Quote:
Originally Posted by jaredkelley
This idea isn't bad. Topps clearly believes the "guest artist" approach is worth trying, as evidenced with their guest artists creating Topps Now cards for big moments (Tyson Beck and Chuck Styles, in particular).
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Yeah the artists from Project 2020 and Project 70 are a little too ... artsy for this set though. I think maybe Tyson Beck and Chuck Styles and Andrew Thiele could work but most of those artists are just too far out to have a faceless Fucci or a Mikkeler Keith Shore card.
Here's what I would do if I had my druthers to breath new life into this set:
1. Spring Training trades & signings. In addition to the two cards each week during sprint training, you release additional cards that look and funciton exactly like the existing cards with different featured artists from spring training. The reference photos come from traded players' spring training on their new team and artists are brought in for these extra cards. Example for this past spring training additional 3rd card (obviously there will need to be a one week delay for artist painting time): Rhys Hoskin as a Brewer by Daniel Jacob Horine, next week Corbin Burnes as an Oriole by Paul Jennis, next week Trent Grisham as a Yankee by Dick Perez, next week Sonny Gray as a Cardinal by James Fiorentino, next week Aaron Nola as a Phillie by Graig Kreindler and the final masterpiece: Shohei Ohtani as a Dodger by ... Mayumi Seto! She's back and she absolutely
murders it again on Ohtani's second card!!! Think how great those cards would look next to each other! Look, I know these are a couple big names taken from Angel & Jared so I've left Juan Soto, Shota Imanaga and a few other good names for them to capitalize on. But this would hopefully pull people back into the cards in time for the season.
2. All-Star Game through the Ages. Same concept as above except during the All Star break, we go back through the ages picking a player we haven't done yet 10 years ago, 25 years ago, 50 years ago and 75 years ago. In 2033, they can start with a fifth card for 100 years ago. So this would be four or five more cards on top of the two cards for the all star week. You could even get the weird logos they started making for the backs of the cards next to the team logo so you know it was an ASG release. They could all be done far in advance by one artist, my dream for this year is Graig Kindler does:
2014 ASG: José Bautista as a Blue Jay (
logo ex)
1999 ASG: Jay Bell as a Diamondback ... yes it's controversial he's not a Pirate but you'll have to deal with it (
logo ex)
1974 ASG: Dick Allen as a Philly ... yes, I know he was a white sock that year but he can't not go into the set as PHI (
logo ex)
1949 ASG: Pee Wee Resse on the Brooklyn Dodgers (reg logo)
You'd have six or seven cards that you could sell as a set for the same price as the five card packs ($5.60/card). I haven't selected players that had a particularly good ASG as that's kind of setting yourself up to run out of players as this laps. You can always dip into the reserves in a year that you've already covered the starters.
3. Black History Month: An African American artist does an extra card of Negro Leagues or person of color of importance in the game for each of the weeks of february so february is all three packs. Example for this coming November: Kehinde Wiley does
Pop Lloyd as a New York Lincoln Giant,
Willie Wells as a Newark Eagle,
Hilton Smith as a Kansas City Monarch and
Buck Leonard as a Homestead Gray.
The above ideas add a nominal amount of cards (14 or 15) more per year but I feel like it would generate more interest in this set.