Why 2017 Topps Update Has Royally Pissed Me Off

I don't get a ton of opportunities to write about the industry anymore, because, to be honest, I haven't had reason to. How's everything card-wise been this year? Fine. Flagship's fine, Stadium Club's amazing as usual, Heritage is fine, etc. Nothing has really warranted an angry ranting post from me.

Until now, that is.

I'd heard a few complaints this week about the 2017 Update Series checklist, mainly people like Chris Taylor that had missed the cut, which is already pretty ballsy. So today, I checked to see which Yankees had made the cut, after Todd Frazier's fantastic night last night.

No Todd Frazier.

No Sonny Gray. No Jaime Garcia. Hell, Jaime Garcia is listed with the Braves, which is three teams ago for him at this point.

I looked around. None of the players dealt at the trade deadline had any cards in Topps Update. Not even as short-prints or anything. Only Jose Quintana, who was traded a few weeks before the deadline, had Update Series presence. No one else. The rest of the checklist was made up of new uniforms for people that had been in the FLAGSHIP set, as well as a ton of rookies (like Kyle Higashioka and Lewis Brinson) that did nothing this year.

Now...back in the day, you could account for January and Offseason moves, you know, IN the flagship set. I understand how printing dates work, I understand when checklists need to be finalized, but if you're working on photos and backs for a player that has already been traded to a new team, why can't you do anything to grab a Spring Training photo or make an airbrushing (which are more impressive now)? It's not like the graphic designers are powerless.

Look, in 2009, Topps Series 2 had a TON of spring training photos of established players in new uniforms, guys that had been traded in the offseason. Trevor Hoffman, Nick Swisher, Willy Taveras, Jeff Suppan. Plus, when Stadium Club hits shelves, it has all the new uniforms, all the Spring Training shots. Stadium Club comes out a month after Series 2- there can't be a transfer of divisions or photos in that time?

What I'm trying to say is that all of this could have been avoided. We could have had half of the cards of January guys in new uniforms that are in Update Series...in SERIES 2. If somebody in Series 1 has been traded, and you don't have a new photo of them...save their card for Series 2! Move somebody from S2 up, somebody that won't be traded! This isn't rocket science!

Which brings me to the second dilemma- the whole point of Update Series, from the BEGINNING, has been to showcase the results of trade deadline deals, so kids and collectors can see their recently-traded heroes as the playoffs are going on. If Todd Frazier is still in the playoffs, kids want to see him on a Topps card! This year, they friggin' can't! And it's mainly because the print date/checklist finalization date was WAY too early. There's no excuse. The trade deadline was later last year and they still got all the traded players in Update. Now, with an earlier trade deadline, and a WAY EARLIER finalization date...we have next to nothing.

Because of deadlines and product-rushing, we have a product that essentially means nothing.

I say this because ten years ago, my first year as a collector, I rushed to the shelves to pick up Update, and saw players I had no idea were traded, like Mark Teixeira as a Brave, or Sammy Sosa as a Ranger, or Kenny Lofton as an Indian again. It was fun to keep track of, especially as Lofton and a few others were in the playoffs. Plus, as trade-deadline deals got more important, the Update series got more stuffed and more filled with traded stars.

Now...we don't have any of that at all. The sole reason I had to collect the product 10 years ago is gone, because they wanted to make an EFFICIENT product, not a TIMELY one. I'm gonna have to wait until 2018 Topps to see most of these players in new uniforms, and half of them by THAT point will have already been traded, starting the entire cycle anew again.

The bottom line here is that there is definitely a problem, and Topps either doesn't know how to solve it, or KNOWS how to solve it and doesn't want to do the work necessary to.

The last few years I've gotten a hobby box of Update. Not doing that this year. Might get a blaster or something.