Yesterday I mentioned my surprise that PCA has a silver pack card in both series one and two. I thought that didn't make any sense.
Then I looked at the checklists to see if there were other players that were in both series. It turns out that there are quite a few, 23 to be exact.
The players can be divided into three categories, retired, stars, and rookies.
Retired (1): Miguel Cabrera
Stars (10): Ronald Acuña, Sonny Gray, Vladimir Guerrero, Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Julio Rodríguez, Fernando Tatis, Mike Trout, and Bobby Witt
These are some of the biggest names and if any players deserve to be in both series, these make sense.
Rookies (12): Junior Caminero, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Elly De La Cruz, Jasson Domínguez, Zack Gelof, Jordan Lawlar, Marco Luciano, Ronny Mauricio, Ceddanne Rafaela, Nolan Schanuel, Tyler Soderstrom, and Masyn Winn
It looks like PCA wasn't the only player that Topps was taking a gamble with. But at least he's spent some time in the big leagues. Four of the twelve (Caminero, Dominguez, Lawlar, and Mauricio) have yet to appear in a big league game in 2024. They have more cards in the silver packs, two, than appearances in a 2024 MLB game, zero.
Of the eight with big league time in 2024, only three have an average above .250, De La Cruz (.252), Luciano (.375 over ten games but then got hurt and is back in AAA), and Winn (.288).
None of the twelve are doing anything worthy of inclusion in both series one and two.
De la Cruz may join the 30/70 club inaugurated by Acuna, while I agree cards in both sets suggests that too much is getting printed, I'd say if you base it on performance he probably qualifies for the repeat treatment.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, the four who have not appeared in a big league game have all been dealing with injuries this year, otherwise I think they would have all made an appearance with their parent clubs by now. They have played in only 68 minor league games between them.
ReplyDeleteYeah, as a Mets fan I know Mauricio got hurt playing winter ball, and almost certainly would have played for the big club at least some if he were healthy. In fact there's a good chance he'd be a starter.
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