The Ultimate Ginter Mini Set Bracket: Seeding Vote #10 (2016)

My previous Ginter seeding post had a rather poor voting turnout but I doubt the winning set will complain too much about getting an "easy" top seed in the final bracket.  Congrats to Birds of Prey (and perhaps Night Owl for his campaign speech in the comments).  

Now, on to 2016!

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Welcome to the tenth of my Ultimate Ginter Mini Set Bracket posts!

For the first part of the bracket creation, we need to seed the various mini insert sets.  I thought it'd be fun to first have a vote for the best mini set within each year and use each vote winner as a top seed.  From there, I'll fill in the rest of the bracket with some of the non-winning mini sets and then the entire bracket will be set and we can have our giant vote-off!

I also hope that each of these Seeding Vote posts give you a bit of information about each of the mini sets for a specific year.  That should help with your voting as we move forward into the heart of the Ultimate Ginter Mini Set Bracket.  I laid out the rest of the ground rules in my introductory post so feel free to check that post out as well.  Now, we move on to the good stuff (and remember to vote at the bottom of the post)!

The Ultimate Ginter Mini Set Bracket:  Seeding Vote #10 (2016)

The 2016 Topps Allen & Ginter set shook things up quite radically from the previous number of years of Allen & Ginter releases.  For starters, after having 8 different mini insert sets to collect from 2011 - 2015, in 2016 Topps cut the number of sets back to only 6 (with one of those sets containing only a single card).  Topps also cut down on the total number of mini cards to find with the lowest total since 2011.  

With that out of the way, let's update our running tally of mini sets and the total number of mini cards in each year's edition of Allen & Ginter:

• 2006:  0 sets, 0 total cards
• 2007:  3 sets, 65 total cards
• 2008:  6 sets, 107 total cards
• 2009:  5 sets, 90 total cards
• 2010:  9 sets, 181 total cards
• 2011:  8 sets, 95 total cards
• 2012:  8 sets, 116 total cards
• 2013:  8 sets, 116 total cards
• 2014:  8 sets, 123 total cards
• 2015:  8 sets, 116 total cards
• 2016:  6 sets, 103 total cards

Now, let's take a look at the mini sets for 2016!

Ferocious Felines

In 2016, there were essentially four "common" mini insert sets but they were seeded at different insertion rates.  For the Ferocious Felines, the stated pack odds were 1:25 packs or just less than one per hobby box.  That probably helps to explain why I'm still missing three of the cards for my own set (as usual, cards I need are marked in both bold and with an asterisks in the checklist below).

Checklist:

FF-1 Bengal Tiger*

FF-2 Clouded Leopard

FF-3 Canadian Lynx

FF-4 Jaguar

FF-5 African Lion*

FF-6 North American Cougar*

FF-7 South African Cheetah

FF-8 Cheetah

FF-9 Classic Tabby

FF-10 Sand Cat

FF-11 Manx Cat

FF-12 Serval

FF-13 Ocelot

FF-14 Caracal

FF-15 Siberian Tiger

Greenland Explorer

Note:  No image since I don't own this card.

You'll notice in the above note that I say "this card."  That's because the Greenland Explorer was a single card that was inserted as a stealth insert in packs of 2016 Allen & Ginter.  The card was seeded an insane 1:26,436 hobby packs according to a pack wrapper that I saved from 2016!  The Greenland Explorer set/card is one that I have no plans to ever try and complete.

Checklist:

GE Greenland Explorer

Laureates of Peace

Our second of the common mini inserts, the Laureates of Peace cards were seeded 1:38 packs or slightly more common than one in every two boxes.  Despite lowering the total number of mini sets (and total number of minis), Topps made actually collecting most of the mini sets much, much more difficult!  So difficult, in fact, that I'm still actively seeking two more cards from this measly ten card set...

Checklist:

LP-1 Martin Luther King, Jr.*

LP-2 Nelson Mandela

LP-3 Baron Philip Noel-Baker

LP-4 Ralph Bunche*

LP-5 Henry Dunant

LP-6 Malala Yousafzai

LP-7 Shirin Ebadi

LP-8 Jane Addams

LP-9 Frank B. Kellogg

LP-10 Jimmy Carter

Skippers

Note:  No image since I don't own any of these.

The Skippers insert set was a case hit (1:288 packs) back in 2016.  While that may sound okay at first glance, it's actually awful for set collectors since Topps made a card for each of the 30 big league clubs.  In the boxes that I ripped back in 2016, I didn't pull a single Skipper card...and after leaving this set on my want list for a couple of years without receiving a single card or even trade proposal, I decided to give up on trying to collect it.  Looking back, I definitely made the right move here since the cards are both super rare and super expensive these days (at the time of writing this post there were four different Skipper cards for sale on COMC - one, Mike Sciosca, was "only" $17.62 while the rest were $46 and up).  

Checklist:

S-1 Pete Mackanin

S-2 Bryan Price

S-3 Dave Roberts

S-4 Robin Ventura

S-5 Terry Collins

S-6 Craig Counsell

S-7 Mike Matheny

S-8 Joe Maddon

S-9 Jeff Banister

S-10 Dusty Baker

S-11 Buck Showalter

S-12 Mike Scioscia

S-13 Andy Green

S-14 Brad Ausmus

S-15 A.J. Hinch

S-16 Walt Weiss

S-17 Bruce Bochy

S-18 John Gibbons

S-19 Paul Molitor

S-20 Fredi Gonzalez

S-21 Soctt Servais

S-22 Terry Francona

S-23 Chip Hale

S-24 John Farrell

S-25 Kevin Cash

S-26 Clint Hurdle

S-27 Bob Melvin

S-28 Don Mattingly

S-29 Joe Girardi

S-30 Ned Yost

Subways & Streetcars

The third of the more common mini sets is the Subways & Streetcars set.  Seeded 1:25 packs, this set is just as rare as the Ferocious Felines in terms of seeding odds but the set is smaller in total size which means this set is actually a bit easier to complete if you are trying to do so simply by buying packs (a bad idea, by the way).  My Subways & Streetcars set is complete though I've often wondered why Topps stopped this set at 12 cards rather than their usual 15?

Checklist:

SS-1 7 Train

SS-2 Red Line

SS-3 Metromover

SS-4 Duquesne Incline

SS-5 Market St. Cable Car

SS-6 Duck Boat

SS-7 Passenger Train

SS-8 Aerial Tram

SS-9 Motorcycle

SS-10 City Bus

SS-11 R.V.

SS-12 Bikeshare

US Mayors

Finally, we reach the last of the mini insert sets from 2016 and this is by far the most common one (in terms of pack seeding:  1:11 packs).  That said, this set is also 32 cards in size which means it's yet another slog to actually try and put together!  While buying packs is a terrible way to build this set, the cards were basically two to a hobby box which meant that I found trading for the minis to be fairly easy and thus I have completed this set.  My recollection at the time was that most people weren't really interested in this set (which helped to make trading easier for me) but I'm curious how the US Mayors set will do in our Ginter seeding vote today!

Checklist:

USM-1 Mick Cornett Oklahoma City, OK

USM-2 Sylvester Turner Houston, TX

USM-3 Sam Liccardo San Jose, CA

USM-4 Greg Stanton Phoenix, AZ

USM-5 Betsy Hodges Minneapolis, MN

USM-6 Muriel Bowser Washington, DC

USM-7 Kasim Reed Atlanta, GA

USM-8 Frank G. Jackson Cleveland, OH

USM-9 Edwin M. Lee San Francisco, CA

USM-10 Charlie Hales Portland, OR

USM-11 Marty Walsh Boston, MA

USM-12 Tom Barrett Milwaukee, WI

USM-13 Tom Tait Anaheim, CA

USM-14 Mike Duggan Detroit, MI

USM-15 Tom?s Regalado Miami, FL

USM-16 Bob Buckhorn Tampa, FL

USM-17 Jim Kenney Philadelphia, PA

USM-18 Stephanie Rawlings-Blake Baltimore, MD

USM-19 Andrew Ginther Columbus, OH

USM-20 Bill de Blasio New York City, NY

USM-21 Ed Murray Seattle, WA

USM-22 Steven Fulop Jersey City, NJ

USM-23 Carolyn Goodman Las Vegas, NV

USM-24 Rahm Emanuel Chicago, IL

USM-25 Mitch Landrieu New Orleans, LA

USM-26 Libby Schaaf Oakland, CA

USM-27 Kevin Faulconer San Diego, CA

USM-28 Bill Peduto Pittsburgh, PA

USM-29 Eric Garcetti Los Angeles, CA

USM-30 Francis G. Slay St. Louis, MO

USM-31 Michael Hancock Denver, CO

USM-32 Greg Fischer Louisville, KY

USM-33 Sly James Kansas City, MO

USM-34 Oscar Leeser El Paso, TX

USM-35 Mike Rawlings Dallas, TX

Now it's your turn!  Cast your vote for your favorite mini set from 2016 in the comment section below!