2021 Year-In-Review TTM Spectacular

Bill January 15, 2022 2 Comments

In 2020 I had a really good year as far as the TTM/collecting side of my life went. Not that I had a bad 2020 in general but… well, you know what’s been going on. One of the things I wanted to get done in 2021 was to step up the game from numbers perspective and I did. I had some of the best days, weeks and months that I’ve ever had in TTM collecting and all that added up to the best year I’ve had in TTM collecting.

Was it completely rosey? No way! I actually failed at a lot of the goals I had for this year. And most of those were carry over from the year before. I’m going to be doing a bit of carry over again this year with the hopes that I really find the time, energy and will power to get it done.

If you want to reference anything from my 2020 post, you can find it here.

So let’s take a look back at how 2021 ended up and then look at what’s on tap for 2022…

Taking It From The Top…

I continued to create my TTM goals based on numbers. I’ve gone from trying to average to “one per day” for the year to trying to push that to 1.5 or 2. In 2020 I surpassed my number, but not by a lot. For 2021 I was really focusing on breaking 2500 cards back in successful returns. I blew that up. I got 3400+ cards back in 2021. I set it at 2500 card because in 2020 I only got to 2200+ so I thought that was fair. From a successful return perspective I was so close to 1K with 974. That comes out to averaging over 2.5 per day. I don’t think I could have imagined going for that a couple years ago.

If course the way I did it was to just start pumping them out. I got more back because I sent more out. But in looking at my data, you can clearly see some changes in my behavior throughout the year. First, what I got back in 2021 has a lot to do with what I was sending out at the end of 2020. I really started stepping up my game around October 2020 and that helped make the beginning of the year great. When I was between 45 and 65 returns per month in 2020, in 2021 I was between 50 and 115. That’ not consistent, but let’s get into that.

So you can see January through March had a lot to do with the end of the previous year. My problem (if there were problems last year) was April through July. I started a new way to send things out that really didn’t start paying off for a few months. I think that’s because I didn’t take as much advantage of it as I should have to start. I started focusing on what other people were getting back and turning those requests around quicker.

But the other thing that didn’t help those months was life. Work was absolutely insane during those months and while I really don’t see a dip in what I was doing from a numbers perspective with what I was sending, I know I had one mentally. But then here came August through December and the months just kept going up. That really makes me wonder what I could have done if I’d figured things out earlier in the year and not had that lull.

What’s surprising though is that my failures didn’t really increase. That’s probably because of the way I started sending out the cards about a quarter of the way through the year. Here’s where my yearly totals ended up for 2021 with a comparison to 2020:

• Successful Returns: 974 (+51%)
• Failures: 58 (+29%) – last years increase was 40%, so failures didn’t increase at the same rate.
• Total Cards Returned: 3429 (+54%)
• Returns per Day: 2.7 (+33%)

The Year-Over-Year number is what I was really interested in looking at this year. So those percentages got to be really fun to look at.

When I look at the Year-Over-Year numbers they are fun but there is definitely something fun in looking at what months I did best in. While December 2021 was my best month ever, it was only 85% better than December 2020. I say only but really that’s awesome. Still, November was 122% better than the year prior. Obviously the end of the year was the best compared to last year. In May I was even and in June I was worse than last year.

TTM Aging – Ain’t Nothin’ But A Number

With all the changes in the mail this year I think it would be amazing if somehow there were more quick returns in 2021 than in 2020. While I think you can make the argument that in the beginnings of the pandemic people were scared about mail and maybe things sat. But in reality, the reorganization and the new leadership of the USPS probably had more impact.

Here are the quick ones (if there’s no link I haven’t gotten to posting it yet):

• 6 Days: Frank Bolick, Larry Bowa, Kyle Clifton, Mike Bordick, Ray Soff, Mike Trombley

I had had way to many to list the ones that came in after seven days, but the key is that there were none out for five days like in 2020. Plus there were less out for six days. That kind of goes along with the way I was thinking.

As always there were a few stragglers. Those are even more fun to see, and to try to figure out how they ended up coming back after sitting around that long. I’ll pick out any over 900 days (one less than last year):

• 1369 Days: Luis Rivera
• 1054 Days: Doug Fister
• 1041 Days: Davis Treadwell
• 985 Days: Shane Rawley

The Cards That Came Back

Baseball obviously destroys everything from a numbers perspective, but one thing I’ve loved last year was how colorful this chart was. The goal I had related to this was to break into hockey. So that was successful and I did a pretty good job with what I sent out. Sure there was a dip in the middle just like everything else but I came back with gusto by the end of the year.

