smooth sailing out of los angeles

as a team collector, i don't typically avoid dodger cards in bargain bins unless i am certain that i already own them. i do pause, however, when i find parallels of guys like dennis santana, which was the case at a show last year. i wound up bringing home these 2019 panini donruss optic and 2019 topps parallels

but i would have preferred them to be of a current dodger. 

santana seems to have found his groove in pittsburgh which makes me happy. the dodgers in recent years have been quick to jettison young talent that they have developed in exchange for other teams' talent. in santana's case, they dealt him to the rangers for a minor league pitcher who toiled in the dodgers' minor league system through last season, and is now a free agent. i get that they are dealing from a surplus, but i still appreciate the older dodger way that allows me to collect and cheer for "homegrown" players for an extended period of time, as with clayton kershaw or will smith.

other dodgers whose departures i understood but to some degree regretted include joc pederson 

that's a 2016 topps update 500 home run futures club insert. spoiler alert - joc won't get close to 500 homers, but he hit some big ones for the dodgers and i am glad he is no longer in the national league west so i can root for him a little more.

cody bellinger, seen here on a 2022 panini prizm illumination insert

and a 2022 topps 1987 insert black parallel

was another one that was tough to see move on in free agency even though his performance with the dodgers in his last years had not warranted a big contract. i hope he has a nice season for the yankees but is at home in october. i do think the game is more fun when the yankees are good, but i really want the blue jays to get another crack at a title.

i was ready to be a ryan pepiot fan, but adding a proven starter in tyler glasnow was a deal too good for the dodgers to pass up. pepiot's 2022 topps chrome update purple refractor

was the last one i needed for that dodger team set of parallels.

just a couple of weeks ago, it was announced by the rays that pepiot was headed to the il and replaced on the 40 man roster by michael grove, seen here on a 2023 topps chrome sepia parallel

grove is also injured at the moment. i was ready to be a fan of his as well, but now all i will have are random cards to find at shows.

another example of a short time dodger that had a lot of cards available for me to collect is miguel vargas. this is his 2024 topps yellow parallel

and i am sure i will be finding vargas dodger cards in bargain boxes for years to come. will i buy them? time will tell. adding tommy edman and michael kopech in the trade that sent vargas to the white sox was a great move by the dodger front office, so i hope that vargas finds his way in chicago and lives up to a bit of the hype that surrounded him in his earliest dodger days to pay back that championship level deal that is currently a bust for the sox.

gavin stone, seen here on his 2023 topps chrome update refractor

and landon knack, shown on his 2025 topps gold parallel

are still dodgers as of now. they are both on the injured list, and who knows what will happen once they are healthy. there's not a lot of room on the pitching staff at the moment, so it's possible that these two become trade bait once they prove themselves healthy. i hope not, especially knack who i like, but i get it if it is the case.

and then there are guys like dalton rushing. 

his 2025 panini donruss card is one of many that i already have of him, and who knows how long he will be a dodger? blocked by his fellow university of louisville alum will smith, who is signed to a long-term deal, and too good to be in triple-a, he's not getting a lot of playing time. so far this year he is playing very well when he does play, but is it just enough to entice another team to make an offer that fills a different dodger need later in the season?

we will have to wait and find out who will join the likes of santana in the former dodger makes good elsewhere camp, and then subsequently haunts the bargain boxes and collections of team collectors like me.

the oren express delivers again!

i, like some others here in the blogosphere, have developed a good trading relationship with reader oren, and he recently sent me some fantastic dodger cards. have a look:

no use waiting to show this one - it's a 2015 panini national treasures rookie auto-relic of frankie montas

it's actually a base card in the set, which is shenanigans but then again i am not worried about completing that set at all.

from 2022 topps, here is a corey seager major league materials relic card

in black parallel fashion.

another parallel provided was this 2023 topps chrome platinum anniversary roy campanella refractor

which is a green wave parallel i believe.

the other cards to show aren't refractors, but they are autographed! former dodger miguel vargas added his last name only to this 2023 topps chrome platinum anniversary card

and james outman signed this 2024 topps finest card

with what looks like "jet". i am not knocking these guys - they have a lot of cards to sign - i am just thankful for folks like harmon killebrew.

finally, oren included this 2024 topps archives signature series tony gonsolin card

i wouldn't mind having more 2021 topps opening day cards in my collection if they were signed by dodgers!

thanks oren!

the almost daily dodger - miguel vargas

back in 1985, i remember my lcs charging more than common prices for german rivera's topps rookie card. it was solely because rivera was a dodger rookie, and the dodgers had been pretty good at churning out young players over the previous few seasons.

i sort of feel that way about miguel vargas. there seemed to be a lot of hype around his cards last year (here's his 2023 topps stadium club card that has sat in my scanned folder for a few months)

he had a cup of coffee with the dodgers in 2022, but didn't do a lot. still, he was a dodger rookie in 2023 and i found some of his cards harder to come by. maybe i am off base and there wasn't a premium on his cards last year, or maybe it was all cards with the "rc" logo.

at any rate, vargas is now with the white sox after being included in the trade for michael kopech. i really like the trade as the dodger bullpen hasn't been very good and neither has vargas. he's still only 24, but through his first few games with the chisox he's well below replacement player levels, and had only 3 hits in his first 36 at bats for his new team. kopech, meanwhile, has struck out ten of the first 21 batters he’s faced as a dodger and could be the arm that the bullpen was missing, and i do believe the dodgers intend to keep him in a reliever role.

i do hope vargas does well and perhaps, like michael busch, the dodgers did him a favor by trading him somewhere where he can play consistently. only time will tell.

