2015 Topps Stadium Club finds

While I’m not trying to complete the set, I'm hunting down particular cards I've liked otherwise - I made a wantlist last year to figure out which cards really stood out and went back to it, in order to fill out a recent order of cards I made from a Beckett Marketplace seller.

I categorized the cards on my wantlist into four classifications - perhaps the ones marked with an ‘A’ are priorities and play around with the other cards marked as ‘B’ and ‘C.’

A - images that really pop with some personality.
B - images that may not be not as epic but still stand out.
C - images that most will like, though might not be my particular favorites.
D - images that maybe more 'conventional baseball action,’ so not really a priority otherwise.

#10 Zack Britton - A

#12 Giancarlo Stanton - A

#63 Matt Adams - A

#160 Elvis Andrus - A

#183 Travis Ishikawa - A

#215 Adam Jones - A

#271 Russell Martin - A

#213 Kyle Seager - C; I presume he is gesturing to his teammates in the dugout like batters have tended to do in the past five or six years after getting base hits.

#214 Brandon Crawford - C; I don't know if this image does it for me, but it features a pretty good defender leaping over a base runner, to try and complete the double play.

#259 Greg Maddux - C; this card has gone to my unofficial, 'unawesome action' mini-collection because while Maddux is a Hall of Famer legend, he looks a little awkward out of uniform.

On the other hand, maybe I can grow to like this card since it's different with the candid image of Maddux out on the golf course - maybe this card would be much more appealing if Maddux didn't look like a geek.

Switching cards around in my frankenset

If I already had a card for a particular number in my Angels frankenset, I wasn't going to seek out a new card that I'd have to pick up, but there are random exceptions - I added a 2015 Topps Stadium Club Huston Street [card #4] for my project since the image used of the Angels closer coming into the dugout getting a fist bump from manager Mike Scioscia wasn't typical for a baseball card.

The card that the Street replaced was a 2005 Donruss Studio Stars Vladimir Guerrero insert [card #S-4] - while the clear cut Guerrero card is unique, it is otherwise bumped back down into the random collection of Angels inserts I'm trying to put together.

Another 2015 Topps Stadium Club I had to get into my frankenset was C.J. Wilson's [card #163] - the picture used is a candid image of Wilson going around Angel Stadium celebrating with fans after the Angels won the American League West in 2014.

The card that the Wilson replaced was a 2011 Topps Lineage Jered Weaver Diamond Anniversary parallel [card #163] - the Weaver is shinier but the picture is pretty boring, so it shares the same fate as the Guerrero card.

A trio of Albert Pujols cards

I picked up a 2015 Topps Stadium Club [card #170] and a 2014 Donruss Diamond Kings subset [card #205] for my Angels frankenset - the 2014 Panini Donruss The Elite Series insert was a random pick up.

Pujols had his season resurgence in June, hit 26 home runs by the All-Star break and starred in the Home Run Derby - as September comes however, it looks like he and the Angels are gassed.

The Angels have faded out of playoff contention and any last month resurgence from Pujols - may merely bump up his final numbers a little bit.

Despite having an opportunity to hit nearly 40 home runs [not sure if he is going to get there at this point] - it looks like Pujols about to set a career low in batting average, on-base percentage and his ability to hit doubles has been sapped.

Teammate Mike Trout has struggled in the month of August, but there is more confidence in the 24-year old bouncing back - with six years left on Pujols' contract after this season, I'm afraid what you see is what you are going to get from the aged slugger.

2015 Topps Stadium Club blaster recap III

I relented to pick my third blaster of 2015 TSC even though I still have not picked up one 2015 Topps Series II blaster - I've thought about building the 300-card base set but I don't want to be huffing and puffing to focus my energy on one trading card product.

Because I like the cards, I am going to be hunting down the base cards in bits and pieces [for my mini collections] - I printed out a generic trading card checklist to mark off cards I end up with, so when I'm looking for loose cards, I don't end up with dupes.

#240 Josh Beckett
#40 Josh Hamilton

#243 Salvador Perez
#272 Alexander Guerrero

Pack two
#229 Dayan Viciedo
#28 Dallas Kuechel

#233 Felix Hernandez
#268 Carlos Baerga
#194 Carlos Gomez

Pack three

#217 Yu Darvish
#101 Mookie Betts

#53 Chipper Jones
#T-5B Giancarlo Stanton - Luminous Triumvirate insert
#297 Wade Davis

Pack four

#16 Robinson Cano - I like the way the image captures the dirt on Cano's batting gloves as he swings away; when cards have images of players hitting a ball, I always wonder if the guy actually got a hit or merely made an out.
#15 Adrian Beltre
#193 David Wright
#185 Josh Harrison - Gold foil parallel
#220 Jake Peavy

Pack five
#205 Jose Altuve
#57 Marcus Stroman

#264 Alex Rodriguez
#CS-2 Andrew McCutchen - Contact Sheet insert
#19 Scott Kazmir

