Sticker Monstrosity

I have been looking into finding a Miles Mikolas autograph since the middle of the summer.  The Cardinals signed him this past off season after the former Padres and Rangers hurler spent a few years playing overseas in Japan.

Not sure everyone was sold on Mikolas helping the Cardinals out too much, but he turned out to be a really good free agent signing.  He ended up winning 18 games with an ERA+ of 137. during his first year back in the States.  Mikolas was arguably the best pitcher on the team last year.  

Mikolas had his first autograph in Allen & Ginter, but that was selling for a decent amount of money throughout the summer.  There have been a few other cards that Mikolas has signed more recently that seem to have watered down the price of his autographs a bit.  

I ended up with one of those cards.  It's not pretty, but it was dirt cheap.  This card is out of the Topps Chrome Update set.  It's a retail product.  

That sticker is pretty bad.  I am seriously thinking about taking a ruler to the card to see if the sticker is even straight.  Fairly certain that it is a little crooked.  I understand that we cannot get all of the autographs to be on card signatures, but we could at least do a little bit better job of blending the sticker into the photograph.  Maybe?  

The picture on the card is actually nice.  I picked up a base card too.   

Maybe it is just me, but the sticker really takes away from the picture on the card.  I like the action shot of Mikolas, but you can see the outfielder in the background and a hint of the catcher and umpire in the foreground.  

It's my first Mikolas autograph and I am happy to add it to my collection, but I am hoping that I will be able to add something nicer at some point soon.   Always happy to have a new autograph of a new player in my collection, but this card is a bit of a sticker monstrosity.