2014 Pennant

With Heritage on the shelves and Gypsy Queen soon to be joining it, I thought it was time to unveil the 2014 for Spirit's retro release, Pennant.

This year's design is by far the most colorful of the Pennant releases. The rounded edges inset from the border are filled with the primary team color while a small strip of a secondary color house the position and team name at the bottom. The black name bar off-sets the photo and leaves plenty of room for even the longest player names. Also, I realized I've yet to include any kind of 'rookie card' designation on any of my designs thus far, so I one to the Tanaka card up there. It's pretty similar to Topps' but it works well with this design in particular. I added some age to the photos as is typical for retro sets. I think I held back from going overboard with speckles and noise. The cardstock would be pretty much what Topps runs Heritage on.

I kept the backside pretty similar to the 2013 version but made a few small changes. The most obvious one is changing the color from black to a brownish-pinkish hue. The numbers are also bigger and the font selection is bolder to help with readability.

I also threw in an autograph variation since this paper stock is really great for on-card autos. The backs are pretty much the same with the only change being the congratulatory auto text in place of a brief player bio or whatever.

All-in-all, I think this design is successful in looking retro without overtly ripping of a particular set from the past. I'm not sure I could even pinpoint a certain era it'd fit into but it definitely doesn't appear to be tied to the 2010s.

2014 Spirit Base Series 1: 131-140

#131 - Lucas Harrell
This is a really good shot, filling the card and also keeping the ball in frame.

#132 - Alcides Escobar
Right out of the gates, I'd say the Royals are the team with the best looking cards so far. Maybe it's the colors or something.

#133 - Josh Hamilton
This would be a great shot for a Panini release

#134 - Brandon League
That blue glove is kinda pretty.

#135  - Nathan Eovaldi
There weren't a ton of options for Eovaldi.

#136 - Aramis Ramirez
I don't see a lot of Ramirez playing but I always had the impression he was very serious and gruff. So that make this picture pretty cool to dispel that notion. I wish the Spirit logo didn't have to cover up any of his hand, though.

#137 - Kevin Correia
This is basically the same image as the Harrell card above just not quite as perfectly framed.

#138 - Juan Lagares
I really appreciate how quiet the fence is behind him here. There have been lots of really good photos I had to turn away just because they were plastered with some kind of inescapable corporate logo.

#139 - Hirko Kuroda
Great lighting on this shot. I also appreciate that you can tell he's a pitcher even though it doesn't show his windup or delivery.

#140 - Jed Lowrie
This is a nice, up close sliding shot that fits all of him in frame and shows his face. Probably one of the best so far.

2013 Spirit Deluxe

Directly on the heels of the low-end offering from Spirit comes the singular high-end release. It's kind of a cross between Stadium Club and something like Tribute, only with out the avalanche of randomly numbered parallels.

Like last year we have full-bleed photos on a glossy stock with silver foil accents. The team logo sits in the center, flanked by three team-color swatches. The subtle knit texture from last year makes another appearance. Beneath it all is a soft white fade leading from the bottom edge to keep things from getting too harsh.

For the back we have the player photo taking up most of the top half with a solid black background below. The team-color polygons from the front make an appearance here to tie together both sides. Underneath the name, position and team is a brief write-up of the player's 2012 season.

Being a high-end set, we also have an autograph and relic variation. The auto just has the white fade up a little further from below. For the relic, I figured it would be nice to have a nice big swatch for such a set. The semi-circle allows for a bigger patch without intruding too much into the photo.

I'm not a big fan of the idea of spending so much for a box of something like Tribute or Triple Threads to where all that matters is the autos or relics as the base cards barely register any notice. The Deluxe set would have a sizable base set with the hits coming like every few packs or something. A standard pack would have 6 base cards with and come with either a pair of inserts or a hit, with relics being about twice as common as autos. I think that would place the price somewhere around $10-$15 a pack, which is still a lot but not ridiculous. To me, that's about as high as I'd like to go on "high-end."

Triple Crown Candidates

There was quite a disparity between the National League and American League MVP races last season. The NL was a 2-man race between a two all-around studs, one on a playoff team and the other on an also-ran. Over in the AL, there wasn't really a dominant enough everyday player to overtake Justin Verlander and he became the first Cy Young/MVP since Dennis Eckersley in 1992.

This season, there are probably a half-dozen players between the 2 leagues that could lay legitimate claim to being the MVP and almost all of them are putting up strong triple crown numbers (AVG, HR, RBI.) So that brings us to this Triple Crown Candidates insert, featuring those players that put up big numbers in these traditional categories.

Design-wise, we're starting out with a big, full-bleed photo of the subject at the plate. Towards the bottom, we have a team-color arc with some secondary color notches to house the player position and their respective league. In the middle is the player and team name set on a subtle rhombus pattern to represent a bit of 'royalty.' To finish off, we have some textured silver lines leading to the shiny-shiny Triple Crown Candidate crown logo.

On the back, we have a closer cropped photo up top with the team logo separating it from the bottom team color field. Below the player name is their 'triple crown credentials.' I took these from their Baseball References pages that show their career 162-game averages. Part of me thinks this isn't the best way since McCutchen is having a much better season in 2012 than his previous three, so the numbers are a little dulled. Perhaps after this season is over, their 2012 numbers would be the best representation.

The other guys in the set would be names like Miguel Cabrera, Matt Kemp, Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and the like. I'm sure there would be some others to pop up in upcoming seasons that would work their way onto the list.