#42 - 2012 ALDS

What’s that Turtle doin’? Just celebratin' a playoff victory here. I mean, it's not like a post-season card is ever going to show something not all that happy.

I don't think cards for the playoffs have been all that common in Topps Baseball sets. Some years yes, most years no. Far more years probably include World Series cards, but only those.

But overall, I would have to think cards for the Division Series, or the Wild Card, would have to have been made much less often than for the League Championship Series.

I hesitated on how to label this post. The Topps checklist lists it as "Detroit Tigers®" but that doesn't feel right to me, even though the Tigers are my favorite team. There are 2 teams in every series of course. The Tigers won the series, so that is plenty of satisfaction for them already. I also think labeling such a card by the actual series will be more useful later, perhaps, when I'm really old and forgetful.

On this particular card, the Series One cover player, Prince Fielder, takes center stage. The true hero of that particular game is on the left side of the card, being hugged by some other team-mates. Fielder went 1-for-5 in this game, with an RBI, from just a single, and contributed little in the rest of the series. Tigers fans never had much to celebrate about Fielder in October.

So it goes with "celebration" cards, which seem to have about a 50% shot at accurately depicting the player that did the most to create the celebration. On some such cards, Topps accurately shows off a game hero. On others, not so much. That's about how I feel about these types of cards - once in a while, I think "heck yeah" - other times, not so much.

Uniform Hero? Topps finesses this checklist decision quite well, with the first non-player card in the set. Otherwise, they would have only one choice of player to place here: Mariano Rivera. 

Clearly, some star players have to be held every year for inclusion in Series Two, which is where we will eventually find Rivera. Still, the decision seems a little puzzling, given all the All-Star power assembled in the first 1/13th of the checklist, overall. 

It has always seemed to me that everyone around MLB was always quite contented that the last player to wear #42 was an obvious future Hall of Famer, so I will always be a little bemused that Topps didn't show off the uniform<>checklist connection a little extra explicitly, right here.

Where’d the egg hatch? The Detroit Tigers first played a baseball game in 1894. In 1901, their league, the American League, declared itself a "Major" league, and their stats and history are recorded as part of MLB from that year forward.

How about the migrations? The Tigers have not had any franchise moves since that 1901 debut. They have gone 4-7 in the World Series, with their last victory coming in 1984.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

On this side of the card, Topps does celebrate the true hero of the series for the Tigers, including some thoughts and stats for his Win in Game 1 as well. 

I have never seen the point of printing a line score of a game on the back of a baseball card.

A complete box score would be far more entertaining, and given 21st Century type sizes and printing technology, I have always felt one could be printed on a card rather easily. Plus, the Topps card back writer could take a break, and let the box score do all the work.

Bling That Shell I didn't really find access to the Orange parallels all that early in this project. I was mostly avoiding single card purchases on eBay, as with $3 shipping on every card, I would never be able to get many cards that way for this project. Over time, I found non-eBay sellers where I could purchase multiple cards for a single shipping charge. When I found a seller with a couple dozen of the /230 Factory Set Orange parallels that I could use, I pounced on this one:

#37 - Max Scherzer

What’s that Turtle doin’? Max seems a little skeptical about the pitch he is about to throw here. Maybe he didn't like his Catcher's sign, or maybe he is not getting along with the Ump that day. 

Unlike many Pitching cards we have seen there is very little here to suggest captured live game motion; even though it is such, it also looks quite a bit like a posed shot. Perhaps following the line of the left arm and then the glove leads the viewer back to the ball, with the "troit" logo illustrating where the ball is headed in 3...2...1...

For such a clear view of Scherzer's eyes, the lighting angle in the stadium that day and the shadow interplay make it just about impossible to pick up Max's famously different color eyes.

Perhaps one of the more notable features of this card is a quite clear view of the Rawlings logo on the glove; a pity it is upside down.