Pack six
#263 Anthony Rizzo

#91 Dusty Baker
#123 Lenny Harris - he had a fine career, holds the career record for pinch hits and played until he was 40, but why is he in a 2015 trading card product?
#TCA-AP Albert Pujols - True Colors insert
#207 Doug Fister

Pack seven
#139 Andrew McCutchen
#148 Kevin Gausman

#288 David Peralta

#210 George Brett - Black foil parallel; I've wanted this card since the image used was supposedly the inspiration for 30-year old singer Lorde's Royals song that got popular a few years back; it's a nice bonus that it's a parallel version of the base card.
#29 Trevor Rosenthal

Pack eight
#118 Yasiel Puig
#253 Hisashi Iwakuma
#245 Edgar Martinez

#78 Juan Gonzalez - Foil board parallel serial #'d 20/25; Gonzalez is a 'has been,' with at least couple of bad raps in his MLB career, but 'Igor' was simply legit in his prime and may still have some die-hard collectors.
#219 C.J. Cron

Matt Shoemaker 2015 TSC B&W

I've been on a self-imposed sabbatical from doing anything with baseball cards, but I picked up this Shoemaker card - while it's not a card of Mike Trout or Albert Pujols, the card itself is supposedly limited to only 17 copies, so it's a nice little find.

In 2014, Shoemaker was the 27-year old Angels rookie sensation when he won 16 games - even though he's a guy who has battled on the mound, his overall results in 2015 have been uneven at best, so he may find himself bumped into the bullpen once Jered Weaver comes back.

2015 Topps Stadium Club blaster recap II

Pack one

#118 Yasiel Puig
#253 Hisashi Iwakuma
#200 Mike Morse

#25 Juan Lagares

#152 Jose Abreu

Pack two
#169 Brock Holt

#274 Tim Hudson

#56 Hunter Pence
#102 Cliff Lee
#201 Rafael Montero

Pack three 

#22 Ivan Rodriguez
#257 Paul Molitor
#296 Max Scherzer
#289 Danny Santana - Gold parallel
#35 Ryne Sandberg

Pack four
#211 Justin Verlander
#32 Nolan Arenado
#275 Freddie Freeman
#242 Troy Tulowitzki
#226 Dennis Eckersley

Pack five
#122 Mike Minor
#71 Curtis Granderson
#111 Whitey Ford
#222 Tanner Roark
#43 Jose Bautista

Pack six

#117 Lenny Dykstra - with all the shady things he's gotten involved with in the past 10 years, I just wonder why he is in a 2015 baseball card product.

#54 Bip Roberts
#90 Justin Morneau

#TCA-AP Albert Pujols - True Colors insert
#234 Brandon Guyer

Pack seven
#249 Daniel Murphy
#42 Jordan Zimmerman
#138 Ben Zobrist

#34 Mariano Rivera - Gold parallel

#58 Jason Giambi

Pack eight
#232 Corey Dickerson
#31 Albert Belle
#46 Yonder Alonso
#T-7C Gregory Polanco - Luminous Triumvirate insert
#273 Mike Piazza

2015 Topps Stadium Club blaster recap I

I was going to pick up a blaster box of TSC and a 2015 Topps Series II blaster, but somehow I lost my Topps Series II $5 off coupon, so I went with two TSC blasters - in the battle of cards that just came out in the last week or two, I think I prefer these cards over Topps Archives since TSC seems a little more high brow [whatever that means for a baseball card product].

Unlike Topps Archives, there is one card design used for the entire 300 card set with no pesky short prints - while Archives uses three rehashed Topps designs with a short printed subset that may only serve to frustrate collectors.

The photos are sharp, though it's almost disappointing to see typical baseball images [hitting / pitching / fielding] used - since the 'unique' images really pop.

Maybe a minor complaint is the player names on front of the cards are occasionally hard to read - when the foil stamping goes over a dark part of the full bleed image used

Pack one
#135 Mike Trout
#98 Jim Rice
#159 Torii Hunter

#18 Zack Wheeler

#192 Kolten Wong

Pack two
#146 Mike Mussina
#154 J.D. Martinez
#51 Miguel Cabrera
#155 Nick Swisher

#295 Michael Taylor

Pack three 
#256 David Robertson
#178 Steve Pearce
#199 Ryan Howard
#135 Mike Trout - Gold parallel
#180 Adam LaRoche

Pack four

#277 Oswaldo Arcia

#190 Stan Musial
#134 Mitch Moreland
#133 Kenley Jansen
#76 Bo Jackson

Pack five
#293 Trevor May
#283 Aaron Sanchez

#266 Derek Jeter

#SCA-JC Jarred Cosart - certified autograph
#3 David Cone

Pack six
#224 Kendall Graveman
#197 Dalton Pompey
#238 Roberto Alomar
#223 Lorenzo Cain
#198 Cole Hamels

Pack seven
#300 Kris Bryant
#176 Matt Barnes
#99 Chase Utley
#30 Dilson Herrera - Gold parallel
#37 Carlos Ruiz

Pack eight
#68 Brooks Robinson
#93 Andy Van Slyke
#30 Dilson Herrera

#CS-16 Anthony Rendon - Contact Sheet insert
#227 Jon Singleton