Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 118 : 2025 Topps Allen & Ginter Overview

Transcript

Ep. 118 : 2025 Topps Allen & Ginter Overview · Cards & Categories

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome everybody to episode one eighteen of Cards
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and Categories. I'm my Cool Eye from Rassball, joined as
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: always by my very good friend Jeremy Berr, also from Rassball.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: How are you doing tonight, Buddy, doing just fantastic mate
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: through the cold winter that's the Midwest of the last
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: few days. So very excited to talk about some warm baseball.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: And we actually have baseball news. We've off season moves, signings,
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: it's about the hot stove is heating up, winter meetings
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: coming up, so we got plenty to start talking about.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: This is my favorite time of the off season, when
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: things just start cooking out about you.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this is a great time, and especially
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the hot stove season is much needed. After the winter
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: storm we just survived. My back is still sore from
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: all the shoveling. Maybe you're fancy enough to have a
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: snow I'm guessing you snowblow.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: I did, but I forgot to buy the gas, so
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: I just drove over it and dealt with it later.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: So I taught my kids a strong lesson on how
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: to shovel is really what it came down to. Because
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Dad was procrastinating going to the store there you go.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: As long as you can turn it into a life lesson,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: that's the most important part of being a dad.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Correct, absolutely, absolutely.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, Well, we are recording here on December two, so
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: it is a Tuesday. It is different from our normal
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Wednesday recording, but that allows us to get ahead of
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the twenty twenty five Alan and Genter release coming out
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: from Tops finally hitting shelves. Usually it is a spring
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: release that it's something that comes out like April May,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: just around the turn of the season starting, but it
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: has been delayed, delayed, delayed. We've got the checklist finally,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: just a couple of days before the release as it
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: comes out on December third, a part of the myriad
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: of releases that Tops and fanatics are pumping out the
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: door for the holiday season. But before we get into it,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: you already talked about there is some signings that we've
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: got to get into. And it was a great week
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: to be a pitcher that was signing a deal, especially
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: if you were going to be interested in moving to
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Canada's We've got a couple of Blue Jays moves. I
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: think that's where we'll start because most major I would say, well,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: the second one is maybe a little bit of a
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: second tier in terms of majority, but we've also got
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: some closers on the move as well. Let's get back
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: to those Blue Jays, because the first one, the first
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: signing that they made was honestly, it was just after
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I think I posted this podcast from last week, and
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: just after that, the Blue Jays went out and made
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: a signing for Dylan Cease. It is officially a seven year,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: two hundred and ten million dollar deal, although there are
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: some deferrals so it's actually more of like a one
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: hundred and eighty two million dollars This way is according
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: to MLB trade rumors on the Dot, so honestly, still
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: a little bit more money than I think most people
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: had Dylan ce slated to be making this offseason, as
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: it really was a rough season on the Mound four
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: seas in twenty twenty five a four fifty five ERA
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: but a three fifty six FIP, so that is encouraging.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: But the home run rate really spiked this year, despite
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: playing in San Diego with a great home park. It
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: went up to one point one three, which is the
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: highest had been since twenty twenty with the White Sox
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: when he was just a young pup and not striking
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: anybody out and walking the world at eleven and a
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: half k nine this past year as he went eight
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: to twelve or one hundred and sixty eight innings pitched
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: with those padres, so cease. Joining a very good Toronto
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Blue Jays team who are really pushing the chips in
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: here gonna be a very righty heavy rotation, which, honestly,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: from a team construction standpoint, I'm a little bit worried about,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: just because it is the same kind of arm after
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: arm after arm, although different you know, angles and repertoires
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: there that you're getting in a series over and over.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: I like to see some lefties mixed in there. Much
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: tougher division here for Dylan SE's going from the NL
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: West where you got to pick on the Colorado Rockies
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: every once in a while, probably and a downgrade in
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: ballpark just because San Diego is so good for pictures.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: But if the Toronto Blue Jays can unlock something here,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: which they've been seemingly had their pulse on the the
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: beat of just kind of pitching development over the past
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: couple of years, what do you think Dylan SE's can
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: do going into twenty twenty six for the Toronto Blue Jays.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't love I don't love this
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: move in general, and I would say both for Dylan
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Seas and for the Blue Jays. You know, first of all,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Cease is going to harder division, ironically not a necessarily
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: better ballpark. You know, San Diego was actually so much
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: of a pictures park. He's going to more of a
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: mid a mid tier park, and I think that's gonna
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: be a little bit of a struggle for him.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: For him and the other thing I think, you.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Know, Cease has always been flashy, but not necessarily the
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: most effective. And you can say that this is a
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: guy that has aid five years straight where he started
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: at least thirty two games, which is fantastic, But do
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: you know his high innings pitched during that time.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like he clipped one eight.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Once he did he got one eighty nine, but last
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: year was only one sixty eight. He barely makes it
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: into the sixth inning on average the vast majority of
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: this starts. He is very inefficient as a pitcher, and
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: that shows up, and you know a little bit of
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: his whip, it shows up. As you know, he's a
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: guy who's really a flyball pitcher, so he's pitching around guys,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: and when the homers hit, they hit hard.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: So I think See's got overpaid. I don't.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: I think the Blue Jays are trying to make a splash,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: but I just don't think this one going to age
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: very very well for either side. So I'm shading away
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: clearly from Dylan ce. So I've got him more as
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: a top thirty to forty starter, and that's based on
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: the strikeouts. He'll get a little more maybe in the
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: win category on a strong Blue Jays team, but again
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: he's not going to go deep into games, and therefore
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: that really really holds you back. So look for a
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: high whip, a little bit of volatility, and if you're
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: in any in a weekly type of league, rifts set
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: your lineup and you're trying to get innings to rack
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: up those strikeouts. That eleven and a half k per
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: nine is not much different than the guy that has,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: you know, nine k per nine, that pitches sevents, and
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: so I'll be very very careful when you start analyzing
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Dylan Sea's.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's very fair, and honestly, like I'm
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: trying to look at the fault of like what has
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: happened too ceas since that twenty twenty two season when
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: he finished second in the cy Young with the two
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: to twenty era in a one hundred and eighty four
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: innings and fourteen and eight record with the White Sox
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: rip that White Sox being good team. But I think
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: maybe the only thing I can see is the pace
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: picking up. I wonder if this also kind of gets
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: to what you're talking about where Ce seems to struggle
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: with like getting deeper into games, and like you especially
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: think about the amount of effort that I think he
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: goes into just the way he pitches that it's kind
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: of snellion, I would say, in terms of lots of
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: really hard sliders, lots of really hard fastballs, lots of
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: poking around the zone that you wonder if that is
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: playing into it where that type of approach just doesn't
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: play as well underneath the pitch clock, where you know
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three, that is where he kind of
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: started unraveling a little bit more, becoming a little bit
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: less just dependable, because I mean, obviously the front line
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: kind of nature of being in that sandy goo padres
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: rotation but I think also the pitch clock gets to