spot the difference!

with series 2 out, we are at the point in the year where i can post the annual "spot the difference" writeup comparing the topps factory team set to the flagship releases. i suppose there was a chance that i would have to wait for update again this year, but topps was not averse to getting a shohei ohtani card on to the mainstream series 2 checklist and so here we are.

first, i want to show you how the sets are packaged this year

same sort of hanger/blister packaging, but look at how large the plastic blister is! plenty of room to shake things up if you like!

they also stopped printing the checklist on the back, but i think it's been like that for at least a couple of years.

speaking of backs, the guaranteed difference between these cards and their flagship counterparts is the numbering on the back

and away we go, with flagship on the left and the team set on the right!

lad-1 freddie freeman

same. i don't consider the non-foil logo on the team set cards to be a difference. the team set cards also lack the foil that makes the neon look great on the flagship cards in hand, but they do scan more neon-y if you catch my drift.

lad-2 mookie betts

same

lad-3 shohei ohtani

same. when these sets were first released i saw these cards going for more than the price of the set itself.

lad-4 walker buehler

same

lad-5 tony gonsolin

same

lad-6 chris taylor

same [edit - night owl noticed the difference in positions on taylor's cards. this is a truly bizarre variation, as you would think topps would be set on positions from day one. in 2023, taylor played more games and innings in left field than anywhere else. next in both categories was shortstop, and third base followed. he also played a handful of games at second base]

lad-7 max muncy

same

lad-8 austin barnes

same. i thought that barnes was an interesting choice for the team set checklist, especially since that meant that will smith was not included. i am happy, however, that the dodgers have two catchers in flagship. they don't currently have a third catcher on their roster, but my early collecting days brought me to expect cards for three dodger catchers (steve yeager, johnny oates, and jerry grote each got cards in 1978 and 1979 topps).

lad-9 brusdar graterol

same

lad-10 bobby miller

so here the team set does not to with the "future stars" moniker which makes sense because the focus is on the team. not sure i consider this to be a real difference, but i suppose it is.

lad-11 emmet sheehan

same

lad-12 jonny deluca

same. i am sure we will see deluca in update as a ray.

lad-13 james outman

same

lad-14 clayton kershaw

ah! a true difference here with the team set kershaw changing it's orientation and using a photo from a completely different game! i wish the team set would have done something similar with the buehler card

lad-15 miguel vargas

here we have the same "future stars" difference as bobby miller's card

lad-16 michael busch

the team set gives us one last michael busch dodger card to enjoy. unlike deluca, topps left busch off the series 1 checklist, and 'shopped him into cubs gear for series 2. i appreciate that they used a different photo - i assume because it's easier to go from a dodger to a cub when you are wearing the away grays.

lad-17 gavin lux

same

so, really just one significant difference in terms of dodger cards (kershaw) plus what turned out to be a bonus dodger card (busch). not sure if two cards make the set worth it for the casual collector, but for a team collector like me, you bet it does - especially with kershaw involved.

i remembered that i put together a running list of these posts a couple of years ago, and have now updated the list below. 2016 and 2018 are partial set posts, and i realize now i don't even own the team sets from 2017 or 2019. there was no team set issued in 2021. otherwise, click and enjoy!

2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2018

2020

2022

2023

i will probably seek out those last two sets and get a proper 2018 post at some point. stay tuned!

that was a good team break

here's "where it's at" with the 2024 topps series 2 team break i joined. i chose the dodgers, of course, and wound up with a couple of team sets - all 20 cards:

i'll come back to the jason heyward card in a bit.

kiké continues to get decent cards. i like that he and rojas got cards showing them as fielders. we don't need more at bats on cards

see what i mean? i feel like i am missing some candids these days.

especially with pitchers, who do nothing but pitch in today's game. 

we could also use more bat flip cards like teoscar there. 

back to heyward's card

it was obvious to me as soon as i saw the card that his number was photoshopped. it was also obvious that the background is dodger stadium. i was confused and couldn't believe that topps didn't use a photo of heyward as a dodger. it turns out that they used a photo from jackie robinson day when the dodgers were wearing a pre-1952 jersey style that didn't have the red numbers on the front. here's the original photo. i am not sure why topps felt they needed to add the red number at all, but they did. just add that to the list of headscratching decisions they make with seemingly every release.

unfortunately, the photo doesn't show the 42 on heyward's back, so even though i know it is a card from an april 15 game, it doesn't go in the 42 mini-collection. i did get the gold foil parallel

in the break, however, so that's nice.

one more note on one of the base cards (at least in this post). kyle hurt got a card! i mentioned this possibility in an earlier post about dodgers who got cards despite appearing in only one game with the team. hurt only appeared in one game for the dodgers in 2023 as the back of his card attests

so kudos to topps for using a photo from his big league debut and not photoshopping a minor league image. this season, hurt has pitched in three games for the dodgers, and was just activated from the 60-day il yesterday so will likely add to that total, leaving guys from that earlier post in the dust.

i netted two gold parallels - clayton kershaw

and dustin may

but no other parallels. i appreciate the photo topps used for may's card. it's one of the few pitcher cards that doesn't show a windup or delivery.

i did ok for inserts though, picking up both the shohei ohtani

and freddie freeman

1989 all-star inserts. freeman was the player my break landed the most as it turned out with both his covering the field

and fantasy favorites

inserts being pulled.

as for the silver packs, i got a bobby miller card

which was a bonus, really.

i did notice that the price for the dodgers in these breaks has increased with ohtani on the team, but it's still a good way to get a good number of cards to kickstart the team collection. i'll probably hold off on any more team breaks until update, however.