Uniform Hero? This is one of the first times I have ever really thought about how Detroit puts the uniform # on the road uni, as seen here. Giving Scherzer this checklist spot seems a tad prescient on the part of Topps; his career was certainly good to this point but he was just getting warmed up. Ironically, the most heroic other player wearing #37 in 2012 was Stephen Strasburg, who would appear in Series 2 with his own Hero #. But overall it was a nice touch by Topps, printing this run of Lee-Hernandez-Verlander-Weaver-Scherzer; a checklist sequence I doubt we will see again until some 25th Anniversary of the Sea Turtles, somehow, perhaps.

Where’d the egg hatch? Scherzer was drafted originally by the Diamondbacks in 2006, as the 11th pick. He was also drafted out of High School by his hometown Cardinals in 2003, but in the 43rd round - a draft position that would not hand out any signing bonus at all, which probably made pursuing a college education an easy decision.

How about the migrations? Like most post-college draftees, Scherzer reached the majors 2 years later with a fairly nice yet unremarkable debut of 56 Innings Pitched in 2008. His 2009 #s - full 170 IP, 4.12 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 174 SO - have always interested me. At about an even 1 K / Inning, I somewhat assume here that Arizona didn't have the greatest defense in 2009.

My interest in those specific stats flows from what happened after that season, when Arizona traded away Max Scherzer. Turns out, Arizona was ranked 29th in Fielding % that year. Maybe the Diamondbacks should have considered FIP or some other advanced Pitching stats before pulling that trigger. Maybe Detroit did.

At first glance it seems like a complicated trade to analyze, with 6 players on the move and 3 different teams involved. The Tigers gave up Curtis Granderson to the Yankees, early in his career; he would thrive batting left in the House That Ruth Built, with it's very special "porch." However the Tigers also received Austin Jackson in this same trade, who proved to be a plenty serviceable replacement for Granderson, on a roster plenty stacked offensively anyway.

The Diamondbacks? They gave up Max Scherzer and in return received perpetual journeyman starter Edwin Jackson and a young Ian Kennedy, who put up a 21 Win season in Arizona not long after, but could not maintain such results. Dave Dombrowski notched another one here.

Ahh, what might have been, such is Major League Baseball. Speaking of which, Tigers fans still today like to whine and complain about the Tigers giving up Scherzer after his contract expired in 2014, as if Detroit could have somehow afforded a $100 Million rotation of Verlander, Scherzer, Porcello, Price, and Sanchez in perpetuity. Scherzer eventually signed in Washington for 7 years @ $30 Million per; it is highly doubtful that Detroit offered him more than they had already signed Verlander for - $28 Million.

This all means Scherzer is signed in Washington through 2021.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

One surprise here is as yet not a single league leading stat, though Topps certainly seems to be predicting some with the text. The 2013 season to come after this card was Scherzer's first to really display elite level production. From this point on, his card backs would be covered with stats printed in red.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 829 strikeouts, Scherzer is 4,885 away from Nolan Ryan's all-time record of 5,714.

Unfortunately for this idea, Max got off to a bit of a slow start; only reaching 200 Ks in his 4th full season. However, he would go on to throw a 300 Strike Out season....so....

After the 2018 season, Scherzer has 2,449 strikeouts, so he is 3,265 away from Nolan Ryan's all-time record of 5,714.

Subspecies? This card appears in both Opening Day and Chrome, but otherwise has no other variants.

Bling That Shell This has been an action packed page of parallels, and Max Scherzer cards have action packed prices on them. So I was quite content to find a simple Target Red parallel for about a buck fifty not long ago:

I was very happy to finally receive that card and fill the last spot on this page. By lucking into the Lee and Feliz parallels in a lot purchase, while also spending a little (about $8 each) on the deliberate purchases of specific parallels for Beltre and Verlander, I had many options on finishing this one. This page then becomes the first without a blue foil parallel from Opening Day, and also the first without a /2013 Gold parallel as well. I only recently made sure this nuttily complex collection has one of each main parallel and team color combination; I think I will also insure there is a page without each key parallel color as well. That should be the final (well, I hope so) binding rule I will place on creating these colorful binder pages:

#35 - Justin Verlander

What’s that Turtle doin’? Just hangin' out here on just about the most just exactly perfect horizontal baseball card that one could dream up, really.