When you look at it from my “Heat Map” style chart that I do on a monthly basis, the colors still come out well. In 2020 it was baseball and football and then, “oh, look at that little gray spot for basketball.  But those colors look so great down there. I wish I could do something about those junk wax years, but don’t we all. That’s why they are referred to as junk wax right?

The other thing I really like about this is that the peaks to the left are bigger this year. That was from a card show that I actually got to attend. Then to the right, while they aren’t peaks, the right side is this little line that extends out. I think a lot of that came from a yard sale buy in the neighborhood from a while back. I’m loving how I can see those things in the data knowing where things came from.

The numbers below were interesting to me mainly because they actually aren’t that different than 2020. In 2020 the span of the counts for the sets was between 56 and 82. That’s really not that different. Now, what is actually on the list is different.

In 2020 the list was led by 1978 and 1979 Topps. Last year’s list is clearly led by junk wax, but 1977 Topps is appearing on the list and it wasn’t last year. Also in 2020, Topps took 8 of the top 10 spots on the list. This year, Donruss, Fleer and even Score snuck in.

What Else About These Cards

I track a lot of things when I record what I am sending out and getting back. Obviously then what and when is important, but I’ve enjoyed looking at what’s on the cards in more detail too. I should note that regarding inscriptions, personalization, I count “Best Wishes” and other messages as inscriptions but I would bet others would put that in the personalization category. So maybe those inscription numbers are high for some others.

Here’s a look at what all of those combinations were like last year, in comparing to 2020 they aren’t too different from a percentage standpoint:

Blue is always the top choice but the percentage when below 75% this year. It was a pretty significant change with black taking up that space a bit more. Does anyone know if there were supply chain issues for blue Sharpie ink?

If you follow my regular monthly updates you’ll know that I love checking out what teams I am getting returns back for but also what cities, states, regions, etc.. I just find this fun. Of course the big cities with multiple teams in different sports are always have the best chance to be at the top. Until I find a little bit of a different way to do that I just need to deal with the system I have.

The repeats on the list are the Rangers (staying at no. 2), Mariners (up from no. 9), White Sox (up from no. 8), Orioles (who were no. 1), and Indians (down from no. 6). As for the cities: Milwaukee/Green Bay, Minnesota, Houston, and Atlanta are all new to the list.

But Did These People Amount To Anything?

I keep track of are all of the accomplishments and accolades of the people I have signatures of. Here’s a pretty good list of what I got back by sport:

Baseball:

• 606 Players
• 109 All-Stars with 223 All-Star Game Appearances
• 22 Gold Glove Winners with 63 Gold Glove Awards
• 17 Silver Slugger Winners with 28 Silver Slugger Awards
• 159 Pennant Winners with 226 Pennants
• 78 World Series Champions with 100 World Series Championships
• 7 Rookie of the Year Winners
• 7 Manager of the Year Winners with 11 Manager of the Year Awards
• 4 MVP Winners with 4 MVP Awards
• 5 Cy Young Winners with 5 Cy Young Awards
• 2 Championship Series MVP Winners with 2 Championship Series MVPs
• 2 World Series MVP Winners with 2 World Series MVPs
• 5 Hall of Famers
• 5 Golden Spikes Award Winners
• 1 World Baseball Classic Gold Medal Winner
• 2 Roberto Clemente Award Winners

Football:

• 126 Players
• 8 winners of college football awards
• 12 winners of the College Football National Championship
• 1 Heisman Winner with 1 Heisman Award
• 17 members of the College Football Hall of Fame
• 43 All-Pros with 85 All-Pro selections
• 66 Pro Bowlers with 174 Pro Bowl selections
• 1 Offensive Rookie of the Year Award winner
• 1 Defensive Rookie of the Year Award winner
• 4 Offensive Player of the Year Award winner with 5 awards
• 1 Defensive Player of the Year Award winner with 1 award
• 4 MVP Award winners with 4 MVP awards
• 2 Player of the Year Award winners with 3 awards
• 3 Coach of the Year Award winners with 3 awards
• 95 Super Bowl appearances with 48 Super Bowl wins
• 4 Hall of Famers
• 9 members of All Decade teams (1 60s, 2 70s, 5 80s, 1 90s)
• 1 Starr Man of the Year Award winner
• 2 Payton Man of the Year Award winnders
• 2 Grey Cup Champions
• 6 Grey Cup MVPs

 Basketball:

• 70 Players
• 2 Wooden Award winners with 3 awards
• 5 NCAA Champions
• 8 Final Four players with 9 Final Four appearances
• 1 Final Four Most Outstanding Player
• 1 College Basketball Hall of Famer
• 12 NBA All-Stars with 41 All-Star appearances
• 4 NBA Second-Team, 1 NBA Third-Team
• 9 NBA Defensive First-Team, 16 NBA Defensive Second-Team
• 51 NBA Finals appearances with 26 NBA Championships
• 2 NBA Rookie of the Year Award winners
• 13 NBA All-Rookie Team members
• 1 NBA Defensive Player of the Year with 2 awards
• 1 NBA Coach of the Year
• 4 Hall of Famers
• 3 Slam Dunk Championships