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: see sere and there, so it'd be fascinating to see
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: if the Blue Jays do you have a fix for
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: that or because I don't know if it necessarily is
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: something from an arsenal standpoint that Dylan c s needs
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: to fix, but maybe it is an approach or some
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: sort of offseason workout regimen. But you got to hope
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: that if the Blue Jays are putting number one starter
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: money into Cease, who's probably more of a number three,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: they've got a solution to be able to fix him.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Well, I think the big thing is the guy throws
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: two pitches. I mean, you know, yes, he actually has
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: thrown throw through five last year, but his four steamer
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: and slider made up eighty two percent of his pitches
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: last year, and then he threw in that knuckle curve
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: for eight percent, sinker for five, sweep for three and
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: a half.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: He's a two pitch pitcher and that is really hard
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: to go deep into games. Cee censor Strider.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: As far as the guys that can make that work
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: at times, it's a it's a volatile So I like
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: what you're saying there. Dylan sees is much more of
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: a three than a number one, but he got a
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: number one money, and hey, the pitching market's hot, so yeah,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: kudos for him for doing what he can do.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, even if Cease didn't really see himself landing in
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Toronto and playing for the Blue Jays, when somebody sticks
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: that kind of money in front of you, you kind
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: of have to say, yes.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: I'll play. I'll play in the in the Russian League
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: for that one. Yeah, exactly.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Well, you want to talk about foreign leagues, We've got
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the next signing a guy who has been around the
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: foreign circuit quite a bit, as he's pitched an MPB
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: went over to the KBO this year and won the
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: dangm VP for the entire league as a pitcher work course,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: talking Cody Puntz, who is a former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: who I mean was really in just a nobody when
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: he was in that Pittsburgh Pirates team. He made a
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: handful of starts, five starts out of his twenty total
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: games his twenty total appearances with a five eighty six
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: ERA and a seven point eight K nine nothing really
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: flat rushing for him, and so went over to Japan
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: initially and things improved certainly in Japan, but never really
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: kind of reached an extra height and then goes to
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: the KBO. This is a little bit of honestly the
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Eric Fetti story too, where Eric Fetti struggled, struggled, struggled,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: and the majors went to the KBO refined his arsenal.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: That's what Punts has done and just was absolutely dominant
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: in the KBO one eighty nine era, over one hundred
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and eighty innings and two thirds a twelve point five
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: to five k nine his best at any stop, even
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: through like all the minor leagues. So that also that
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: gives me like good hope here for Punts because like
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: that shows like this is not somebody who just played
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: up the arsenal that he was using in Double A
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: and Triple A and just dominating KBO with it. It
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: is a whole overhaul of his entire approach. There was
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of chatter about Punts at f PAZ when
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I was there just last month that, like, especially the
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: people who have data from the KBO, it is a
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: great looking arsenal. I think this is a great sign
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: for the Blue Jays, who put him on a three year,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: thirty million dollar contract, which shows what all the other
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: teams that are thinking about him, because honestly, I'll also
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: preface this with like, I'm a little bit bummed maybe
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: that Punks is going to Toronto because he's probably like
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: on the fringe of the rotation slash. They could turn
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: him into a lights out reliever and not feel bad
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: about it. He's gonna kind of end up in yar
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Yel Rodriguez purgatory. I would have loved to see Ponce
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: go to like San Francisco and like take over as
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: a number two or number three starter or somewhere where
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: he just got a great shot, because, especially Layton leagues
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Layton drafts right now, I think he was a great
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: dart to throw because I think he's gonna be better
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: than Fetti, And you're looking at a guy who can
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: be a really solid piece for fantasy teams, but maybe
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: a little bit less so if he's battling for a
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: job in Toronto. What do you think about punts here?
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I gave Toronto a hard time for the cease signing.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: I like this one. Come a lot better because at
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: the end of the day, you sign a guy for
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: three years or thirty million, that's like middle reliever prices
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: at this point, and so even if they're wrong, if
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: they're substantially wrong, it's not necessarily that bad of a deal.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: I think is the thing to look at here, And
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: to your point, there is a pattern for guys to
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: be successful that the KBO is very, very hitter friendly.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: He was in MPV before and wasn't doing the same
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: strikeout stuff, so clearly he made some some tweaks whenever
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: the KBO. I think the other comp to look at
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: is Meryl Kelly because he also made a similar transition,
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: and you look at his numbers in KBO, they weren't
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: anywhere near Potts's numbers. And I think we can all
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: say that Merril Kelly is kind of a solid number
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: three starter, sometimes performs like a number two, sometimes has
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: a whole season of four, but he's definitely down the middle.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Is the number three for me, and so I think
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: there's a lot to like about Ponts here. And but
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: it's really hard to say that somebody's gonna like jump
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: so heavy into drafts after him, because there is a
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: myriad of the unknown. He didn't sign for huge numbers
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: of things like that. So I think the biggest risk
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: is what exactly what you called out is that Toronto
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: has arguably seven or eight viable starters. Now, he got
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Jose Berrios, He's got Eric Lauer who might be there,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Gariel Rodriguez. Those those guys are all going to be
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: trying to chomp with a bit, to do something, to
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: kind of make make a name for themselves. So it'll
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: be interesting to see if anything else happens, not to
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: talk about Boden Francis and or or Rock he teet
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: him in if he ever decides to actually grace us
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: with his presence of the majors. So I think he's
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: gonna get a run of the rotation. I think it's
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: a really valuable dart throw for fantasy managers. And we'll
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: see what happens. But I think there's all the indications
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: are that he should hit the ground running and he
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: throws hard, so it'll be it'll be fun to watch.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally agree. So, I mean, I I think
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: still somebody that's probably more of a late dart. I'm
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: not moving him up too much, but somebody I'm certainly
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: intrigued by. And if he's sitting out there, I think
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: on waiver wires early in the season for some reason,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: and he gets a good start in you can see
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: where the meteoric rise can happen very fast on punps
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: to just be prepared for it. Okay, Next, we have
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: a pair of reliever signings. I guess when I was
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: talking earlier I called them both closers, but I guess
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: we'll find out about one of them. But let's start
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: with the one in Baltimore first. As it was what
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: maybe three days of chatter that we had that Ryan
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Helsley was going to be a starter, and like, actually
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: I think no, I think we joked about it off
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: pod where we're just like, especially the number of Cardinals
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: games that we've watched, I've never once in my life
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: seen Ryan Helsley throw a pitch and been like, yeah,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: that could last as a starter. It is just like perpetual,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: just absolute anarchy. When he's throwing a ball and you're
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: just waiting for his arm to snap off, as evidenced
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: by his one forty eight stuff plus slider, that is
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: just like so nasty. He barely ever knows where it's going,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: but it looks like he's going to be the closer
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: in Baltimore. As honestly, famous botist is probably cooked at
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: this point between the elbow injury recovery and the shoulder
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: and really just terrible mismanagement by the Orioles in terms
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: of bringing back Bautista and pushing him as hard as
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: they did. But they've replaced him now with Helsley on
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: a two year, twenty eight million dollars deal where he'll
