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Card of the Week: 1986 Topps #563 Alejandro Sanchez

Posted by Andy on March 20, 2010

1986 Topps is generally regarded as one of the worst sets of all time. This Sanchez card is pretty representative in demonstrating the following negative attributes:

  • uninspired design that was outdated the day it was released
  • black edges that chipped easily
  • bad photographs such as this boring "action" shot
  • blurry photographs
  • lots of dark backgrounds even with dark uniforms
  • bad left-to-right centering made obvious by the design

What's more, this set has few good rookie cards, unlike the loaded 1985 Topps and 1986 Topps Traded sets. The best rookie cards in the base set are, in no particular order, Cecil Fielder, Lenny Dykstra, Ozzie Guillen, Vince Coleman, Darren Daulton, and, umm, Kirk McCaskill? Ivan Calderon?

The next year, 1987 would be the beginning of a new era for Topps. That set was loaded with good rookies and was also made in much larger quantities than past Topps sets. To many, it was the beginning of "modern" card collecting with mass production being the main theme. It's too bad that the 1986 Topps set marked the end of an era with a fuzzy, off-center whimper.

Anyway, I chose Alejandro Sanchez's card from this set for a couple of reasons. Firstly, he's a player of whom I had actually never heard. He had a short career in the 1980s, splitting time with 5 teams over parts of 6 seasons and totaling only 109 games. Secondly, he comes up very high on the following list of most plate appearances in a season without drawing a single walk (pitchers excluded):

Rk Player PA BB Year Age Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Pos
1 Craig Robinson 148 0 1973 24 PHI NL 46 146 11 33 7 0 0 7 0 25 0 2 0 2 1 1 .226 .226 .274 .500 *6/4
2 Alejandro Sanchez 133 0 1985 26 DET AL 71 133 19 33 6 2 6 12 0 39 0 0 0 4 2 2 .248 .248 .459 .707 9D/78
3 Ernie Bowman 131 0 1963 27 SFG NL 81 125 10 23 3 0 0 4 0 15 0 4 2 2 1 2 .184 .181 .208 .389 645
4 Rob Picciolo 128 0 1984 31 CAL AL 87 119 18 24 6 0 1 9 0 21 0 8 1 2 0 1 .202 .200 .277 .477 *65/49
5 Harry Bemis 126 0 1909 35 CLE AL 42 123 4 23 2 3 0 13 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 0 .187 .194 .252 .446 *2
6 Champ Osteen 115 0 1908 31 STL NL 29 112 2 22 4 0 0 11 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 .196 .204 .232 .436 *65
7 Bert Adams 111 0 1917 26 PHI NL 43 107 4 22 4 1 1 7 0 20 0 4 0 0 0 0 .206 .206 .290 .495 *2/3
8 Gus Getz 102 0 1916 26 BRO NL 40 96 9 21 1 2 0 8 0 5 0 6 0 0 9 0 .219 .219 .271 .490 *5/63
9 Jim Adduci 97 0 1988 28 MIL AL 44 94 8 25 6 1 1 15 0 15 0 0 3 1 0 1 .266 .258 .383 .641 7D/93
10 Tuck Stainback 97 0 1935 23 CHC NL 47 94 16 24 4 0 3 11 0 13 2 1 0 3 1 0 .255 .271 .394 .664 *9/87
11 Wally Shannon 96 0 1959 26 STL NL 47 95 5 27 5 0 0 5 0 12 1 0 0 0 0 0 .284 .292 .337 .629 64
12 Al Hermann 96 0 1923 24 BSN NL 31 93 2 22 4 0 0 11 0 7 0 3 0 0 3 2 .237 .237 .280 .516 4/53
13 Bobby Clark 93 0 1982 27 CAL AL 102 90 11 19 1 0 2 8 0 29 0 2 1 1 1 0 .211 .209 .289 .498 *978
14 Jerry Buchek 93 0 1961 19 STL NL 31 90 6 12 2 0 0 9 0 28 2 0 1 6 0 0 .133 .151 .156 .306 *6
15 Jack O'Connor 92 0 1907 38 SLB AL 25 89 2 14 2 0 0 4 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 .157 .176 .180 .356 *2
16 Aurelio Rodriguez 91 0 1983 35 TOT AL 67 87 1 12 1 0 1 3 0 16 1 2 1 1 0 0 .138 .146 .184 .330 *5
17 Larry Haney 89 0 1968 25 BAL AL 38 89 5 21 3 1 1 5 0 19 0 0 0 2 0 0 .236 .236 .326 .562 *2
18 Jerry Gil 88 0 2004 21 ARI NL 29 86 3 15 2 1 0 8 0 33 1 0 1 2 2 0 .174 .182 .221 .403 *6
19 Bill Schwartz 88 0 1904 20 CLE AL 24 86 5 13 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 4 0 .151 .151 .174 .326 *3/5
20 Midre Cummings 87 0 1996 24 PIT NL 24 85 11 19 3 1 3 7 0 16 0 1 1 0 0 0 .224 .221 .388 .609 89
21 Andres Blanco 86 0 2005 21 KCR AL 26 79 6 17 0 1 0 5 0 5 1 4 2 3 0 1 .215 .220 .241 .460 *4/6
22 Mike Felder 85 0 1988 26 MIL AL 50 81 14 14 1 0 0 5 0 11 1 3 0 1 8 2 .173 .183 .185 .368 78/9D4
23 Billy Beane 82 0 1989 27 OAK AL 37 79 8 19 5 0 0 11 0 13 0 2 1 2 3 1 .241 .238 .304 .541 *9/37D25
24 Don Mueller 82 0 1948 21 NYG NL 36 81 12 29 4 1 1 9 0 3 0 1 0 3 0 0 .358 .358 .469 .827 *7/89
25 Edgard Clemente 80 0 2000 24 ANA AL 46 78 4 17 2 0 0 5 0 27 1 1 0 0 0 1 .218 .228 .244 .471 79/D8
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 3/19/2010.

