2022 was a year of some more consistency than 2021 had been. I think that came in a few different ways. I think you’ll see that return numbers were somewhat consistent. But what you won’t see is that I was pretty darn consistent in what I sent out.
In 2021 I had a surge in the last half of the year that really drove my return numbers up. This year I don’t think I ever wavered with how much I was sending out each week… up or down. If I did, it wasn’t drastic at all.
But I think for me it’s consistency that makes me feel better overall about what I am doing. Is it great to have a day where I get nine returns? Sure! But does it also feel bad if the next three days have nothing? Yep! Could I get three each day and feel better all along? I think that would be ideal for me.
If you want to reference anything from my 2021 post, you can find it here.
Let’s take a look back at 2022. I’ll show you some things you normally see in my monthly posts, but a little bit more than that as well. We’ll dig into a little more about the what came back rather than just the numbers and hopefully some “fun” (maybe just to me) numbers too.
Taking It From The Top…
For most of my previous years of TTM collecting, it’s been a numbers game. How many can I get back? How many can I average a day for the year? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get my mind completely away from that. But its definitely time to start training my brain to get away from that mindset.
In 2021 I was trying to push to averaging 2 returns per day and I got up to over 2.5 per day. I was also aiming to get 2500 cards back and ended up getting 3400+ cards back. In order to do that I really had to start pumping out attempts. It just wasn’t really realistic to do that going into 2022. So I slowed down a bit.
I didn’t slow down a whole lot last year, but as I mentioned earlier, I just tried to keep myself to a consistent amount. But while I cut down, I improved how I decided on what to send out based on what I saw others getting successes for. Amazingly, I beat my 2021 while sending out less! In 2021 I almost was just short of 1,000 returns and this year I beat it (1,013). And as far as the cards back is concerned, I was only a half a percent short of last year (3,411 v. 3429 for 2021). I got better and did less – awesome!
We’re not that far into this post and I’ve been talking about consistency a lot already. That’s really what I want to look at below. In 2021, the range of returns back each month was between 55 and 115 (a 60 return swing) with three months being over 100 and three months being under 60. In looking at 2022, the range of my monthly returns was between 68 and 123 (a 55 return swing). Looks the same right… let’s look further.
The 123 was in January after I had really bumped up the numbers I was sending out at the end of 2021. If we eliminate that outlier then my range is between 68 and 101 (a 33 return swing). But for eight months I was between 74 and 89 returns (only a 15 return swing). That’s the consistency that I was getting at. I’d like to keep being consistent. It doesn’t mean it has to be large numbers, just consistent numbers. Preferably with a good return rate.
On top of all that, my failures didn’t really increase significantly. It was only an increase of five. Here’s where my yearly totals ended up for 2022 with a comparison to 2021:
- Successful Returns: 1013 (+4%)
- Failures: 63 (+8%) – The increase was from 2020 to 2021 was 29%, so actually a bigger drop than it was last year even with more of them
- Total Cards Returned: 3411 (-.52%)
- Returns per Day: 2.8 (+4%)
I was very interested in those Year-Over-Year numbers last year at this time and it’s almost more surprising to me this year. I really was thinking (and I kind of mentioned this every month in my monthly reviews) that I was expecting to get less overall this year. I love that that didn’t happen. But I worry that my mind is warped to large numbers just as I’m trying to cut back further.
January was a record for me with 407 cards back. That beat November 2021’s previous record by just six cards but it shows how much I was sending out at the end of 2021.
In last year’s review I got a kick out of what months I did best in. This year I actually get a kick out of the consistency. Yes, it looks like up and down, but if you take out some outliers on either end, it’s super consistent. I probably should do something to compare years more going forward now that I have so many in. I should also look more at my return rate. I can’t be afraid of that anymore.
TTM Aging – Ain’t Nothin’ But A Number
In 2021 there was a lot going on with the mail and it seemed everything probably took slightly longer. Not a big deal longer but I bet if you averaged it out it would be like part of a day more than it used to be. I think this year that might have evened out a bit with previous years.
