2016 Spirit Rookie Round-Up

The 2016 rookie class has been pretty solid this season, from prospects with high expectations like Corey Seager to guys that seemingly came out of nowhere, like Aledmys Diaz. While it may not be as stacked as the 2015 class, it's definitely not full of slouches. Regardless, I thought this was a good time to reintroduce the Rookie Round-Up insert from 2013.

The 'grunginess' from last time is turned down a bit, with the design elements being mostly clean with a bit of grain to keep things from being too sterile. The high-contrast, black & white cutouts look like something you'd see on a DIY gig flyer, fitting with the "youthful" concept of the set. The rest of the elements are colorful to represent the team, with a lighter picture of the player's home stadium in the background.

The back side is brighter and cleaner, with a full-color photo and the grain from the front removed. There's a brief write-up about the player's brief MLB career, highlighting the half-seasons that have led to their inclusion in the rookie round-up here.

I kept the checklist at 20 players like in 2013, and had to enforce a cut-off since the idea would be for these to be released in a series 2-like set. So that means guys like Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez didn't make the cut. I'm sure they'll be represented in some rookie review insert for 2017 Spirit.

2015 Deluxe First Rate Rookies

The 2015 rookie class may go down as one of the strongest in MLB history. This post is probably a bit of a precursor to the 2016 Spirit All-Rookie Team or whatever. Since a player's worth/value in the hobby is probably no higher than their prospect and rookie years, seems like a good time to throw some rookie autos into a high-end product. Even at 15-deep, this is a pretty solid checklist:

1. Kris Bryant
2. Carlos Correa
3. Matt Duffy
4. Miguel Sano
5. Kyle Schwarber
6. Noah Syndergaard
7. Francisco Lindor
8. Jung Ho Kang
9. Joc Pederson
10. Robert Osuna
11. Stephen Piscotty
12. Addison Russell
13. Chris Heston
14. Andrew Heaney
15. Odubel Herrera

The design is pretty similar to the Dynamic Duos and the Deluxe base, using elements of team colors with a bit of a beam pattern, minimal text/ornaments and similar typefaces. There's a soft white fade for legible signatures along with some of the standard gold foil for the name and logo.

The back has minimal design elements. Along the top color bar, player portrait fades in from the right with the "First Rate Rookies" logotype and card number on the left. Below is the name/position/team combo from the front as well as a full-color team logo. The rest of the space is filled with the standard authenticity language and the rest of the fine print.

2015 Spirit All-Rookie Team

Last year I decided to copy Topps and made my own all-rookie squad. So here I am pulling another page outta Topps' playbook and recycling the same idea again with just a new design. But really, though, I think it's a sound decision to have an insert devoted to the previous year's rookies. Keeping with the whole "team" format can prove to be difficult, though, as you'll see from the checklist below.

1B: Jose Abreu

2B: Kolten Wong

SS: Danny Santana

3B: Nick Castellanos

OF: Billy Hamilton

OF: George Springer

OF: Ender Inciarte

C: Travis d’Arnaud

LHP: Roenis Elias

RHP: Jacob deGrom

RP: Dellin Betances

M: Matt Williams

There a no-brainers like Abreu and Hamilton, but sometimes there just isn't a stand out in one particular position. OR you have the inverse with way too many guys competing for one spot. The left-handed and right-handed pitcher situation up there is a perfect example. Last year's best newcomers on the mound were almost all righties. That means a southpaw like Roenis Elias makes the checklist while guys like Masahiro Tanaka, Marcus Stroman and Matt Shoemaker don't. Maybe I'll rectify that next year. Anyway, let's look at the design.

We're going horizontal again. There seems to be more room for the action shots this year with a sliver of the background staying on the card instead of them being complete cutouts. There are big team logos again just a layer behind the players with a subtle stripe motif behind them. A big silver foil band stretches across the bottom with the 'ALL ROOKIE TEAM' "logo" revealing some of the stripes from below. Player names & positions are in black on the foil bar so hopefully they're readable in most light.

Oh yeah,  here's the autograph parallel version. Same design but with a white fade coming from beneath and the certification text below the bar.

The back mimics the front but with the bar moving to the top and turning white. The only issue with this choice would be finding photos with enough open space up top as to not have the 'ALL ROOKIE TEAM' thing overlap a guy's dome. I lucked out with Hamilton here.

Overall I think these fit in with the rest of the 2015 Spirit designs thus far. Colorful without being too ornate and utilizing negative space in some capacity. I'd like to say that's on purpose but it's probably just a happy accident.