Yup, those are some bad seasons. At least Sanchez had a respectable batting average and hit 6 homers in just 133 plate appearances.

There are a number of interesting seasons on there but probably none more amusing than #23, achieved by current Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane. As the best-selling book (and now movie) Moneyball chronicled, walking was one of the things that Beane emphasized in players he sought as GM. How ironic that it was one of the things that he himself was not very good at as a player in the major leagues.

Further reading:

Raphy recently pointed me to this article about how the Reds have incorporated baseball cards into their tickets, including a 1986 Topps Mario Soto.

Related posts:

    Card of the Week: 1973 Topps #593 Jack McKeon MGR
    Card of the Week: 1969 Topps #466 John Boccabella
    Card of the Week: 2004 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #20 Mike Schmidt
    Card of the Week: 1982 Topps and Fleer Rod Carew
    Card of the Week: 1981 Topps #130 Larry Gura

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 20th, 2010 at 7:45 am and is filed under Card of the Week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

18 Responses to “Card of the Week: 1986 Topps #563 Alejandro Sanchez”

  1. Johnny Twisto Says:
    March 20th, 2010 at 11:10 am

    I can't see the top picture, is it just me?

  2. Ian W. Says:
    March 20th, 2010 at 12:44 pm

    Also interesting is that Sanchez drew only one walk in his entire Major League career.

  3. Pete Ridges Says:
    March 20th, 2010 at 3:49 pm

    That season, Sanchez broke the record for the most home runs (six) in a season by a player who didn't walk even once- he still holds that record.

    He finished his career with 8 HR and 1 BB, a difference of +7, which was a record, but is now in second place. Carlos Zambrano now holds that record with 20-6 = 14 (although of course, Zambrano may lose the record if opposing pitchers stop pitching to him).

  4. Gerry Says:
    March 20th, 2010 at 5:46 pm

    Number 9 on the list, Jim Adduci, had a higher batting average than on-base percentage, a difficult feat to accomplish with so many plate appearances.

  5. Donald Goss Says:
    March 20th, 2010 at 5:52 pm

    I was a very avid card collector and part of the problem w/the lack of value from the cards in the eighties was they produced way too many. Mattingly's rookie card is only five bucks I want to say?

  6. Andy Says:
    March 20th, 2010 at 8:10 pm

    I am seeing both images--is anybody else having JT's problem?

    Part of the issue with cards is the whole idea of professional grading as well as overproduction starting in the 1980s. With 80s cards everywhere and so easy to get, anything ungraded is almost worthless compared to a professionally graded 9 or 10 card. The whole idea of professional grading makes me sick, especially for modern cards where the production quality is so vastly improved over what we saw in the early 1990s back to the early days.

  7. Gerry Says:
    March 21st, 2010 at 12:34 am

    I see both images on this page, but only the back of the card on the "front" page (the main blog page).

  8. Thomas Says:
    March 21st, 2010 at 12:40 am

    I've got the same as Gerry......

  9. fiveiron Says:
    March 21st, 2010 at 3:13 am

    I've got Jerry Buchek's autograph! I knew he would be famous some day. It's on the same scorecard as some guy named Curt Flood.

  10. Andy Says:
    March 21st, 2010 at 7:10 am

    That image problem is now fixed--thanks for specifying the exact problem, Gerry, as that made it easy to track down. Fairly recently, I started inserting images (including the Excel plots) into my posts using a flash uploader, which I was able to do only once I got editor privileges on this blog. I'm still learning some of the quirks of the system.

  11. MrDave Says:
    March 21st, 2010 at 9:48 am

    I love the obscurity of most of these cards profiled. It's fun to look back and see what these people did.

  12. Andy Says:
    March 21st, 2010 at 12:52 pm

    My methodology for picking cards is fairly random, although I will want my next card to be a Donruss one since I haven't featured any yet from that company.

  13. Kahuna Tuna Says:
    March 21st, 2010 at 8:15 pm

    Some trivia. #24 on the list, Don Mueller, later became one of only four players since 1901 to lead the majors in hits in the same season that his team swept the World Series (1954, of course). The other three: Red Rolfe, Yankees, 1939; Pete Rose, Reds, 1976 (tied for MLB hits lead with Brett); and Derek Jeter, Yankees, 1999.

    I was going to get in a dig at Larry Haney (#17), whose zero-walk 1968 season earned him exile to the expansion Pilots, but Haney did win a ring in 1974 with Oakland. Other players from the list who later played on Series-winning teams: Tuck Stainback, '43 Yankees; Mueller, '54 Giants; Buchek, '64 Cardinals; and Midre Cummings, '01 Diamondbacks. Billy Beane gets a special nod for having played briefly for the 1987 Twins and 1989 A's but having been left off both teams' post-season rosters.

  14. MrDave Says:
    March 22nd, 2010 at 12:32 am

    Something else that's interesting about Billy Beane is that all eleven of his major league walks happened in the same season, which is sort of amazing given that he spent parts of six seasons in the majors.

  15. Andy Says:
    March 22nd, 2010 at 8:49 am

    I guess I never realized just how bad Beane was at getting on base (a .246 career OBP--wow!)

  16. Dan Says:
    March 23rd, 2010 at 4:46 pm

    If I recall correctly, Alejandro Sanchez was often called "Al Sanchez," and he wasn't the only player whose Latino name got Anglicized. George Bell used to be Jorge Bell, for one, and I'm sure there are others.

  17. kingcrab Says:
    March 23rd, 2010 at 7:00 pm

    the last tigers pitcher to legally throw the spitball was dutch checkoutmycards.com in 1925?? never heard of him.

  18. Andy Says:
    March 23rd, 2010 at 7:37 pm

    I've always had a problem with needless Anglicization of Latino names in baseball. If a player chooses an American-sounding nickname or even chooses to alter his name to an American name, of course that's fine. But I don't like Americans choosing on their own to give Latin names an American pronunciation or spelling. One example that comes to mind is Lou Piniella pronouncing Raul Ibanez as "Rawl EYE-buh-nez." I understand that the American music company Ibanez in pronounced that way, but clearly the ballplayer's name is not. Another example is Dave Niehaus of Mariners broadcasts saying "George Posada" years before he ever went by the nickname "Georgie." This was a case of Niehaus simply choosing the lazy way out and using an Anglicized name on his own....I wonder if he wonders why so much of the rest of the world thinks Americans are lazy and self-centered.

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