Here are the quick ones (if there’s no link I haven’t gotten to posting it yet):
- 4 Days: Lance Mehl
- 5 Days: Larry Bowa, Johnny Grubb
- 6 Days: Lynn Jones
- 7 Days: Felix Wright, Frank Eufemia, Jeff Reboulet, Steve Blass, John Boccabella, Cris Carpenter, Paul Gruber, Jimmy Carson, Marty Lyons, Glenn Borgmann, Dave Flemming, Jack Billingham, John Candelaria, Fred Strickland
I really don’t know how anything gets back to me in under seven days, let alone the four or five day returns you see up there. Last year I only went up to six though.
I always love looking at the stragglers every week in the Review / Preview posts. In 2021 my longest was 1,300+ days and this year Ryan Raburn along was 500 days more than that. Plus three more that are longer than that. I’ll pick out any over 900 days and that group is two more than I got last year for the same parameter:
- 1846 Days: Ryan Raburn
- 1663 Days: Aaron Judge
- 1579 Days: John Wathan
- 1538 Days: Mike Leake
- 1145 Days: Mike Munchak
- 936 Days: Paul Wilson
The Cards That Came Back
As always baseball obviously destroys every other sport in the return numbers game. While its a full chart with some good color, it wasn’t completely full all year. My basketball numbers disappeared mid year and hockey numbers are definitely declining more recently. I didn’t have any concentrations on some of the sports I get less this year, but I did try to spread around the best I could. I just need to get more cards for some other signers in the sports beside baseball and football.
The “Heat Map” style chart doesn’t look that different from 2021. The expected spike is there in the 1990-1991 range. But this year, especially for baseball it’s less of a spike and more of a mound from 1990 all the way to 1993. I’m also seeing more spikes for 1986 and 1988. I think everything else to either side of those areas are pretty consistent with my previous year.
This year I’m going to look at the most popular sets I have signatures from the perspective of each sport. When I just list it as one Top 10, then nothing other than baseball would make the list. I figured I could show some more love to the other sports and split the chart up a bit more.
In 2021 my top set was 82 cards (that was 1978 Topps Baseball). But this year I had three sets (1988, 1986 and 1977 Topps Baseball) all over that top number from last year. As you can see the other sports don’t even hit a number close to 50 in the top sport. Topps obviously is the big one that comes back overall and you can see how baseball drives that with 1990 Donruss being the seventh ranked set in baseball for 2022. The other sports have a lot more variety in there.
What Else About These Cards
If you read my blog regularly you know that I track a lot of things when I record what I am sending out and getting back. So let’s take a look at some of the signing habits like the color of marker and what these folks are putting on the cards.
Here’s a look at what all of the combinations of personalization and numbers and inscriptions (I could messages as inscriptions):
As for what kind of marker is used, there really isn’t a question. Its pretty much guaranteed to be blue.
All of the numbers and percentages above are pretty consistent from year to year from what I’ve seen. The colors might change on the bottom end of that marker chart, but that’s about it.
One of my favorite things to do is to track the teams that I’m getting back and the general location or city of those teams. While I make it sort of a competition, it isn’t really like that. I’m not purposely sending out even numbers of each team to really make it fair. I just find it fun and interesting to keep track of. Like I did for the brand of cards that come back earlier, this year I broke it out by each sport. Again, that’s because baseball pretty much destroys everything else.
The Brewers and Rangers destroyed all other teams in 2021. And their numbers last year would have still been one and two on the list overall. But I find it interesting that they are still numbers one and three on the list for 2022. While Baltimore snuck in between then (they were in the Top 6 last year), you can see there’s a pretty good difference between the Rangers and everyone else. The Mariners are also in about the same spot they were in from 2021. It looks like the Royals, Pirates and Twins are new on the list.
As for the location/city numbers, these are always dominated by the areas with the most teams. Chicago and New York at the top really shouldn’t surprise anyone. They were in the same spots when I did this review a year ago. The cities that moved up with last year’s returns are Cleveland and Boston. The teams that dropped out are Houston and Atlanta.
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:
- 697 Players
- 138 All-Stars with 313 All-Star Game Appearances
- 30 Gold Glove Winners with 82 Gold Glove Awards
- 19 Silver Slugger Winners with 37 Silver Slugger Awards
- 187 Pennant Winners with 298 Pennants
- 111 World Series Champions with 148 World Series Championships
- 12 Rookie of the Year Winners
- 10 Manager of the Year Winners with 16 Manager of the Year Awards
- 6 MVP Winners with 7 MVP Awards
- 7 Cy Young Winners with 8 Cy Young Awards
- 5 Championship Series MVP Winners with 6 Championship Series MVPs
- 4 World Series MVP Winners with 4 World Series MVPs
- 8 Hall of Famers
- 1 Golden Spikes Award Winners
- 1 members of the College Baseball Hall of Fame
- 1 World Baseball Classic Gold Medal Winner
- 3 Roberto Clemente Award Winners
Football:
- 113 Players
- 8 winners of college football awards
- 12 winners of the College Football National Championship
- 1 Heisman Winner with 1 Heisman Award
- 8 members of the College Football Hall of Fame
- 7 winners of different College Football awards
- 38 All-Pros with 90 All-Pro selections
- 52 Pro Bowlers with 140 Pro Bowl selections
- 2 Defensive Rookie of the Year Award winner
- 1 Offensive Player of the Year Award winner with 1 award
- 1 Defensive Player of the Year Award winner with 1 award
- 1 MVP Award winners with 1 MVP award
- 1 Player of the Year Award winners with 2 awards
- 1 Coach of the Year Award winners with 1 award
- 81 Super Bowl appearances with 35 Super Bowl wins
- 2 Hall of Famers
- 4 members of All Decade teams (3 80s, 1 90s)
- 1 Payton Man of the Year Award winner
- 2 Grey Cup Champions
Basketball:
- 58 Players
- 3 NCAA Champions with 3 NCAA Championships won
- 6 Final Four players with 9 Final Four appearances
- 1 Final Four Most Outstanding Player
- 1 NCAA Coach of the Year with 1 award
- 7 NBA All-Stars with 16 All-Star appearances
- 3 NBA Second-Team players
- 5 NBA Defensive First-Team, 9 NBA Defensive Second-Team players
- 46 NBA Finals appearances with 28 NBA Championships
- 2 NBA Rookie of the Year Award winners
- 11 NBA All-Rookie Team members
- 1 Sixth Man of the Year
- 1 NBA Defensive Player of the Year with 2 awards
- 1 Hall of Famer
- 2 Slam Dunk Championships
- 5 Three Point Championships
Hockey:
- 64 Players
- 29 NHL All-Stars with 73 All-Star Game appearances
- 61 Stanley Cup finalists with 36 Stanley Cup Championships
- 7 All-Rookie Team members
- 6 Hockey Hall of Famers
- 2 Conn Smythe winners
- 1 Hart Memorial winner
- 1 Vezina Trophy winner
- 4 Norris Trophy winners
- 1 Selke Award winner
- 3 Lady Bing winners
- 1 Maurice Richard Award winner
- 1 King Clancy Award winner
- 3 William Jennings Award winners
- 5 Bill Masterson Award winners
- 1 NHL Foundation Award winner
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.
- 18 Olympic medalists with 12 gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze medals
- 1 World Champions with 1 World Championship
So What Were My Favorites?
Unfortunately since I have gotten so many cards the last few years, I just can’t look back at my favorites the way I did a few years ago. There’s just too much to go through and really spend time on it. I know, first world problems.
So I decided to list anything that I rated 8.5 or better. The list is larger than I thought it would be. I think what I see happening is that I am more willing to give higher scores in the last two years or so. I think in the beginning of scoring things I tried to really save high scores for this that are truly special. While I still do that for really interesting autographs, I also just give high school for things that came out really well on a card regardless of the “style” or “character” the autograph shows.
I rate each individual card in a return and then the score you see in my posts is an average (or thereabouts) of the return as a whole. You also haven’t seen most of these returns because of the backlog I’m working through. But you’ll see them all in time.
Also, if you see “**” after their name it means they made this list last year. Not only did I get their autograph again, but I probably must like it.