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: anchor the back end of that bullpen. It is very
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: much a tale of two halves. And looking at Ryan Helsley,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: who was traded from the Cardinals to the Mets at
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: the deadline, everything was humming along for the Cardinals three
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: point zero RA over thirty six innings, ten point two
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: K nine twenty one saves exactly what you wanted to see,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: gets trade to the Mets and just absolutely melts down.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Everything falls apart a seven point two RA, a four
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: point one to nine FIP of almost five walk per nine,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: less than ten k per nine over twenty innings. Three
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: losses honestly cost the Mets their entire season by himself
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: after that trade going over there, so which performance are
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: you believing out of Helsley? Because it's not like the
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: numbers were always there for Helsley and Saint Louis. But
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: it's not like they were always easy or always very smooth.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: When you were watching him work, it's very Kimberlean in
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: terms of like it was teetering all the time. Do
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: you think that Ryan Helsley can handle the Al East
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: and be this Baltimore Orioles closer to a level where
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: you're okay making him your number one saves option in
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: fantasy for twenty twenty six.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna say yes.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: And this is not like deep analysis. It is you
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: gotta trust the.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: Fact that.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Many many major league teams wanted Ryan Helsley as their closer.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: There was not a shortage of suitors for him. His
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: stuff looked pretty much the same from an overall results
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: perspective when he was in New York versus Saint Louis,
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: and there was a lot of chatter that he was
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: tipping his pitches, and he believes he was tipping his pitches,
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: which makes a lot of sense when you look at
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: the numbers, like he was giving up one point Homer's
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: per nine innies for the bets like he was just
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: getting lit up there because it's like everybody knew knew
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: what was coming down the pipe. So overall, I think
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: he's going to a situation where he's gonna get a
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: lot of save opportunities. The Orioles are not like a
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: crazy bonkers offense. As much as they tried to prepare
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: themselves to be, it just hasn't come to fruition and
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: they're gonna be in a lot of close games. I
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: think he's gonna get a lot of opportunities and his
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: stuff still plays. So if he really did fix what
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: he saw and tivy the pitches, and clearly a lot
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: of teams were right there going, yeah, we know what's
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: going on. We're not too concerned about it. He's going
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: to be a good, good closer. I think it's right
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: on the border of do I want him as my
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: number one? I'm like, I kind of want him as
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: my high end two. This is kind of really where
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: I land. But I don't think he's a bad number
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: one because there's no doubt that's his job, and there's
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: probably only like ten or twelve closers are going to
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: be in the league that there's no doubt it's that
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: guy's job, and so I think that alone almost pushes
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: him into that threshold.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's all very fair, and I think
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I'm in the same boat with you on Helsley. I
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: think what I also like is that, I mean their
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: team and back up him and Andrew Kittridge are back together.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like they're good buddies. Yeah.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Hey, I don't see the Orioles honestly signing any more
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: arms for that bullpen. That's just not the way that
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: they've operated. And so I think Kittridge is the setup guy.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: If you do draft Hellsley, use one of your last
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: picks on Kittridge to give yourself that insurance in case
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: something does go awry, not only like Hellsley melting down,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: but on top of that, like I said, it just
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: seems like a ucl that could snap at any moment.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: And Andrew Kittridge is a great reliever. He would walk
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: in and be a fantastic closer there and be just
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: steady at e that. It's a good pairing. I think
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: to take both of them if you end up with
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Brian Helsley.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: I honestly thought that Kittridge might run away as the
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: closer in Baltimore. Until this signing, I thought he was
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: going to be a solid number two closer for a
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: lot of teams.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: It was a sneaky play, but what do I know.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's still gonna be a great ratios play
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: for that Orioles team, So he's not it's very it's
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: gonna be Jason adam E where it's like you want
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: to have him for those ratios possible saves a couple
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: of wins. Maybe the way that you used this next
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: guy who signed Devin Williams later in the season as
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: he lost that Yankees closed their job and was in
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: and out of it with Luke Weaver throughout the season.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: You know, we were talking about Brian Helsley with the
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: nuts there. That's where Devin Williams is kind of picking
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: up the slack and who knows where Edwin Diaz kind
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: of fits in. If anything, it does seem like the
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Mets are still in on Edwin Diaz and given what
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: he's provided them over the years. That Devin Williams I think,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: actually creates a situation where you know he can be
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: a solid setup man for you. But then if Edwin
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Diaz gets blown away by a different offer. You're not
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: scrambling at the last minute. So I think pretty savvy
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: moved by the Mets here, who you know, it's not
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: also costing them a huge amount of money for the Mets,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: you know, fifty one million dollars over three years. But
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Devin Williams had his success under David Stearns Milwaukee, reuniting
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: here in New York. And it was a tough season
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: for Williams, especially on the surface of four to seventy
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: nine era over sixty two innings, only eighteen saves, and
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: he tossed it a lot of draft capital. But when
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: you look under the hood, it was still a great fip,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: a two sixty eight fip. The K nine was the
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: walks per nine was actually the lowest he's had since
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty. Honestly, maybe that's also part of the problem,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: is that, like maybe the change up was not quite
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: as elite because when it's really dive in just creates
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: more walks because it's not in the zone as much.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: But still a pretty solid believer here, and I think
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: you're looking at a great situation obviously, a team that's
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: going to be winning a lot, hopefully great ballpark. What
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: are you doing with Devin Williams Because you're in this
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: weird window now where honestly we might be just days
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: or weeks away from them signing Edwin Diaz, and any
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: fantasy value that Devin Williams had is going to be
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: absolutely annihilated. But are you willing to still go out
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: on that branch because you see the buying opportunity even
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: with all that risk.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: You know, speaking for like off season trading perspective, I'm
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: staying away from Devin Williams.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: And there's two main reasons.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: One Edwin Diaz, I really would not be shocked to
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: see him back with the mat And two of all
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: the landing places, I really didn't want to see Devin
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Williams in New York like I didn't think. I didn't
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: think this side of New York I was. I was
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: thinking more of the Bronx versus Queens. But what scares
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: me for Devin Williams under the covers is his biggest
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: issue last year was he had trouble getting out of
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: jams and really straining runners on base when it mattered.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: His left on base percentage was a busmally low. It
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: is like fifty five percent on the season, which usually
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: that's like seventy eighty percent even for a good reliever,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: it's like mid eighties to up up. In high leverage situations,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: his left on base percentage was less than twenty five percent.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: What he yes, it's it's low leverage, it's eighty two percent.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Medium leverage is sixty five. High leverage it is twenty
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: five percent.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: And he was walking.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: He walked a ton of guys and he did not
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: strike guys out. He was like he he crumb under pressure,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: And there's not This isn't like a certain pitch mix
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: or something like that. It just does not look like
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: he could handle the bright lights.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: And you know, you could call that a luck metric.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: I can't say say, I've ever seen a twenty five
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: percent left on pace number in any split of any
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: sort of kind. And so that leads me to believe