Hockey:

• 53 Players
• 19 NHL All-Stars with 56 All-Star Game appearances
• 21 Stanley Cup finalists with 13 Stanley Cup Championships
• 6 All-Rookie Team members
• 2 Hockey Hall of Famers
• 2 Conn Smythe winners
• 1 Vezina Trophy winner
• 2 Norris Trophy winners
• 1 Selke Award winner
• 1 King Clancy Award winner
• 1 William Jennings Award winner
• 3 Bill Masterson Award winners
• 1 Olympic Medalist with 5 Golds and a Bronze
• 1 World Champion with 3 World Championships

Others:

I didn’t put Olympic medalists with their sports so all of these are probably from other sports when it comes to Olympic data.

• 20 Olympic medalists with 9 gold, 6 silver and 5 bronze medals
• 1 World Champions with 4 World Championships
• 1 Golf major winner with 4 majors and 3 PGA championships

So What Were My Favorites?

I would look at my favorites here but there’s just too many. It’s a long list normally. So I’m taking a slightly different approach. I’m going to look at cards I rated the highest. I don’t really have links to them like I have in the past because I have such a backlog I’m working through. You’ll see them on the posts at some point. Just be patient – LOL!

I’m only going to list 9’s and 8.5’s here. Just remember that it was a card within the return that got this score, not necessarily the whole return.

• 9 – Bill Mazeroski, CJ Nitkowski, Dana Barros, Dennis Gentry, Denny Hocking, Jaime Cocanower, Larry Christenson, Mark Collins, Mike Jeffcoat, Milt Thompson, Randy Choate, Ricky Proehl, Scott Leius, Scott Pose, Tony Delk, Zane Smith
• 8.5 – Billy Spiers, Brad Arnsberg, Brent Mayne, Brian McRae, Dallas Braden, Dan Peltier, Danny Darwin, Danny Tartabull, Dave Beard, Dion James, Don Robinson, Eric Hillman, Frank Tanana, Jason Frasor, Joe Sambito, John Pacella, Kelly Gruber, Kevin Tapani, Lance Johnson, Larry Bowa, Mike Schooler, Mike Stanley, Milt Thompson, Pat Leahy, Pete Ladd, Ron Tingley, Scott Leius, Steve Trachsel, Tim Krumrie, Toby Harrah

What’s Next?

Before I get into making new goals I’d like to take a quick look at my 2021 goals:

TTMs:

• 2500 Cards Returned – DONE
• Break Into Hockey TTMs – DONE
• TTM Trades – NOPE

Blogging:

• More Collection Posts – MAYBE
• Update Branding – NOT QUITE
• Update Set Needs – NOT REALLY
• A Series Post – NOPE
• Expand Social Media – NOPE

As you can see the blog side of the goals is lacking. I think I did some things that I wanted to do that didn’t necessarily get into the goals. I really wanted to revamp and rebrand the site, but that is daunting. It will still be on my list, by I don’t know if its a goal. I’d also like to really make sure I get some trades done this year, especially when it comes to TTMs.

Here’s what I’m shooting for this year:

TTMs / Collection:

• TTM Trades – I’d really like trade, but I think I need to make this a two part goal. First, I’d like to try to list the TTMs that I’d like to trade on the site. That way there’s a base for people to look at and make offers if they want. Then I can try to get more into an actual trade from there. In the past I think my problem is I don’t necessarily know what I want back. “Mets” is usually my response, but I think I also want to fill some set holes as well.
• Reorganize – This is another two stepper. My best TTMs are in binders and there are some places I need to reorg a bit. But I also need to find a better way to store those so they aren’t all over my house. The second part goes with the above, I need to reorganize my other TTMs (that I’d be willing to trade) into a more practical option.

Blogging:

• A Series Post – I’m leaving this on here. I have a few ideas and things just got away from me with work and all. I am really hoping to add a new kind of series of post this year.
• Add New Pages – I added my “Recent TTMs” page so to go with the above I need to post my “other” TTMs and then I have some other ideas for new pages.
• Update Set Needs – I started to do this and then my life fell apart with work. Hopefully I can get back to it and come back to a trade I tried to do with a buddy that I just didn’t finish off.

As always, thanks to those who read my posts. If you made it this far in this post – take an extra thank you for the road, you deserve it. If reading this takes your mind away from something else you don’t need to think about, or helps you in some way, I’m glad I can help. I hope all of us have started another great year of collecting.