This is a card I think of when I hear people complain about horizontal cards, though only one of many.

Basically, this baseball card has a lot of baseball on it. The second baseman seems to be taking a step towards some anticipated action; perhaps the batter is swinging at the pitch.

Yet Justin just finished his motion so recently that his necklace is still slung out there towards his just exactly perfect leg kick, captured completely for a nice change afforded by the horizontal format.

And out there beyond all this glorious baseballness is the visiting bullpen, and the yellow Home Run line, and some fans, and there off in the distance, the back wall of Comerica Park, that we all know the batter has very little chance of reaching, against this Pitcher. A classic Made in Detroit baseball card, which Topps makes a lot of.

Topps liked this photo so much they used it on one of the "sell sheets" for Series One.

See, the brain of the turtle is of course: "Topps"

Uniform Hero? Oh yes. We are right in the middle of a virtual Murder's Row of Aces here.

Where’d the egg hatch? Justin Verlander was a #1 draft pick for the Tigers in 2004, selected as the 2nd overall pick. I actually went to see the Tigers the year they lost 119 games; this was their reward. A couple of Verlander nemeses were drafted several picks afterwards, as we shall see soon, and later. Meanwhile with the first pick that year, the Padres got Matt Bush.

How about the migrations? Unlike some of his checklist neighbors, JV would not remain with the Tigers forever, much to the chagrin of the Tiger fanbase. The Farm was mortgaged for multiple exciting shots at The Series, and eventually a price had to be paid.

And somewhat literally, by the Tigers, as when they traded Verlander to Houston in 2017, they had to agree to pay $8 Million of his $28 Million salary. This is a trade structure that somewhat allows a team to purchase some additional prospects, in a sense.

They received a CF, Daz Cameron, a C, Jake Rogers, and a P, Franklin Perez. The jury is still out on that return, at least for Detroit. Houston won a World Series already, though their club is pretty stacked all the way around, anyway.

One key piece of the trade, Perez, spent most of 2018 injured. Detroit's strategy to climb out of the cellar is to build around a young, cost-controlled core starting rotation. Doing that with plenty of Catcher prospects being battery mates with all the Pitching prospects spilling ink in Tigers coverage seems like a good strategy.

Verlander will be a free agent for the 2020 season, and likely to keep pitching.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

12 League Leads, pretty impressive, and a definitive new Lead on the cards in this set. Though I'm not sure anyone would really want a Lead in Losses to really count. It might take another Tiger to recapture this Lead in the set, we'll see.

That post-1917 streak Topps discovered on this card back almost seems to be crying out for an insert card to be created around it. But a streak is not quite a chase, and this is the year of The Chase.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 124 wins, Verlander is 387 away from Cy Young's all-time record of 511.

The classic stat line of being a "20 Game Winner" seems to be an increasingly rare thing in Major League Baseball, but Justin Verlander has one of those on this card back. He still has just about zero chance of ever Winning 511 games.

After the 2018 season, Verlander has 204 Wins.

Subspecies? This classic baseball card image is also found in 2013 Opening Day and Chrome, but there are no other Justin Verlander cards with this design.

Bling That Shell I think I had a couple different strategies to build the binder page this card is on before I realized that a) the Tigers, sort of, if you think about it, have a secondary team color, though it is never on any of their uniforms, and b) there is a parallel card of that color. Luckily, this card features a nice bright sunny day, because this team parallel harmony is nicely bright:

#28 - Prince Fielder

What’s that Turtle doin’? Sluggers gotta slugg, particularly when they are the cover boy on a Topps product. Prince Fielder served as the face of 2013 Series One, appearing on all the wrappers, boxes, etc. Topps already had a bit of a thing for Fielder, making him card #1 in the 2010 set. Perhaps that somewhat helps explain passing over a slightly more obvious choice, as one of Fielder's team-mates had just won the first Triple Crown in 45 years.