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: like there's something here from a mental aspect that scares
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: me that he is going to be a roller coaster.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: So between that.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Edwin Diaz as I'm I'm staying away from Devin Williams,
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: I just think it's he's he might not be mentally
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: able to handle pitching in New York on that big
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: stage and I feel like that's a cop out in
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: most fantasy analysis, but I think it's the right the
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: right view here with Devin Williams. So call me, call
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: me crazy here, but I am selling Devin Williams if
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: I have him in a keeper dynasty league and I
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: can move in the off seasons as a closer for
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: the Mets on in the bright lights. Yeah, I'm giving
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: me a Ryan Helsley all day a throw in.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, I mean I think that's not a bad
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: idea either, because especially if you're in the off season
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: right now and you're on like fan Grafts using their
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: auction calculator where it's only really running off of steamer
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: right now, it's going to be punching in thirty two
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: saves for Devin Williams and making that value look pretty
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: dang good because he's on the Mets, and so it's
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: my it might be like the peak time to try
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: to offload him for that, because yeah, I do. I
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: think I'm with you, but it's mostly because the Edwin
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Diaz piece. I just do not see how the Mets
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: allow Edwin Diaz to end up on another roster. It's
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: just he's been too important to that team and anchoring
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: the back of that bullpen, and especially given the rest
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: of that starting rotation being pretty shaky, they're gonna have
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: to really lock up that bullpen. And the lineup is
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: a mess. The mess. Lineup is a mess.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: The Mets that's are generally a mess, which is pretty standard.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: So it's going to be interesting how that unfolds here
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: over the next couple months. Well, okay, that wraps up
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: our news and notes that we've got so far. We
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: do have the Baseball Calendar release or Baseball Release calendar
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: set down in the show notes, so check that out.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: It hasn't shifted since last week, because yeah, TOPS is
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: still sticking to their guns in terms of knocking all
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: these products out in December and getting them on shelves
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: for everybody's holiday schedules. But the big one that's going
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: to be kicking off dropping on Wednesday, December third, when
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: this podcast drops, is going to be Alan and Ginter.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: We're going to take a short break and come back
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: and talk about that set. All right, Welcome back, everybody.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: We are going to get right into the throes of
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five Tops Allen and Ginter, which is one
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: of I would say the flag Ship, Well, it's not flagship.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Flag Pole releases four tops every year. In terms of
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: you know, you look at the ones that I think
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: everybody knows is coming and is looking forward to. You
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: have regular Flagship with just your kind of base design chrome.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: After that, then you probably layer in Tops Heritage as
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: the next one. I would probably put Alan Ginter. It's
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: worked its way up to being probably that next one,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: right behind Heritage for most collectors out there. Just in
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: terms of one, I mean, I think that the rookie
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: cards especially will hold most of their value pretty well
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: going to the future. But two, it is ubiquitously kind
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: of available. Usually it's available earlier in the season, as
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: we talked about earlier in the pod. Usually this is
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: a spring release, so it's coming out right after opening day.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: But you know, all the delays that we've kind of
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: discussed over the past couple months that have been going
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: on at Tops and Fanatics have impacted this product as well,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: as we'll get into it. There's so many moving parts
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: about this product that you know, we talk about sometimes
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: it'd be fascinating to see some of the project management
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: and business management behind the scenes for Tops and fanatics.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Allen Ginter is one of the sets where I can
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: only imagine what a nightmare it is to manage in
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: terms of all of the different variations and all the
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: different sizes of cards, and all the different autographs from
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: both players, celebrities, and just people that we don't even
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: know about because you know, new age twitch streamers or
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: YouTube streamers and they're well below like what we know
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: in terms of the general cultural sitegeist. So we're gonna
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: get into the details of this fund set. I think
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: one of the things that I always think about with
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Allen Ginter first is like it just reminds me of
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: like a circus, Like it's a good time. It's a
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: good fun rip like holiday. So I always do buy
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: a couple of blaster boxes every year just because you know,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: you never know what you're gonna get, and they're usually
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: generally nice looking cards. So what stands out to you
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: in terms of some of the hallmarks that you see
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: year over a year in Allen and Ginter, and what
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: do you enjoy from this that?
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Alan Ginter is is the variety. It's
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: such a unique product because it's you know, it's a
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: baseball product, but it's like everything.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: About the relation to baseball.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: So you've got celebrities, you've got unique icons that all
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: revolve around baseball somehow, and they make it in I
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: love the fact, I love an hate the fact that
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: they have so many different varieties of card types. And
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: this is going from base to chrome to ten to
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: full sized card to mini card, to many autograph to
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: framed autographs to all. I mean, there's just all these
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: different kind of varieties of cards. And so when you're
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: opening something like Alan Ginter, it's even when you're hitting
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: base cards, it doesn't feel like you're hitting base cards
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: the whole time because you're going from you know, Adrian
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Belte to Livy Dunn as far as you're you know,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: when you're ripping cards, and then you're you know, getting
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: a mini card, you're getting a card with a rabbit
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: on it. Sorry, I'm browsing eBay as we talk here.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of interesting things on there, and so
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: I think that just makes it fun because there is
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: a variety, which kind of takes me back some of
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: the old days when like the hits were a little
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: more plentiful, and even though these aren't technically all hits,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: you just feel like there's a lot more entertainment value
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: out of out of the set. So I think Alan
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Ginter is really really fun. There's gonna be something for
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: everybody in there, and you know, there's definitely sneaky value.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Alan GINTERD to your point, does oddly hold value like
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: the base rookies, like they do pretty gosh turn well
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: over time. I think it is a set that people
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: underestimate but ultimately do collect pretty heavily.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: So great, great set. I'm not sure if.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna end up repeting any myself this year, but
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: it's definitely something that's on the on the radars the
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: holidays hits because it's usually not something available at this
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: time of year.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a great point. And so we're
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: working with the standard checklist that they have here from
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Alan and Ginter. It's always a three hundred card base
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: set and then a fifty cards short print set that
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: kind of is the addendum if you're aware of like heritage,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: it's what they would call like the high numbers as well,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: where they used to do this back in the seventies too,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: where tops would short print some of the higher numbered
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: cards and that's the way Alan Ginters set up, so
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: it is a total mix across the board in terms
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: of the bass cards. You know, you've got active players
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: that includes you know, stars, rookies, and you've also got
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: former players Hall of famers in this I did notice
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: I was looking they they're getting closer and taking my
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: advice about getting to the old timy nineteenth century baseball.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: We've got Abner Powell in this set, who was miscredited
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: with inventing Ladies' Day and you know, just the lore
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: of nineteenth century baseball.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Still looking for the King Kelly, still looking for the
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: old Hoss Radburns Tops. If you're out there listening, get
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: into that and we will be buying sets left and right.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: But on top of baseball players in the set, we've
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: alluded to it, but if you're not familiar with it,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: you've got celebrities all across the board, Comedians, actors, singers,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: We've got chefs. I've actually saw online today on Reddit
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: that somebody who's already putting out the feelers for people
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: ripping out and Ginter because they do a pc of
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: chef autos, which, if you're not familiar, one of the
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: big ones that came out. I want to say it
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: was maybe like twenty sixteen ish was an Anthony Bourdain auto,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: which is honestly one of the whale cards out there nowadays,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: given Anthony Bourdain's passing. So this set brings in lots
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: of different folks because of that, because you have all
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: the different celebrities and things, and you always have like
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: also the gooners kind of chasing after like there's a
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Cat Denning's, there's Livvy Dunn. All sorts of kind of
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: strange cards in here as well as the inserts, will
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: create another dynamic where you know, people who collect cards
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: of different things get in on this action. So we
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: got birds and some other things that we'll get into.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: But the big motif here is that it's all throwback
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: to nineteenth century cards. If you're familiar with kind of
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: the origin of cards that used to be released in
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: tobacco packs, shout out to Red Dead Redemption two, which
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: will teach you all about this if you ever played
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: that game. But you know that's where the Honus Wagner
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: cards and stuff came from. Even before Honus Wagner, they're
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: working Kelly cards and other types of cards of nineteenth
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: century players that were in cigarette packs, especially Goodwin champions
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: and Allen and Ginter were the big ones back in
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: the day. So you always get a pretty classic looking
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: kind of throwback design on the Allen and Ginter cards
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: where it looks it's usually just like a portrait of
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: the person on the front and then on the back
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: it's pretty scant kind of biographical details. It's not big
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: on statistical information if that's in one of your kind
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: of calling cards when looking at baseball things. So lots
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: of things going on here, anything that kind of stands
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: out to you from the base checklist compared to prior years.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't think there's anything too much that
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: there's you know, it's it's the the usual where we
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: got some some you know, fun names from.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: Celebrities things like that in there.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: I've been expecting Brian Cranston to be one of the chases,
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: uh with and then here from a breaking bad perspective,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: I did get a kick out of looking at the
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: checklist and seeing that the vast majority of celebrities are
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: like at the later portion of the checklist, and then
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: they just randomly added in a few actual major league
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: ball players like they just ran out of numbers and
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: weren't sure what to do with them, So why not
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: get migable a rookie card between Scott Boris Michelle Fitzgerald.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: Why not?
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: So you know, it definitely seems like they were not
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: quite sure what they were doing with uh, with that.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: But the other thing I think is kind of fun
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: into not to bury the lead here a little bit
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: is the parallels or variations are not as substantial as
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: what you get in other sets. So you know, we
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: talk about the fifty or fifty five parallel versions in
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: like tops Chrome or Flagship things like that. It Ginter's
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: out about that. They do have them, don't get me wrong,
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: but it's not the same volume that they're playing with that.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: So I think that's that's absolutely gonna make it fun.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: And they do have some just unique conscerts. I'm sure
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: we'll get in here into a few minutes.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: So yeah, And I mean, I think another thing to
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: call out is within the checklist itself. If you're scanning
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: through it, you might notice that it's missing currently one
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: ninety eight, one ninety five and two eighteen I believe,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: or is it two eight? It's one of those two
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: eight two fifteen is where. Yeah, and so I think
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: this was supposed to be a surprise announcement on release
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: day from Wednesday when this is dropping on December third.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: But as we're looking at, people already have this stuff
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: in their hands, especially people who like have licensing deals
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: with tops to be able to like run hobby shops
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: and stuff. People can also get those and then like
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: not run a hobby shop and just rip, rip, rip rip,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: And so people are already doing that putting it up
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: on eBay. We know what those cards are. One ninety
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: eight and two fifteen are cards from the rap duo
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: The High and Mighty, which we weren't familiar with too
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: much until we remember that they had a song on
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Tony Hawk pro Skater two, which is just like, I mean,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: I don't even know how many hours I poured into
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: that game as a kid, but uh, maybe millions, And
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: so that song immediately just kind of came right back
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: to me, and so that I think there's probably gonna
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: be a special social media tie in with that or post.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: The other one is DJ Khaled, who is the middle
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: number there of the two oh eight. He actually is
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: going to be another one of the big chase cards.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: This is his first on card auto that's ever been
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: in a set, and they're already pushing it out on
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: social tops. Has an Instagram kind of little post that
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: goes and shows DJ Khaled signing these autographs in front
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: of a beach sunset. So that's gonna be I think,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: one of the chase autos. Let's get into some of
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: those parallels before we get into the autos, though, because
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: I know you're prepared for this, you don't even need
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: that big of a break. You might just be able to, like,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're gonna go no water before this parallel.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go no water, and I'm gonna give you
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: bonus because we're gonna we're gonna jump through the BaseT
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: and the chrome set parallels, and it's still gonna be
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: done in like half the time of the flagship chrome.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: So all right, well over to you.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: So from a BaseT perspective, we have I believe eight
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: true parallels on the base set and they're all what
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: the call filigree up if I pronounced that correctly, so
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: foil filigree, silver portrait parallels. Then you have gold foil,
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: orange foil, black foil, red foil. That's out of fifty
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: to twenty five, ten and five. Expecfully, you have glosses
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: out of one and purple foils out of one. You
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: also have your mini card parallel, so each of these
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: cards also has a mini version, and those have their
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: own parallel, which you have Mitchells back, Alan Ginter parallel,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: a black border no number out of fifty, a Brooklyn
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: back out of twenty five, a glossy and wood version
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: of those, and then from a chrome perspective, I'm on
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: the wrong checklist, so have to.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: Pause as we get through that.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: But from a chrome perspective, we also have a number
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: of parallels that go into those. So you have refractors extractors,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: gold refractors out of fifty, orange refractors out of twenty five,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: red refractors out of five, and the superfractor out of one.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: So depends on how you really want to look at this.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: From a full size base card, you arguably have for
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: a number of cards, there's only niney nine chrome variations
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: you have roughly like fourteen parallels, but your base set
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: you have eight, and if you want to call count,
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: your minis maybe double that, so much much smaller group overall.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and I think the one thing you'll have
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: to kind of pay attention if you are ripping this
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: product is that the mini parallels can be sometimes hard
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: to distinguish. And then you're even gonna we'll get into
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: it a little bit on the rip cards that there's
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: a separate checklist of minis there and and so you
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: have to really pay attention to the checklist on Allen
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: and Ginter when you're looking at those mini cards, because
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: some can be pretty rare and like you might not
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: know what you have, and so always look at that
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: when you're kind of pulling that mini card out of
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: the middle. And so when you are bringing these cards
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: relatively affordable, I would say that the retail value on
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: the hobby box should be around one hundred and fifty dollars,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: which is usually what's been around for Allen and Ginter.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Maybe a little bit higher.
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: Than it's been. Yeah, it's a little you know what
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: twenty thirties usually been.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean in the grand scheme of tops fanatics,
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: this is a discount.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And well, I mean people have also been a
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: little bit miffed by that because you skip four hits
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: in an Alan Ginter hobby box. It's only two this year,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: so I mean they usually were like the napkin kind
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: of little like cloth relic inserts where you know you
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: weren't getting a whole lot of value of them, especially
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: from the baseball side, or you know, if you're getting
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: like some obscure YouTuber and a piece of their shirt,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: like it can be hit and miss. Like again, this
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: goes back to like the Anthony Bourdain thing, Like the
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Anthony Bourdain relics are extremely valuable, but lots of the
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: celebrity ones are not, and so you're kind of mixing
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: and matching that. And it's really hard to hit autos
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: out of Allen Ginter. I've never hit one al Allen
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: and no, I take that back. I've hit one Denard
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Robinson mini auto who was a quarterback from Michigan a
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: couple of years ago. So I have hit one auto
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: out of Allen Ginter. But usually you're hitting the relics here,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: and so that's a consideration into all this. You also
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: will have single packs, fat packs, value boxes, slash blasters
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: that will hit retail environments, so you'll be able to
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: find Allen Ginter in both hobby shops and your targets.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Your Walmart's your Myers and stuff like that. So that's
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: what you can look forward to when you're ripping the
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Allen Ginter box there. But let's get into some of
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: the autos and real because I do think compared to
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: like previous times when we've covered this product, usually we
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: dive into the inserts first, but I think the auto
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: list is actually more intriguing this year, just because of
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: the mix of celebrities is really strong. I feel like
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: in terms of some of the chases. So I think
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: the number one chase auto is going to be the
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Livvy Dunn on card auto. It's also she's got a
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: duel with her older sister, Jewels, who I didn't I
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: wasn't aware of Jewels until we started researching for this podcast.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Today it just seems like Jewels has a great life
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: kind of writing the coattails of Livy, big ups to her.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: That's got to be awesome, and now is on this
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: card with her. So those are gonna be pretty big
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: chase cards out of here. But you're also looking at,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: like I said, the DJ Khalid autos, you have Larry
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: David autos again, which we had in series two or
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: is it update? It was one of the flagship products
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: you had Larry David on card autos, but they're back
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: again for Allen and Ginter. You've got a very very
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: serious cut auto checklist where like, honestly, this is probably
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: one of the best outside of something like a Tier
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: one or something, which is a really high end product.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: In terms of cut autos are honestly, they're usually checks,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: usually like sign checks from people who have passed away,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: and they'll cut an old auto from a check or
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: a picture or something and put it into a card.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: You also have the return of the lineup card checklist,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: where I always forget about this that I should have
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: probably opened with it, But go to rasball dot com
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: check out the pictures that go along with this post,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: because the one for cal Raleigh on the lineup card
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: checklist is fantastic. Primo. It just says dumper as he's
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: hitting in the eight hole. So it must have been
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, because I did not remember
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: cal Rally hitting in the eight hole at all this
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: year when he launched his sixty homers. So that's a
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: really cool card. A lot of those are one of ones.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: But what stands out to you from this auto checklist because,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: like I said, it is vast, and it is filled
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: with all sorts of celebrities, baseball players, presidents, other sorts
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: of figures that have historical importance. So anything really poppingto you?
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, first of all, the autograph lineup cards
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: I think are such such a cool thing. Now they
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: are of one, so there's only fifty total available, so
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: you know, definitely a hard chase there. But generally, as
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: you go through this checklist for the autos, almost everything
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: like this. This is a product where if you get
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: an auto, I honest say like eighty ninety percent.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Of it, you will be happy to your point.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: Cut signatures isn't a magnificent group. There's a Mickey Mantle
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: cut signature in this product, which is just insane to
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: have that available.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: But it's not just that.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: We're talking stand usual statil page, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: like that, Babe Ruth like it. There are an amazing
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: group of cut signatures in this product. Uh, cut signature relics,
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: same thing, big names. You do have all the free
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: framed autographs for a non baseball those are generally pretty
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: well said after.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: I think the only downfall.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: On you're gonna hit this where they have these mini
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: employee autographs, and so the go is actually like top
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: you know, there's gonna be somebody that like hits it
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: rips a box that hits too many employee autographs?
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: Are you here?
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: Like gosh day and I got Jerry and Brian again,
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Like that's sorry Jerry and Bryan for this name, but
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: that's like I could have got Babe Ruth and I
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: got I got Jerry Barron. So like I think that's
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: that's a fun one, but overall it is just an
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: absolutely chucked full checklist. And like even when you're looking
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: at the autograph of relics, which is really where the
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: volume of cards go, like there's a few names in here,
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: just like I wasn't so excited about my Louise hel
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: Luce riahs hit or my Kevin Alcintara, JJ Blade, But
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: like at the end of it, the vast majority of
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: you guys are big, big names, and so I think
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: that is a big draw for the product, because if
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: you hit an auto, you've paid for your box more
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: more or less.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: So I think that's that's a real fun aspect of it.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think that's a really good point,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: and I think on top of it too, especially like
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: if you're hitting any of the celebrity autos or even
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: the celebrity cards, I think can do this to a
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: bit of a degree is honestly, most of the celebrities
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: are involved in this are always like jazz to be
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: a part of it, and so they really do interact
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: with you on social media if you tag them in
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: like a post where you've pulled one of their autos.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: Most of these celebrities too, we'll set it up where
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: you know, if you get one of the base cards,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: you can send it into them and they'll sign and
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: return it to you. So lots of cool kind of
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: aspects to connect with some of the celebrities that are
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: involved in this product because usually their card collectors are
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: big baseball fans, and so there's a connection for them
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: to being in the set that's a little bit more
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: meaningful than it is for a typical baseball player, where
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: it's very rote and like they're used to being in
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: hundreds of these every year. A few other things I
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: think I want to call out are on top of
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: the mini autographs from the employees, which, like I said,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: it's kind of fun, it'd be a bummer if you
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: hit like two of them, but to get like one
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: of them would be fun because who knows, you're also
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: probably hitting the Santa Claus signer from Holiday, so like
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: it's a mini celebrity and kind of like the card world.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: But you've also got autographs. There's a quad auto for
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: the Mensingers of the band, the punk rock band, and
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: then there's a five quantiple auto for the Red klay
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Stras another band, so they'll both have those. I believe
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: they're one of one. They don't say in the checklist
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at, but I'm guessing those are one of one.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Those would be big chase cards as well, and then
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: each of those band members also have individual autos to relics.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: I think, like we said, it's a lot of like
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: napkin patches that get poop pooed I think in the
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: hobby collecting, because especially the ones that Alan Ginter, I
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: don't even think they're game used. They're usually like player
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: worn or event worn, and they're very small and they're
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: not very excite on those, yeah, exactly, And so like
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: unless you're getting one of the numbered ones, like the
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: of five or the of ones, you're not going to
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: get a very good patch, or if you're getting one
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: of the celebrity ones, it's a it's a strange portion
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: of like a shirt, or maybe it could be a
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: fun tie or something. I did see the Paul rust
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: one today on Reddit where it was like a portion
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: of a logo from one of his comedy groups, which
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: is kind of cool. But the relic that you really
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: want to hit is they always include this. They have
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: dinosaur DNA relics. They're of twenty five again, and so
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: you can get a real piece of a dinosaur fossil
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: that is like encased in a little mini card. And
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: these things are just super popular all the time that
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: like I've never seen them, kind of like devalue and
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: like people all across the board love these dinosaur relics.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: So you know you've got your Alisaurus, your hadros are,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: your phtosare I'm not even gonna try to if you're
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: looking at the checklist, I'm not even gonna try to
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: pronounce that next one. And I'm gonna go for it.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: My niece is going to be so disappointed in me.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: I think it's a pocket pucket Pelsaurus, a raptor Stigosaurus
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: and a Tranosaurus rex. So those are a huge based cards.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: They always are. They're up twenty five gonna be one
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: of the things that people really go after. Have you
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: seen any of like the cooler relics actually ever? In person?
