We are eight games away from this nightmare of a New York Mets season finally being over. At 70-84, they’ve already been eliminated from playing in the postseason. Now they just play for pride.
It was shocking, to say the least. The Mets spent big the past two seasons, picked up stud bats like Bo Bichette and Marcus Semien. Not to even mention giving Juan Soto the largest contract in the history of the sport. But none of these guys seemed to click.
It was a real failure-to-launch situation. And by the time we got out of April, everyone was already writing this team off.
Being the collectors/investors that we are, we couldn’t help but wonder what this was doing to the Juan Soto market. Despite the Mets’ failures, Soto actually gave them a typical Juan Soto season. .274 average, 26 homers, and an OPS+ in the 150s.
Since the start of the season, some of the most liquid Juan Soto cards have fallen off. His 1983 Silver Pack Rookie from Topps Update? Dropped 17%. His Rainbow Foil? Down 22%. His Chrome Update Base card? 31%.
Soto had a calf strain that kept him out for all of August. But even when he came back in the beginning of September, prices still dropped.
When a team puts up an absolute stinker of a season, the hobby starts looking elsewhere. This season, all eyes are on Ohtani, PCA, and Junior Caminero. All of these guys have punched their ticket to October. It doesn’t matter how good Juan Soto was. He’s already making vacation plans. This gets us thinking about whether there’s a window here.
So let’s put this to the test. We’re going to look at generational talents across the three major sports who have had to ride the wave of a disappointing season at no fault of their own. Is there a point where we can buy their cards during the bad year to flip for profit at some point in the future?
Let’s rip in.