Although the Tigers had just been swept in the previous World Series, they were keeping the band together to a large degree and much was expected for the 2013 club once again. This remains the only Topps wrapper I can recall to feature a Detroit Tiger as the sole face of a set of cards, something likely to remain true for a quite a while to come as I write early in 2019. 2013, however, was an exciting time to be a Tigers fan collecting baseball cards, and is perhaps one reason I took to this set so quickly upon it's release.

I like to think of this card as The Slugger With The Far-Away Eyes. This is the fifth such card in the set, a post-swing photo where a Hitter has clearly just made contact. On this one, I think, Fielder's eyes have the best launch angle so far. If only Alexa or Siri could just instantly measure that for me, we could know that for sure. Though a launch angle that is too high is just a pop-up. But what fun would it be to imagine that?

On all such cards, I can't help but look for signs that the batter is beginning to initiate running to First Base; although that is likely a pretty vain hope as the photographer is not trying to capture that and most such cards are a snapshot in time just before that starts. Although card #1 - Bryce Harper, does manage to combine the Hitter checking the flight of the ball he just hit, and evidence of running.

Still, seeing the Hitter checking out what the ball is doing, rather than running, seems somewhat wrong to me, as a fan. That is totally unfair on my part, as I am looking at a fixed point in time, rather than a continual segment of time. I bring all this up because as with the previous card for Mike Trout this card supplies a bit of a premonition, though with this card regarding how Fielder would end up leaving Detroit, just a year after this card was produced.

Uniform Hero? Oh yes. Long-time collectors know well how fallible Topps can be on the little things, but they are hardly going to drop the ball on handing out a premium checklist spot for the guy on the wrapper.

Where’d the egg hatch? Milwaukee drafted Fielder in the 1st round in 2002, as the 7th pick. He debuted with the Brewers in 2005.

How about the migrations? Fielder's career really took off in 2007, when he became the youngest player to hit 50 Home Runs. When his initial contract ended in Milwaukee after the 2011 season, there was much wailing and lamentation - Fielder was very popular there, playing for a club and a fanbase that felt reaching the final step of appearing in a World Series was in it's grasp. A few weeks prior, Albert Pujols had finally ended a similar drama in St. Louis by taking a huge(r) offer from the California Angels. Brewers fans at the time liked to note that Pujols was 32 years old already, whereas Fielder was only 27 - perhaps the following saga is on the minds of baseball GMs with money to spend, this offseason.

The Brewers' final re-sign offer was said to be 6 years, $120 Million. Scott Boras turned this down flat. Instead, Detroit Tigers owner Mike Illitch swept in with a 9 year, $214 Million offer (4th largest in MLB history to that point) in the 3rd week of January, 2012 - considered a bit of a late signing at the time, which makes for another interesting comparison to the 2019 offseason. A classic baseball tale that often makes one wonder - do we root for the actual teams, or the different owner / ownership groups? What if Mike Illitch had been born in Wisconsin?

Initial results were wonderful in Motown for Fielder - no one quibbles with a team that appears in a World Series. But for a team that loses the World Series? Oh, yes. Though perhaps not right away.

2013 was another bang-up year in Detroit, with a first place finish and a trip to the ALCS - but a lost ALCS. Immediately afterward, everything unraveled for Fielder and the Detroit Tigers fans, an increasingly public baseball phenomena in the 21st Century. Fielder only hit 25 Home Runs in 2013 - were the Tigers expected to pay $1 Million for each one? More astute fans noted a 120 point drop in his OPS.

But stats don't light up Social Media complaints like video clips and interview soundbites do. Fielder was caught on the basepaths during an ALCS loss in Boston, and that summarized much for the angry fans, despite Fielder's long career of proving his hustle - a career that included not 1 but 2 inside-the-park Home Runs. Worse was to come when a post-season interview seemed to indicate a bit of apathy about the playoff exit on Fielder's part; then the fury really mounted amongst the ever increasing binary fanbase public view of all sports results being Championship OR Suck. I often think pro athletes truly earn their money spouting endlessly repetitive sports cliches in interviews for years on end - but woe to the athlete that breaks the unwritten rules of those largely pointless affairs, as Manny Machado is discovering currently.

But the most important view was held by the man who agreed to give Prince Fielder the $214 Million - Mike Illitch. He let his displeasure be known, somewhat, and his all-timer type GM, Dave Dombrowski, was ordered to work his magic. This soon resulted in an astounding trade of the massive contract with the Tigers receiving Ian Kinsler from the Rangers while agreeing to pay some 25-ish% of Fielder's salary in Texas for the remaining 7 years on his contract.

Fielder's career in Texas was a stop.start.stop affair, with an injury (neck) shortened season in 2014, followed by one of his normal iron man type seasons in 2015, and then finally grinding to a tragic halt in 2016 with a neck/spinal cord injury that prevented further playing. Fielder announced this with a tearful final press conference during the season, wearing a neck brace at the time.

There are several angles to the whole Fielder/Detroit/Texas experience not widely known to observers outside of the Tiger fan base, and some of these partially shaped the club for several seasons to come. One was greatly explained by a trade in July, 2013, though some reasons behind it weren't known until not long after the Fielder trade in November, 2013.

The July trade shipped rising Outfield prospect Avisail Garcia to the White Sox - we will see the results of this trade with a post here for a Tigers card in Update, many years from now. It was widely rumored that a major downer for Fielder, in 2013, was off-field marital problems involving one of his own team-mates. This culminated in a clubhouse fight between him and Garcia, which also dragged in Miguel Cabrera, and led immediately to the Garcia trade. The saddest part of the affair by far was the potential that it contributed to the beginnings of injury trouble for Fielder, and also for surefire future Hall of Famer Cabrera. This is the type of what-happens-in-the-clubhouse-stays-in-the-clubhouse incident that usually only comes out decades later in baseball books, which are usually only written about the greatest All-Timers of the game; it remains a little unclear to me if Miguel Cabrera will some day rate such a tome in the tl;dr century. If only he could have won a World Series in Detroit, too...

As all that salaciousness only slowly became known in the sad post-ALCS loss for the Tiger fanbase, they found a large ray of hope in the Fielder trade. Prince's move would allow Miguel Cabrera to return to First Base, something hopefully good for his playing time longevity, as the Tigers had a hot young hitter available to take over at Third - Nick Castellanos. With the exit of the now unpopular Fielder, the trade largely appeared to be an addition by subtraction effort for many Tigers fans.

A final bit of mysteriousness surrounds the financial impact facing the Tigers for paying all that money ( > $40 Million) for him to play in Texas. This probably became a bit of a wash for Detroit, due to Fielder's career ending injury, as there was surely injury insurance on a guaranteed contract that large. However no one really knows how the Fielder and Kinsler contracts were composed in that regard, and which team ultimately paid out how much in the situation.

All of this was hardly a storybook season of triumphs Topps likely had in mind when they selected Prince Fielder to appear on so much baseball card packaging. I would like to see another Detroit Tiger on a Topps wrapper some day, I guess.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

This card back perhaps reveals a selection factor for just why Topps went all-out with Fielder and their 2013 Series One baseball cards, something so unique in the history of the Detroit Tigers. Fans love the long ball, and so does Topps - win the Home Run Derby, and you will appear on a whole lot of baseball cards.

The 7 Lead Leader in Italics recorded here tie Fielder with his former teammate Ryan Braun, and Ryan Howard as well, for a lead among card backs in this set. Not recorded by Topps is the probable League Lead in "Wt" where Fielder bests Howard by 35. Perhaps that could serve as a tie-breaker.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 260 home runs, Fielder is 502 away from Barry Bonds' all-time record of 762.

Plenty of fans (well, aside from a few in Detroit) would have rooted for the usually affable Prince Fielder to win this particular race, and this is the only likely comparison in a baseball card back trivia contest like this one.

Fielder would finish his career with 319 Home Runs.

Subspecies? Though I would like to see a baseball card of Prince Fielder about to crush the fans along the rail while chasing a foul ball for a potential "Great Catch" short print, such was not to be.