Here’s last year’s list:
- 9.5 – Billy Ashley, Elliott Maddux, Gregg Olson, Mark Robinson
- 9 – Adam LaRoche, Billy Ashley, Bob Scanlan, Chris Donnels, Danny Darwin**, Don Robinson**, Eric Metcalf, Erik Hanson, Gerald Young, Greg Anthony, Gregg Olson, Jack Billingham, Jay Howell, Jeff Ballard, Joe Oliver, John Boccabella, John L. Williams, John Wathan, Johnny Damon, Kevin Bass, Kevin Tapani**, Larry Christenson**, Mark Robinson, Merv Rettenmund, Mike Boddicker, Pat Leahy**, Pat Sheridan, Ricky Horton, Rufus Porter, Scott Coolbaugh, Scott Terry, Skeeter Barnes, Tommy Greene, Tracy Woodson, Wallace Johnson, Xavier Hernandez, Zane Smith**
- 8.5 – Bill Almon, Bill Mueller, Bob Zupcic, Brandon Backe, Brian Holman, Buck Showalter, Chris Donnels, Clint Zavaras, Cris Carpenter, Dan Petry, Dave Hostetler, Dave Martinez, Don Kessinger, Don Robinson**, Donn Pall, Elliott Maddox, Eric Gunderson, Gregg Olson, Jay Howell, Jim Campanis, Jim Walewander, John Kiely, John Offerdahl, John Wehner, Keith Hernandez, Larry Dierker, Paul Wagner, Phil Bradley, Randy Lerch, Rick Fenney, Ron Kittle, Roy Smith, Rulon Jones, Scott Elarton, Steve Sparks, Tim Worrell, Tom Drees
What’s Next?
It’s goal time and be forewarned… I suck at these. It’s almost disappointing to look at them. Maybe I’m just not being realistic.
TTMs:
- TTM Trades – NOPE
- Reorganize – DONE
Blogging:
- A Series Post – NOPE
- Add New Pages – NOPE
- Update Set Needs – NOPE
One for five is not a great percentage. I’m a .200 hitter on my goals. Reorganizing some things was the best I did. I found a better way to organize my doubles AND I started getting some new sheets and improving my binder situation. As I pack my monthly cards into sheets and binders and change things out and redo things a bit. So it’s a work in progress, but I can say its done.
I didn’t do any trades this year, I didn’t do any “Series” style posts and I didn’t update my set needs. I kept up with the “Recent TTMs” page that I set up last year really well and added that into my process. I also worked on some new pages, but didn’t get to the point of posting them. I think some of these are going to stay.
Here’s what I’m shooting for this year:
TTMs / Collection:
- Reduction/Reprioritization of Attempts – I think this is going to be a goal I can only partially measure. Obviously I can cut down on my attempts and see that. What I’d like to do within that is to prioritize signers I haven’t tried (which might result in more failures) AND prioritize new cards for guys that I have received signatures of before. This isn’t going to be anywhere near 100%, but I’m going to see if I can change a bit here.
- TTM Trades – I’m going to continue to leave this on here. I’m not giving up on it. I have to list them on a page on the site AND I have to make myself hone what I would want back in trade so I can answer a little more intelligently
- Upgrade Storage – This is going to be a continuation of my reorganization. I just need to finish it. I need to upgrade my pages and my binders.
- Significant Reboxing – I have a lot of cards that are not yet in my “permanent storage”. It’s random boxes of cards hanging around. So I would like to significantly reduce what I have in random places. I think this might take some time off work and laying my cards around on some tables which I’m sure my family will love. I’m going to be realistic and say that it won’t get completely done, but I’d like to get to a point that I would be happy with what I did… significant progress.
Blogging:
- A Series Post – I’m leaving this on here… again. I have a few ideas and work just keeps getting in my way.
- Add New Pages – I did a little bit of planning for this during the year and started writing some background up. I just need to find a way to dedicate time to it.
Thanks for another year of reading, liking, and commenting (for the few that do). I really appreciate the eyeballs on my stuff. If you made it all the way down to the end, congrats and take an extra thank you.
I hope you have a great year of collecting and maybe we can do a little bit of it together.