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: I think there's one time at show I've seen one
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: of these dino relics, and it is it's just like
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: it's hard to like take your eyes off of it
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: because it's just like such a fascinating card.
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I really haven't.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: I'm actually looking like on eBay right now there's like
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: only one available from twenty nineteen available for sale is
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: for seven hundred bucks, so it's up there. Like actually, sorry,
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: there's two of them. There's a sawfish and a fossilized
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: trial by that are out there, you know, six ninety
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: same range there, So yeah, they are.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: They're very cool. They're just so unique.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: And this is honestly one of those things that so
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: many polesing is what's this and just toss to the
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: side thinking it's like fake. So, I mean, Alan Ginder's
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: just known for these these odd well things. I completely
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: forgot about the dino DNA.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't go Allen and Ginter with that talking
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: to dinod DNA. It also segues us into the next portion,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: which is the inserts, and so I think this is
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: the other spot where Alan and Ginter gets just really
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: fun all of the insert sets that they run, and
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: so usually they're always featuring something either related to nature
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: or food, and so this year the ones that we're
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: looking at are there are beach related ones, so just
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: pictures of little beaches. You've got fish, which I think fish,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: it feels like fish is every year that like it's
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: a big one, along with birds is usually in there.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: But you've got lighthouses this year, You've got a thirty
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: card checklist of different lighthouses from the United States, and
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: there it is State Birds is the bird variation that
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: they have this year. They've also got a few other
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: cool ones in terms of a uniform countdown where it's
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: actually only ten cards starting at twenty one with Roberto Clemente,
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: so it aligns with the number of the player, and
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: then it's a short printed card. You've got of twenty
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: four World se cards from the Dodgers. You've got minis
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: of like eighteen ninety nine throwbacks to Allen and Ginter,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: and you've got Sweet Victory and Wicked Curves are your
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: other two baseball related sets, where Sweet Victory I'm guessing
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: has a tie into the World Series and Wicked Curves
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: is all nasty pitchers with great curveballs. Sadly no Anim
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: Wainwright for some reason in that checklist, which is an oversight.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: But which one of these inserts these? And they're all minis.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: So that's another variation too, is that that makes it
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: kind of fun if you're putting these sets together, which
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: of them is the most intriguing to you?
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: I think it's it's pretty easy for me, and it's
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: the uniform countdowns and the thing I like.
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: But and it's not that unique.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: So we saw this actually in the flagship this year
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: where they took players numbers and they plasted all over
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: the card and it.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: Was out of their player number.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: But what's really unique about this, and you said it,
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: there's ten cards they run from card towel from jersey
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: number twenty one to thirty. So it's Clemente, Kershaw, Samberg, Maze,
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: Tome Bogs, Guerrero, bl Levin Carew, and Nolan Ryan and
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: so it's a great, great group.
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: But what's really.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: Interesting is this has been an ongoing run for or
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: Alan Ginter every year. So they started three years ago
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: doing you know, single ditchits one through ten. Now they
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: went eleven through through twenty. Now they're up to the
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: thirties or yeah, And so that's I think what's really
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: interesting is this like this cross set collecting that they're
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: kind of encouraging here, and it actually gets easier as
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: you go, and so I'd have to go back and
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: look to see who is number one, number two and
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: things like that in there, but such a fun unique
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: thing to try to chase, and it is pretty hard
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: hard to get as well. So I think that's just
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: a cool, cool concept, Like it you're taking a card
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: that has some rarity and you're adding just a really
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: unique element to it that I really have not seen
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: play through at any other sets where they've actual continued
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: a concept, not just like report repeating an insert, but
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: truly continuing like a set throughout.
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: Multiple mostile years.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: And if they're gonna pull it off, it's like ten
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: years of Valan Ginter ripping to try to actually uncover
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: all of these guys all the way up to mister
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: Judge at ninety nine.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, that is pretty cool. I'm excited to see some
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: of those weird numbers they have to come up with,
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: because we're gonna have to dip into the obscure reliever
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: pool to finish that up. So we'll see how that
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: figures out in I mean, we've got a while, so
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be yeah often, So.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: I'm over here looking up really important facts Big dumper
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: cow Rally, he's only hit eighth, started a game hitting
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: eighth once in the last three years, and so if
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: you really want to know, you probably know exactly what
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: gained us from that's gonna be I think it was.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: What was it.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: April twenty eighth or something like that. Now May twenty ninth,
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: of twenty twenty four, he had like twenty twenty two.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: He's like an eight hold hitter a lot of times,
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: but you actually almost identify where that's at.