But a 'wrapper man' is surely going to receive other such photo variation efforts in 2010s style Topps Baseball cards, and this same card does appear in Opening Day and Chrome. For his Chrome card, a truly unique card exists that I wish I could honestly show you from my own collection. This will likely arrive at Sea Turtle HQ some day, as after the sad end to his now non-Hall-of-Fame career track, his rare cards are generally available on collector markets.

That will also probably become the case for the "Sunglasses" variant inserted in Series 2 packs, but will remain a challenge for the "Postseason" variant to his Opening Day card, which are made in very limited quantities.

2013 Opening Day does supply the 2 cards that I like the most as a memento of his time in Detroit, beyond all the Series One ephemera at least. I was surprised this far more memorable "moon shot" style image wasn't used on this checklist:

I also like this card quite a bit for a nice memory of Prince Fielder -

This dynamic duo would also appear on 2 more cards in '13 Opening Day in the 'Superstar Celebration' inserts, but that type of checklist could well supply the most scarce (for a non 1/1 at least) baseball card of Prince Fielder, ever. For some reason, the "Play Hard" inserts created for Fielder and Cabrera had to be pulled from the product shortly after production began. The few cards already manufactured were immediately punched with a large hole in them - but a few escaped into the wild nonetheless.

The Play Hard inserts do manage to capture Fielder on another card, a Buster Posey card:

That card probably illustrates the true beginnings of the disenchantment with Prince Fielder among so many Tigers fans, as it shows him being tagged out in Game 2 of the 2012 World Series, with his foot probably about a foot away from Home Plate when the tag was applied. Baseball fans are legendary Captain Hindsights however, and this sin was unforgivable in a World Series. (It also supplied a long-held grudge for such fans against Third Base coach Gene LaMont, who waved him Home on the play; 3B coaches are only ever remembered for each and every mistake they make in such decisions.)

I would also be remiss in this post in not considering the most common 2013 Topps Baseball 'Sea Turtle' image of Prince Fielder of all of them:

Note that for some reason, this is not the same image as used on card #28. We have the same far-away eyes view after a ball was probably hit a very long ways, but here Fielder is wearing his road uniform, and full long sleeves. The additional follow-through might well make for a farther hit ball, who knows.

Perhaps some other baseball card blog could take up the mysteries of who appears on each Series of Topps Baseball each year, and the image used, etc., and whether that bodes good or bad for that player, that year. It worked out much better for the Series 2 cover boy, that I can tell you; we'll take a look at that some 300 or so posts from now.

And lastly, I also must share another bit of Sea Turtle baseball card history that I will probably literally never have enough physical space under my control to ever own:

This promotional event for the 2013 Topps Baseball cards created the largest baseball card the world has ever seen, and likely ever will see, at 84 feet x 60 feet.

Here is one more image of it, for a tiny bit of perspective here -

At press time here at Sea Turtle HQ, no word can be found on the fate of this 3,240 pound creation. Can you find the largest Sea Turtle card ever made? Don't try and bring it over to my house. Though perhaps it would be kind of cool to have the 10' x 30' panel of just the Sea Turtle.

Bling That Shell A card for the player on the wrapper surely deserves an epic parallel in the all-parallel set, you might suggest? Yes, I would say it does. For now, I only have the Toys R Us Purple parallel to show you, which scans a little better than it appears in hand. As you can probably tell by now I drive the project on the parallel color / Sea Turtle contrast created, so I would like to upgrade. The 2013 Factory Set Orange would be quite a bit more apropos here, some day, and a Pink wouldn't bother me, neither...

This card completes a binder page, so it is time to take a look at that. A few more Turtles have arrived here at HQ to assume their positions in the project, so look for a few updated links for the Page 2 cards in a blog post coming soon.

Until then, here are the Page 3 results:

Blog Update Highlight So, what will I display these colorful pages in? Naturally for all my cool picture trading card product needs, I would first consider What Would Topps Do? And this is surely the perfect card page in this set to share this handy 2013 Topps creation, a product they made for several sets for several years, but one I have not kept up with as to current availabilities / existence. For my 2013 All-Parallel set, this 3-ring binder will some day be the perfect Home: