Your Turn: Sabermetrics get showcase on short-printed 2014 Topps Series 2 baseball cards
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By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor
Look closely at the backs of some of your 2014 Topps Series 2 baseball cards and you might not recognize the stats headers on some of the cards — or maybe even the stats themselves.
That’s because they are short-printed Sabermetrics variation cards.
While the full details about these cards continue to trickle in, we simply want to know what you think about this cardboard twist.
Tell us in the comments below.
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Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball and Beckett Sports Card Monthly magazines. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.
They are fine, provided they have an insert to explain them.
Back in the 50’s they had cards explaining things like stats, positions, plays, etc.
I think this is a brilliant idea. An even better idea would be 1/1 inscription cards where Mike Trout writes and explains the formula used to compute WRC+
I think putting the sabermetric stats on the backs of cards (at least this many) may be a bit too much. Many fans and collectors grew up with the simple formulas and statistics to the point that we learned how to do math equations from them.
Some of these stats (like the weighted On Base Average, Wins Above Replacement, Fielding Independent Pitching), while might be a better indicator of how good a player is, were too much for me to comprehend, and I don’t think kids would initially understand them. It was a shame that they took out strikeouts and complete games out of the batters and pitchers stat lines already to add the WAR stat.
Maybe the WAR can stay. But let’s not lose the basics.
Love these – wish they paralleled the whole set like this. Might even be a good idea to make a whole new line of cards based on these stats.
Since I aint living with Winnie Cooper I dont want that stuff on my cards!
IN MOST CASES THE BACK OF A CARD IS A CARD NUMBER
NOTHING ELSE
Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I love the addition of WAR on all the base cards this year, and I like these variations as variations. I think it’s a fun variant and would enjoy seeing it again in the future, but for the regular base I say stick with the traditional stats plus WAR.
Why don’t they just issue front with players in uniform ant the face blanked out. That way the card could be any card we choose!
Topps could also duplicate the 1940’s set ” The horrors of war.”
How do I know if a card meets sabrmetric standards????????????????????????????????