2014 Spirit All-Rookie Team

The 2013 rookie crop was one of the strongest in recent years. Here's an insert to feature the most accomplished player from each position. I know this basically sounds like Topps' Rookie Cup Team but I figured it'd make more sense to turn it into an insert set instead of padding the Series 1 base set. Before I go over the design, here's the checklist I put together:

1: Matt Adams (1B)
2: Jedd Gyorko (2B)
3: Jose Iglesias (SS)
4: Nolan Arenado (3B)
5: Yasiel Puig (OF)
6: Wil Myers (OF)
7: Khris Davis (OF)
8: Evan Gattis (C)
9: Tony Cingrani (LHP)
10: Jose Fernandez (RHP)
11: Danny Farquhar (RP)
12: Walt Weiss (M)

Some of the names are no-brainers but the rest are a good chance to shine a light on some players that might not get all the attention they deserve yet. Really, though, there are a lot of guys that deserve consideration that just couldn't overtake the guys that made the cut. Also, I threw in a manager spot just because you never know who's gonna be taking the reins for the first time. With so many former players becoming skippers, there's probably a good chance there'll be someone out there who collects them. Now onto the design.

The front continues the geometric motif that's been present in all the 2014 Spirit designs so far. The two team-color bars coming in from opposite edges house all of the player information as well as the set name. Behind the player cutout is a team-color fabric with shaded polygons to add some depth. The team logo fills whatever negative space is left from the cutout. On the back, the criss-cross tabs are enlarged and reoriented to house the player photo and team cap logo. Then there's a brief write-up in the remaining negative space.

Also, since rookie/young player autos are so highly sought-after, I figured it'd be a good place to through some ink into the mix. The design is the same with only the addition of another polygon made big and white for the player to sign. Fernandez's signature isn't as wide as most but hopefully the other guys would spread out to fill the space a bit more.

2013 Spirit Rookie Round-Up

It's been a while since I posted anything for the Spirit flagship series. Time for a new insert. This one features 20 rookies that have gotten off to a good start in 2013. I figured it would be nice to have some MLB inserts of these guys instead of so many minor league cards.

The design is a bit 'in your face,' a little reminiscent of some of the early 90s inserts with player cutouts on top of a busy background. I enjoy grunging things up so I went with that for the look. Big, bold letters roughed up and running across the background set on top of vintage team colors. The idea is that if you had all 20 cards lined up left-to-right, the 'ROOKIE' and 'ROUND-UP' text would stretch across multiple times. As it is now, each card has a slightly different cut of those letters. At the bottom, we find the player name along with position and the weathered team logo in the corner.

The back has a solid team-color background instead of the two-tone from the front. On the left is another player photo with some soft, grungy edges. To the right is the N/P/T along with a little tidbit of his MLB debut. Some may be more impressive than others (note Noonan's 0 for 1, pinch hit debut.) In the middle is a block for a brief write-up (greeked text here since I was too lazy to "write.")

This is one of the few cards I've done without any shiny foil or die-cut or other bells and whistles. The finish would be matte to fit the design rather than glossy. The edginess fits with the subject of rookies so I thought I'd let it stand on its own.

First Class

With the 2012 season winding down, we continue looking ahead to 2013. On top of having a triple crown winner, 3 perfect games thrown and 4 other no-hitters, 2012 will probably be remembered for one of the best class of rookies. We all know Mike Trout had an MVP-caliber season and Bryce Harper took some of the steps to justify all the hype. But moving even further down, there were lots of guys that put up good-to-great rookie campaigns. So how about an insert to commemorate this class?

The design is horizontal with the most prominent feature probably being the box on the right with a big 1 cut out to display a relic. Just to add some variety, the position players have bat swatches while the pitchers have jersey swatches. The rest of the design is bathed in team colors with the player cutout overlapping a colored wood background. The 'FIRST CLASS' text has a 1 hiding in 'first' to really play up the number aspect of the design. There's also some silver foil to add a bit of flash.

Onto the backside where we have team colors filling the majority of space with plenty of room for a summary of each player's rookie season. On the right side, we have another 1 cut out but this time housing another action shot. To the left we have the team logo along with the authenticity statement for each relic. It's less vague than what you see on Topps relic cards these days and there's even a unique code for each card that you could enter to find out specifically when each memorabilia relic was used in-game.

Along with these 3 here and Trout and Harper that were mentioned above, this set would have guys like Todd Frazier, Jesus Montero, pretty much any of the A's starting pitchers, Will Middlebrooks, Yu Darvish, Anthony Rizzo and more.