General Forum

As my screen name obviously implies, I collect Minnesota Twins cards.  I am very proud of my collection, which now includes over 13000 different cards, literally accumulated over a lifetime since I first started collecting in 1966.  Once in awhile, a random name of a Twins player from the past will pop into my head, and I'll wonder how many cards of that player I have, so I'll go on the database and see, for example, that I have, 53 cards of Lew Ford, or 29 cards of Mike Smithson.  I'll look at my gallery and it brings back great memories.  One day recently the name of Casey Fien popped into my head.  Now, I am not a big Casey Fien fan.  He was released earlier this year and now is with the Dodgers. but when I looked how many Casey Fien cards I have, I discovered I have ZERO.  Upon further research on the database, there are only four minor league cards of Casey Fien out there.  Now, this isn't somebody who had a brief cup of coffee in the majors.  He made is debut in 2009, and has been in the majors full time since 2012.  He has appeared in 289 major league games out of the bullpen.  In 2012 he appeared in 35 games and had an ERA of 2.06.  From 2013-2015 he appeared in 73, 73, and 62 games and had an ERA of under 4.00 each year.  I just think it is kind of sad that the way the manufacturers are now, that players like Casey Fien get left out.  There are hundreds, if not thousands of cards of some players, many of whom barely make the big leagues, if at all, and yet Casey Fien apparently does not have a big league card.  Thanks for listening!

 I agree.    They put a card out for every Tom, Dick and Harry who never played in a Major League game but left out Casey.   As you said, he was in the bigs for a number of years.    Maybe he didn't want to sign with the companies or maybe he's Amish,  but he does have minor league cards

This just plays into my recent complaint about the 2016 Topps set and many other years, as well. There are 4-5 rookie cards per team of guys who barely played, if at all. There are no cards if guys who were important to the team or at heart deserved a card. 2015-Pedro Strop and Trevor Cahill were both important to the Cubs. No cards in 2016. Sigh. 

Interesting topic. I have noticed this a little bit in my limited adventures into modern baseball sets. It used to be a team set would include the whole roster that played that year with the exception of short term call-ups. Now you have the major stars with a card or two in every series. I never really considered the implications of that but since obviously the sets are not as big as they used to be that just means more guys being left out. Also I'm sure the huge push to feature rookies and prospects makes space even more limited. So does that mean most relievers and most bench bats don't get cards? What about everyday regulars that are not stars?