? No

Other versions of this card: None, but here's the original:

View image | gettyimages.com

Airbrushed Score: 4

Comments: This is a pretty competent Photoshop job, but they were able to obscure a lot of the logos.

Airbrushed Fridays: 2015 Topps #537

Is it just me, or is this year's Series Two the biggest Photoshopped set ever?

Who is he? Steven Souza is a speedy outfielder who was a 3rd round pick of the Nationals back when they were still getting used to not being in Canada. He's speedy and rangy, but not quite a master of both, leaving him in a category shared by many big league outfielders who are relatively green. Of recent note, he turned a bunt into a Little League style home run a few weeks back.

How did he get here? During the Great Padres Dealings of Late 2014, Souza was included as part of a 3-team swap that involved something like a dozen players, finding himself on the Rays roster for the current season.

Repeat offender? No

Other versions of this card: None, but here's the source image...

View image | gettyimages.com

Airbrushed Score: 5

Comments: It could be worse. This is on the low end of the atrocity spectrum for 2015 Topps Series Two. There are some real doozies in this set.

My 2015 Topps Progress

Here's what I've accomplished so far.

I've polished off the Cardinals base team set for Series One. This is probably the earliest that I've ever managed this, but I also have the fact that there were only something like 10 Cardinals cards (including multi-player cards) in the whole series. Still, I'm not complaining.

I have quite a few foil parallels to get my hands on, however. And there's always those pesky serial-numbered cards. Hot Corner Cards was kind enough to send me this Lance Lynn foil parallel via PWE, which means I just need the following foils:

• 11, 60, 61, 80, 85, 220, 286, 311, 336

I'm not doing so hot with the inserts, however. I still need all three versions of the two First Home Run cards I care about (#9 and #16) plus several other inserts. Go here to see the complete list. If you're working on 2015 Topps Series One, I have plenty of extras, so just let me know what you need!

2015 Topps: The Blaster

What is a blaster supposed to be, anyway? Where did that name even come from?

Here are my final thoughts on 2015 Topps Series One as I take a look what I got in my blaster last week. I will probably buy a few more packs here and there, but that will probably be it. There aren't a lot of Cardinals in this set for once. I'm not complaining, though.

As you can see above, the manufactured memorabilia hit is a Tulo card, which works out well if your name is Erin. These "cards" are more like bricks, and they are very heavy. You could seriously injure someone with one of these if you so desired.

This is supposedly a "Baseball History" insert, but I don't think they were playing any kind of baseball on the moon.

Here's another "rainbow foil" parallel. It turns out that these are nearly as rare as the golds.

That's some nerve you've got there, Topps!

Deion Sanders hit 39 home runs in his career, one fewer than Nelson Cruz hit last season. This is an extremely stupid baseball card.

Wright doesn't look 10+ years younger here (this is supposed to be from 2004 if you can't read the foil) but the patch on his sleeve seems to match one the Mets wore that season. Maybe GCRL can verify this.

These are pretty busy looking and the year is displayed as prominently as the player.

New Guy, Old Guy. Matt Harvey has a teenage mustache.

This seems legit. Look at those awful vests the Pirates used to wear, along with Bautista's hilarious sleeves.

Oh man, I started this blog that year (2008) and seeing Hamilton in a Reds jersey doesn't seem weird at all.

Josh Hamilton was also my gold card o' the blaster.

I don't care about these at all. This is yet another card to put in the "NO TEAM" section of my trade-able inserts box that I'll never get rid of.

These are great. I wish current Cardinals made great defensive plays in the outfield that could be captured on a baseball card.

I wish he was beating the crap out of Robin Ventura on this card instead of this.

How did Randy Johnson not catastrophically tear his arm up at some point in his career? That might be what amazes me the most.

You don't see many cards of Red Schoendienst these days in another uniform besides the Cardinals. So this doesn't go in my binder? Aw, man.

This will have to do.

2015 Topps: The Hanger Pack

Some highlights of another batch of new Topps cards I purchased.

I stopped by Target yesterday and am now very thankful that my trip earlier in the week was derailed. I never would have made it into a random Fred Meyer and I never would have found 2015 Topps cards, because my usual Target still doesn't have any of it. In fact, they pulled almost all of their baseball stuff off the shelves in the fall (or maybe it all just sold?) so the aisle is mostly football and hockey stuff which doesn't really interest me.

