New year, new baseball cards! Sure, I know that these cards have been all over the internet now, and opinions have been given en masse, but you still haven't heard my thought on them have you? That is why you're here, right? So as I opened up my first tantalizing pack of 2025 Topps, I made a note of my first impressions, which I'm happy to share with you now
#209 Taylor Ward
The honor of the first card goes to Mr. Taylor. Right off the bat, I noticed the bat! Swing that giant pencil Taylor! Unfortunately, the next thing I noticed was the LAA team abbreviation on the side (or in this case "AA" since the bat almost perfectly wipes out the "L"). Turns out this is how Topps decided to notate teams on horizontal cards. One could argue that this was done because of the smaller amount of space on the ribbon, but then again for the city-less Athletics, they didn't have any trouble squeezing the whole team name on there. It doesn't look good to be honest, and the design team could have easily made the set look a whole lot more cohesive with just a bit more effort.
#135 Maikel Garcia
#101 Nolan Arenado
#67 Trey Sweeney (RC)
#257 Korey Lee
Another design fail comes with a player's last name in black. It doesn't show up well, especially on scans/photos. Other than that, the design itself is OK. It's not as exciting as last year's design, but a solid design nonetheless. I do like the attempt to do something new with the positional dots on the baseball diamond. It works and makes this set unique.
#56 Ranger Suarez
#217 Rece Hinds (RC)
#216 Hunter Greene
#108 Mitch Keller
#183 Taj Bradley
#99 Cincinati Reds (TC)
#21 Nick Lodolo
#147 Bryson Stott
#270 Andres Gimenez
#337 Ben Rice (RC)
#175 Ha-Seong Kim
As far as the backs go, the 2025 design is pretty straightforward and bland. The card numbers are nice and readable, so kudos for that.
#161 Bradley Blalock (RC)
#190 Miguel Vargas
#7 Alec Bohm
#320 Drew Thorpe (RC)
#227 Ty France
#113 Marco Gonzales
#36 Greg Jones (RC)
#139 Jordan Beck
#125 Jackson Merrill (ASR)
As long as MLB is going to shove the City Connect jerseys down our throats, the cards are going to do likewise. Part of the allure this year's card set design is that the colors match the team's traditional colors. The City Connect uniforms take away from that.
#T90-68 Albert Pujols (1990 Topps 35th Anniversary insert)
In keeping with the numerous ways Topps rehashes their old designs, we once again have the completely arbitrary 35th Anniversary set. Personally, I have always liked the 1990 set design, so I don't mind this too much, but now that Topps has reached the 90's, we are rapidly approaching the time I stepped away from the hobby and thusly will no longer care about this yearly insert...
#SMLB-7 Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (Stars of MLB insert)
#SMLB-28 Carlos Correa (Stars of MLB insert)
Another returning insert series is the Stars of MLB. This is probably the best design they've come up with since they started doing this insert in 2022.
#324 Masataka Yoshida
The "Macho Man" gets the honor of being my first 2025 Red Sox card! Not a bad card at all, and despite his struggles last year, I still think we haven't seen the best of him yet. I will point out that Yoshida gets the LF designation, despite only appearing in the field for 1 game last year. He should be listed as a DH.
#225 Tyrone Taylor
#288 Evan Carter (FS)
I've always had a soft spot for Future Stars cards, especially when they use a script reminiscent of the original 1987 ones.
#81 Minnesota Twins (TC)
This is an early contender for best card of the year. Such a fun card!
#114 Ryan O'Hearn#279 Trevor Larnach
#342 Davis Schneider
#151 AL Wins Leaders (Skubal/Berrios/Lugo)
We end the pack with a League Leaders subset card. I'm glad they're actually showing the players who led the league, but once again Topps would rather stick to a trifecta of players rather than give proper due to Skubal and all three players who finished second with 16 wins (Poor Carlos Rondon...)
Overall I like the set, even though in some cases it seems to get in it's own way. I think some minor tweaks could have made this set even better.
