Today is the fifth anniversary of the Dodgers' trade with the Red Sox in which the Dodgers gained Mookie Betts for a bag of beans.
It's not a coincidence that at around the same time, Betts has moved into the top 10 in terms of the number of cards in my collection. Two World Series wins with one of MLB's flagship teams and being a hell of a bowler will do that. He's now at No. 10, according to TCDB, with 373 cards, knocking Adrian Beltre to 11th.
It seems that Betts arrived in the top 10 extremely quick. Sure, it took five years, but there are plenty of other players in my collection who are favorites, who I've been collecting for a long time, and are nowhere near the top 10.
But if you are a star during this era of collecting baseball cards, you are going to make up ground fast. Companies now issue way too many cards of the top five percent of ball players. It makes it much easier to reach the top than it ever has been.
Just for my own funzies, I thought I'd go through where current Dodger players rank in my collection. I don't have any ability to chart their progress -- I just thought of this topic a week ago -- but trust me, they've almost all rocketed up the standings.
ONE
Clayton Kershaw. Yeah I know he technically isn't a Dodger right now, but you know they're going to add him. Kershaw did not do any ladder-climbing on TCDB, he's been first since the moment I joined the site. He did all his climbing offline.
2. Mike Piazze
3. Hideo Nomo
4. Matt Kemp
5. Shawn Green
6. Cody Bellinger
7. Eric Karros
8. Raul Mondesi
9. Jackie Robinson
TEN
Until 2020 I could count the number of Betts cards I had on two hands. Not only was he on a team I didn't collect, but his cards were kind of difficult to obtain as a young superstar. That's not a problem for me anymore, as the standings make clear.
11. Adrian Beltre
12. Orel Hershiser
13. Andre Ethier
14. Corey Seager
15. Kevin Brown
16. Sandy Koufax
17. Duke Snider
18. Russell Martin
19. Fernando Valenzuela
20. Gary Sheffield
21. Ramon Martinez
22. Chan Ho Park
23. Eric Gagne
TWENTY-FOUR
Sure, Walker Buehler isn't a Dodger anymore, but he hasn't played for anyone else ... yet! On every card out there, he's a Dodger (please don't bring up Topps Now, I don't want to know). It's always sad when long-time Dodgers leave the team, you know their card totals are going to stagnate on the list, no matter how much I vow to continue collecting their cards.
25. Adrian Gonzalez
26. Steve Garvey
27. Chad Billingley
28. Yasiel Puig
29. Brett Butler
30. Roy Campanella
31. Darryl Strawberry
32. Ron Cey
33. Justin Turner
------------------- 200-card marker --------------------
34. Kenley Jansen
34. Eddie Murray
36. Pedro Guerrero
37. Mickey Mantle
38. Jeff Kent
39. Reggie Jackson
40. Rafael Furcal
40. Joc Pederson
40. Manny Ramirez
43. Nolan Ryan
FOURTY-FOUR
Freddie Freeman's cards have always seemed easy to pull. After the season he had last year, I expect a ton more Freeman cards and also them being more difficult to pull than ever.
45. Kirk Gibson
46. Kaz Ishii
47. Paul Do Luca
48. Mike Scioscia
48. Julio Urias (thanks, Johnny's Trading Spot)
50. Don Sutton
51. James Loney
52. Mike Schmidt
FIFTY-THREE
There once was a silly little period when I complained that Topps was way behind in creating Max Muncy cards. They have since made up for it plenty.
54. Gary Carter
54. Todd Hollandsworth
54. Albert Pujols
57. George Brett
FIFTY-EIGHT
Another guy who is no longer a Dodger but hasn't appeared with his new team yet. I had feared, thanks to the number of Gavin Luxes in Johnny's big card sends that I would have way more Luxes than fairly represents my appreciation for him (which wasn't a lot, admittedly). Now that isn't a concern.
59. Rickey Henderson
59. Brad Penny
59. Pee Wee Reese
62. Hanley Ramirez
63. Tommy Lasorda
63. Tom Seaver
65. Hyun-Jin Ryu
66. Paul Konerko
67. Zach Greinke
67. Steve Sax
69. Pete Rose
70. Ismael Valdez
71. Carlton Fisk
72. Cal Ripken Jr.
73. Jose Offerman
73. Tom Candiotti
SEVENTY-FIVE
Will Smith just doesn't seem like he should be in the top 75 of all the players' cards I've collected for the last 50 years but here we are.
76. Tim Wallach
77. Rod Carew
78. Dee Strange-Gordon
79. Steve Carlton
80. Davey Lopes
81. Don Drysdale
82. Dusty Baker
82. Dave Winfield
84. Johnny Bench
85. Don Mattingly
86. Derek Lowe
86. Robin Yount
88. Delino DeShields
88. J.D. Drew
90. Gil Hodges
91. Wade Boggs
91. Miguel Cabrera
93. Dale Murphy
94. Darren Dreifort
94. Todd Worrell
94. Carl Yastrzemski
97. Dave Parker
97. Bob Welch
97. Maury Wills
100. Greg Maddux
I will cut it off there, it got pretty weird at the tail end (I need to bump some guys' totals to get DeShields and Drew out of the top 100!)
Looking farther, Dustin May is 121st (just above Babe Ruth and Ichiro), Chris Taylor is 169th and Shohei Ohtani is 171st. I expect Ohtani to vault up the list in 2025 and, who knows, in five years time, he may be in the top five. Because it's way easier to reach the top, thanks to Topps and Panini's hero-worshiping ways.
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