Anyway, here's some stuff I got in the $9.99 hanger pack.

This is another one of the "rainbow foil" parallels. They're basically budget style refractors.

Here's what the gold parallels look like. They are certainly different than in past years, with more of a foil sheen to them. I miss the old glittery gold look, but I would certainly take an improved base set design as a trade-off. Like in recent years, they are serial numbered to the current year in raised black ink.

This is a very specific sounding insert set. Does this series only have right fielders, with the other outfield positions being saved for subsequent sets? I guess I didn't research this very carefully. I have a feeling I'm going to wish Topps saved the Heyward inserts for later in the year when they would be bound for my Cardinals binders.

The best pitchers in the NL. Kershaw did distance himself a bit from the rest by the end of the season, of course.

More Kershaw, this time side by side with Fernando on another "Old Guy, New Guy" card.

Lance Lynn is a great pitcher. There, I said it.

This was a thing that happened in 2012.

This is probably my least favorite insert set from 2015. It's just ugly.

The 1st Home Run inserts have gold versions that are probably limited to these hanger packs, which will probably make them challenging to collect. I got two in the box, which is probably standard. This is all just speculation on my part.

That's some serious Pitcher Face!

Here's the other gold 1st Home Run insert, which will head straight for Erin's Tulo collection.

2015 Topps: The Jumbo

A first look at the new year's brand new Topps product.

I made a mad dash to Target last night to check and see if the new 2015 Topps Series One had hit the shelves yet, but my plans were derailed. I know this is a common complaint, but I have found that the places I normally shop are a little behind the rest of the country when it comes to stocking their shelves. Strangely enough, I didn't even make it to Target last night because my train abruptly kicked all of its passengers off. If this hadn't happened, there's a decent chance I wouldn't have any of these shiny new cards in my hands, because I decided to pop into a Fred Meyer store instead. They had the new stuff in all sorts of configurations, and I ended up buying one of everything: a loose pack, a jumbo pack, a hanger box and a blaster. You can find the loosey over at APTBNL soon, but for now here are some of the cards I got the from the jumbo pack and my thoughts on said cards.

On first impression, I do think this is easily the best looking base set Topps had put out in more than a decade. The only thing that's preventing me from actually collecting the stupid thing, aside from cash and common sense, is that I still have too many hangups with the way these cards are cranked out. They're still putting out the same thin white carts with glossy coating and they still release their cards in three series, only two of which are numbered consecutively. They still favor flash and gimmicks over cards of role players and the overlooked. In my younger collecting days, I looked to baseball cards as a physical document of a player's season and career, but we only cards of the chosen ones anymore. (Bring back Topps Total!)

In any case, if I was going to collect any base set of the last decade, it would be this one, because they finally got away from the horrible blandness that has plagued almost every set since I started this blog.

I'm all for inserts of current players that are a throwback to something early in their career. I really like (and am still trying to collect) the 2008 50th Anniversary All-Rookie Team insets for this very reason.

I haven't warmed up to these yet, but how long has it been since Fernando had a (licensed) baseball card?

These league leaders cards are familiar. I guess that's all I have to say.

I'm not sure that Topps remembers how they are supposed to use the Future Stars tag. Back in the day, the Future Stars cards were of players that were still rookies and very green. Abreu already has a full and extremely productive season under his belt. Oddly enough, Evan Gattis also has the Future Stars banner, and he's essentially played two full seasons.

The card backs are really nice. I like the big numbers and the fact that it goes out of its way to tell you that it's "Series One". Topps even took care to include Abreu's Cuban pro numbers on the back and HOLY CRAP HE HIT A LOT OF HOME RUNS. And look at all those steals! I guess the international stats didn't quite import to the Topps computers correctly. I smell a data shift. Data shift!

Yet again... Topps can't let this concept go. Old guy and current guy, together at last. We get it.

You can't really tell by the scan, but this is a Rainbow Foil parallel. These are seriously underwhelming. They are the only non-serial numbered parallel as far as I know, so at least there's fewer colors of things to collect this year if you're a team collector.

And once again, there's a gaggle of new officially designated "RC" rookies with funny names that I've never heard of. Some of these guys will make it and others will be Wladimir Balentien.