General Forum

To whom it may concern at Fanatics - 

I wanted to start a thread on what I would like to see when Fanatics takes over the Baseball Card license in 2026.  It's never too early to start preparing.  I'm sad Topps will no longer have the license, but I'm also frustrated Topps has had so many mistakes with numbering, bad stats, wrong logos (All Star logos in 2020), orientation of backs (2020 & 2021 Update and now Holiday), and missing players or wrong players.  I also have been growing tired of airbrushed uniforms and reused photography. It almost seems as if they are lazy nowadays.

Here is what I would want to see in a base/flagship set of cards moving forward:

• Team Cards with Team Photo - Team History or Leaders on the back
• Manager Cards with Coaches
• Make sure if you're going to make a card for a player, make sure they play a game for that team before you perform a bad airbrush of their uniform for their new team
• Don't reuse photos from year to year. There are literally millions of photos of players now. They should be able to use a different photo from year to year or subset to subset or insert to insert
• Card numbers should be on the upper left of the back of the card - especially if it is oriented horizontally. This makes it so the front of the card isn't upside down if they are in a box oriented vertically.
• Use a photo on the back of the card-maybe use the MLB headshot photo
• Do away with checklists. No one checks off the cards anymore.
• Have an insert set for Award Winners - Gold Glove (fielding award), Silver Slugger, MVP, Cy Young, Etc. each year
• Have an insert set for the entire All Star Roster
• Have an insert set of Umpires every few years
• Have an insert set for HOF inductees. I'm still not aware of a good set of HOF members.  It should include broadcasters also as they are a huge part of the game.
• If you do a league leader card - only put the leader on the front. Too many times the featured player on the front was #2 or 3 on the list. I love Miguel Cabrera, but he was featured on a lot of leader cards when he was NOT the leader.
• Do complete career stats on the back of the card. Use Baseball Reference style with league leader, MLB leader and career leader highlights. Show a star next to the year the player was an All-Star
• Leave card #100 as a place of honor for a super star.

I'm sure others have ideas as well and I'd love to hear them.  How would you design a base set?  Should the team be all together in the set like Fleer or Pro Set used to do, or do you like them random throughout the set?

You have a lot of good ideas.  AS a team collector I prefer that that the team be all together in the set.  This is one of the reasons I miss Pro Set.

Very good points there dsorek

First of all and most importantly Fanatics, please make sure to make a set that does play a role like Topps Flagship.

In that set please:

1.) Include all players that were on major league roster for most season including relief pitchers & utility players for all teams
2.) Do not include prospects who have not played at MLB level.
3.) Continue to make an update set for players traded and rookies that actually were called up in the season and played a good amount. 
4.) Complete career stats on back.
5.) As mentioned, no recycled photos.
6.) Easily readable nameplates.

(I wish I felt like all these could go without saying, but I don't)

Issue a single post-season set of all of the players who debuted that year.  Topps did this years ago, so it's very doable.

TCDB lists Mike Trout as having 2,786 cards this year, but now Topps can't be bothered to give us even one card for a number of players.  Do better Fanatics.

If history is any lesson, Fanatics will give you less quality & less quantity for a higher price.

Sadly, I agree that Fanatics will give less quality right at the start and still charge a higher price for any product. I have reasons to back this up. I was already ticked at them when they got the official NASCAR licensing for products at race tracks about 5 years ago. They put thousands of small retailers or resellers out of business at each the tracks. Then I bought 2 Carolina Panthers long-sleeved T-shirts from them in 2019. One was even a special order. Both shirts are now garbage that I can't wear in public. The special-print shirt developed all kinds of holes in the shoulders and elbows within months of it arriving. The other shirt was a standard design and the elbows and armpits wore out within 6 months. I'm not spending $30-40 for a shirt for it to not even last a year when I only wear it once a week and only in the winter. Fanatics quality sucks when it comes to fabric. I certainly hope they do better with cards. But I do not expect much from Fanatics at all in any form. I'm not even going to make a "wish list", but I think Dan's wish list is asking WAY too much.

All I'd really ask from Fanatics to start out is this:

*Full Stats on cards

*No re-used photos on each side of the same card

*Readable text for anyone, no matter how old they are

*Respect what MLB said is an actual Rookie Card and don't make a bunch of Prospect or pre-RC's.

*Eliminate a ton of parallels for every single card that is made AND...

*Eliminate a bunch of insert sets

OOPS... I guess I did make a Wish List, but I'll stick with it.

Sadly, none of those suggestions improve the corporate bottom line.  
 

I like a lot of the suggestions, especially less parallels and inserts but I also understand why they do it.  My biggest want would be for cards for every players on the roster.  While even if some couldn't be added until the update set, as long as they have a card I'll be happy.  Having all-star cards and league leader cards would be great too, and I wouldn't even mind if instead of making them inserts or subsets, making a specfic release for them.  Kind of like the box cards from the 80s. Then again, it depends on how they want to release sets.  I wouldn't mind a flagship set broken into 3 series (one being an update), a nostalgic set (akin to Topps Archive or Heritage), and the aforementioned All-Star/Leaders set.  Maybe make a high end set for the autograph seekers too, but I wouldn't make more than that.

The only thing I really disagree with on here and its not really like I care too much is I don't mind if complete stats are included.  I would like at least 3-4 years though and totals because 1 year stats do look sad.  I would rather see words about the player than full stats.  If nobody uses checklists anymore (which I assume they use sites like TCDB), then I would also argue people can look online for full stats.  If I was Fanatics I would create a partnership with baseball reference or build their own site, and have a website and QR code that takes you right to a player profile page with full stats even expanded stats.  That way you could also see real time updates on the player as well.  In later years maybe the player profile page could have pictures of the player throughout the year and the fans could vote for which one will be used on a card.  It would still give the older collectors the stats they want, and allow a younger generation a way to find out how "cool" card collecting is.

The only thing I really hope for though is they still make at least one set for those that just like base sets.  Don't overprice stuff so "basic" collectors are knocked out of the hobby, and the young kids can't even get into the hobby.  While not everyone liked them, I appreciated Topps making the Opening Day and Bunt cards wasy on the pocketbook.

(Even if they were already listed,)

My wishlist: (In order of greatest to least expected,)

1. TEAM PHOTOS ON THE CARD. No more of this 3 players celebrating garbage.
2. Drop the insert set quantity. You don't need 7 color parallels of one insert and you don't need to make 40 inserts.
3. Do manager cards. Their apart of the team as well.
4. How many short prints do you need? And when did SSSP even become a thing? Stick to 20 SP per set and only make them legend cards.
5. Unfortunately it won't happen, but make them cheap. Your breaking a 74 year tradition and people are for sure angry about it, (read some forums on here to see that.) and people will be skeptical to buy them. Make them cheap enough for you to still make money, but for people to give them a chance without dropping 10 bucks for a single 8 card pack.
6. Read this forum. YOU'LL LEARN SOMETHING.  :)

Yep. This sounds nice. Almost utopian.

Sadly the League Leader issue that you've been having stretches back almost to the 1980s. In the 1960s-1970s, topps had the right idea, but the league leader and the 2nd and 3rd place player on a card, and denote which one is which. But, in the 1980s, it devolved into "Hey, this player's popular/good now. They're a closing pitcher let's put them on the saves leaders even though they're 7th or 8th!" *Cough* *Cough* Doug Jones in 1989.

If these get fixed, I'd sure want to get more cards, because I really haven't bothered getting "New" cards since 2017 because of the sheer amount of parallels.