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: And then we're gonna have to go back and.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: We're gonna go find out who's like number one on
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: on the inserts so you can come back to me later,
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: but well, we'll have this all figured out. Who's who's
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: the countdown of all these these fun cards.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, I know too, it's definitely Jeter, but I'll
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: let you find one, but that is cool. On the
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: dumper card that like, honestly, that's probably really unique in
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: terms of like the other cards, It's probably gonna be
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: really hard to figure out which lineup card it specifically
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: comes from, but you can pinpoint that one for cal
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: rally there, so that's gonna be pretty cool. The last
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: probably variation of card that we have to talk about
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: is probably the most important and most popular from the
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: Onen Ginter set, even though lots of the stuff, like
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: I said, it's got its niches out there, and we're
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: talking the rip cards because these are randomly inserted as
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: usually box toppers. I believe I've never even seen like
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: how they're open, because I've never kind of watch it.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: But they've got to be big enough to be boxtoppers
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: because what it is, it's either a single or a
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: double rip card where you open up a flap of
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: it and there is a mini card inside of it.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: So when we were talking about those mini cards and
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: having like a separate checklist and stuff, this is what
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: we're alluding to you because the actual base cards from
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: the set all have mini parallels, but then there are
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: exclusive rip card only pair mini parallels that are only
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: in the rip cards, and so you've got to check
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: the checklist, especially if you're looking at like card shows
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: or eBay listings, to know which one the card is
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: coming from, because you can sometimes find the rare rip
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: card minis get shuffled into like dollar boxes and stuff
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: within card shows, but they're certainly rarer and more collectible
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: than that, and also include like just better players. It's
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: usually like Hall of Famers and rookie cards that you
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: actually want and stuff like that, so it adds to
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: that value. So the conundrum always is if you get
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: one of the rip cards, because they're also numbered, like
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: they will be some of them will be low numbered.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: I think I've seen like pictures of ones that are
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: like a Babe Ruth of three, and people won't rip
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: them to see what's inside, and so you can see
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: if there's some of the rarer parallels, because you also
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: that's where you're getting stained glass parallels, which only come
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: from the rip cards. You also get of three metal
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: parallels and one of one would parallels in those rip
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: cards for the minis, And so what people will do,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: especially if it's a rip card, that they're kind of
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: hesitant to maybe rip is they'll take a magnet to
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: it to see whether or not you get an of
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: three metal mini card in there, and so there's just
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: lots of fun. It's one of my favorite parts of
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: Baseball card Reddit too, is anytime that anybody posts a
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: rip card on there, everybody in the comments is just.
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: Like rip You've got to rip it, rip it, rip it?
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: And so have you ever had a rip card? Brew
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: and have you ripped it?
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: I have never had an unripped rip card. I've definitely
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: and I think there's a resale value even on the
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: rip cards because a lot of them do get numbered
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: as well.
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: And so I think it is fun.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: I've not seen this numbered in the checklist this year,
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: but from his history, I've seen that there definitely can
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: be numbered rip cards and so even those have some
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: collectible outcomes as long as you don't completely destroy the
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: card when when ripping it. So I've never actually rippled myself,
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: but you're absolute right, is such a conundrum there, especially
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: when you get a big name, because from at least
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: what I've seen is there's not generally a rhyme or
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: reason behind what's insert in the cards, so you might
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: get like a low number, show hey o Tani and
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: be like, if I rip this, the thing in here
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: has to be amazing. And it's like a base card
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: of I don't know, like Louise Rayahs, a pick on
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: Louis Eris and as many podcasts I can and so
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: like it's something like that, which then all of a
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: sudden you devalue that card so much because it's like
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: a sealed box, right, and uh, it's it's just such
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: a gamble. But you're absolutely right, you see it. There's
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: so much like strategy. Trying to somehow figure out what's
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: inside Weighing cards is definitely something you know, frown upon
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: and not in the In the hobby, you're probably gonna
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: find your autos that way because the ink's not gonna
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: weigh too too much. But if you're going after your metals,
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: stained glass or wood things like that, you might find them.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: But there's a lot of like big things. It's like
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: getting rips and finding the autos and things like that
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: in there. So it's I love the concept. It's so
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: fun because it's like something that there's it's a secondary rip.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: It's a secondary decision that you have to make when
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: going through the product, and you can take a card
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: worth one hundred bucks and go to a card work five,
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: and you can go from a card work five to
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: a card work five hundred, and it's just it's luck
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: of the draw. Yeah, there are some ways to try
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: to work around it. Even heard of people trying to
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: x ray these things to try to see what's what's inside.
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: But I just I think it's just such a unique
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: concept to even have some double rip cards where you
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: can get multiple card from the inside as well. So
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: love the rip cards. If you ever pull one, you're
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: you're gonna rip it to some point if you don't
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: sell it.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: I'm just telling you now, that's how this works.
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: Because for for those folks, if you rip the box
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: to get in there, you clearly don't have self control
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: in the first place, and so you're gonna rip this
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: card at some point.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I've never had my gotten my hands
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: on one either, but yeah, I look forward to the
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: day because I don't know, it does feel like also
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: like when you do get one, like it's probably gonna
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: like line up that's like perfectly in your PC and
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: like really makes it tough for you. But man, yeah
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: it would be really fun just to like also go
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: through the process of like that emotional roller coaster of
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: having this perfect card where you know it's got value
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: and once you rip it, it's just not the same.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: And plus ripping a card just feels really strange. The
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: only other time I've done it is with a Wander
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: Fronco card, So it's, uh, it's a visceral experience, I'm sure.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: So did you find number one in the checklist?
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: I am so disappointed myself right now. It's Ozzy Smith
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: and I should think through this. The the top five,
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: there's three cardinals because you got Azzi Yatti and Albert.
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: True that are really anchoring that You're absolutly right.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: Number two was Derek, Number three was out it was
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: a Rod So you know, maybe, yeah.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: Is Stan six or is that Luke Gerrig.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: Six is Kline Okay, seven's bg o h Ripken nine
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: is Ted Williams and Tennis Shipper Jones, So I'm not sure.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: Maybe there's some licensing issues himself with a few of those,
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I was very disappointed in both of us
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: for the number one.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Yes, that is a little bit of an embarrassment for us.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: In this podcast, we will maybe recunited that part out
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: for us. Okay, well, I think with that we are
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: going to wrap up our discussion here on Ellen Ginter
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. If you're out there ripping this product,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: reach out to us, send us some pics of some
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: of your hits. We'd love to see it, love to
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: chat with you about it. You can reach the podcast
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: at cards categories at gmail dot com. You can find
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: it on blue Sky at cards Categories. You can also
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: find the podcast on rasball dot com. Like I said,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: if you go there, you'll get a nice little layout
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: of pictures of Allan Ginter to look at while you're
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: listening to this podcast, and then you can just kind
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: of look at some of the things that we've talked about,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: although honestly, with Elan Ginter, it feels like we've had
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: a good time kind of describing a lot of these things,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: more so than other cars that we've come across in
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: the past. So check out rasball dot com. We're still
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: going strong in the off season. We've got prospects stuff
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: up from the Itch, We've got Gray doing his preseason
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: outlooks on some players, and we've also got other writers
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: popping in here and there. So there's been lots of
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: great perspectives and profiles going on. Brew. Let everybody know
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: where they can find you.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: Yep, find me Twitter x, Blue Sky, Jabrewer one seven,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: catch me on on the off season. If you want
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: to chat cool work from folks find you.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can find me on Blue Sky at MC
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: cool seven cool spelled co O U I L L
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: like my last name. And then you can also check
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: out those show notes for any cards and categories gear
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: you might want. We've got beanies, we've got hats, we've
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: got coffee mugs, we got baby onesies. Check it out
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: in the links in the show notes, and with that
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: we're gonna wrap it up for this week. It was
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: a nice little week talking about Alan Ginter. We've got
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: plenty of other December releases to cover over the coming weeks,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: so we'll be with you throughout this off season on
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: ras Ball with the Cards and Categories Podcast. Thanks everybody
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: for checking us out. We'll see you, same time, same
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: place next week.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: Zo