Is It Too Early to Talk About Topps Updates & Highlights???

The July 31st Trading Deadline is soon upon us. Teams are not determining if they are going to be buyers or sellers this year. The short term goal is to win it all in October. The cost, which could affect each team in the long term, looks to be giving up on their best prospects for that 3 month fix.

But on to more important things, it's time to play...

Who's in the 2008 Topps Updates & Highlights Set???

Now the rules are:

• 330 cards to fill the set
• 60 are going to be players who qualify for that Rookie Card Logo
• Reserve 5 for Manager Changes (we have three already)
• 62 will be reserved (or better be reserved) for the All-Stars...(unless Topps makes the subtle mistake of making room for sixty, leaving out two guys like they did last year)
• Reserve 8 for the home run derby participants
• 10 for combos
• Reserve 15 for playoff and WS highlights (one for each divisional series, 2 for the league championship series, 1 game per World Series game...minimum of four here).
• Reserve 10 for season highlights (no hitters, milestone home runs, et.al)
• That should leave us with at least 160 cards of veterans who were traded or signed with another team during the season (130 if they bring back the team leaders subset again).

Count on RC logo cards for players like Jay Bruce, Kosuke Fukudome, Mike Aviles, Justin Masterson, John Bowker, and Chris Davis (the announced Red Hot Rookies), along with DeWayne Wise, Evan Longoria, Alexei Ramirez, and Yasuhiko Yabuta (the last two, who along with Fukudome, are part of the infamous WBC insert set) to be included. That's 10 of 60.

We know that Jim Riggleman (Mariners), Jerry Manuel (Mets), and Cito Gaston (Blue Jays) will be in, so that's three cards down.

We know who's going to the ASG this year (62), and count on Dan Uggla, Chase Utley, Josh Hamilton, Grady Sizemore, Lance Berkman, and Vladimir Guerrero for the Home Run Derby (68 cards out of 70).

You have a no hitter (Jon Lester), a 600 HR milestone (Ken Griffey), and a 500 HR milestone (Manny Ramirez), that's three.

So far, the list above should account for 84 cards out of 330.

As mentioned earlier, teams are now preparing for trading season. This week alone, we've seen two huge trades, both of which have pitchers as the centerpiece of each transaction, and both boosting the chances of winning the NL Central title for two teams. On Monday, C. C. Sabathia was traded to the Brewers in exchange of Beckett Hobby God Matt Laporta, and three other minor leaguers, to the Indians. Today (Tuesday, July 8), it was announced that the Cubs traded Eric Patterson, Matt Murton, Sean Gallagher, and a minor league catcher, to the Athletics for pitchers Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin. These two transactions alone should add six cards to the veterans list.

Last month, the Royals and Dodgers traded players, with the Royals sending SS and former AL Rookie of the Year Angel Berroa to the Dodgers for Juan Rivera. Trot Nixon was acquired by the Mets from the Diamondbacks for future considerations. That's another three players.

Frank Thomas returned to the Athletics. Both Reed Johnson and Jim Edmonds signed with the Cubs. That's three more. So based on these, we have 12 cards (out of a possible 160).

All total, we've come up with 96 cards for the traded set, or a little more than 29% of what should make up the 330 card set. I'm not that savvy on who's gone where yet, so who do you think will be in this set???

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama