Times have changed for Cardinals and for collectors looking for great young players in their farm system. The team has been on the rise for the last several years and are now widely regarded as the top minor league by several different well respected baseball sites. Finding Cardinals minor leaguers on cardboard has gone from a crawl to a sprint over the last several years. It seems like there is always a new name to look for and they are getting hard and more expensive to find. Meet my latest find:
2011 Topps USA Baseball Carson Kelly Autograph
Carson Kelly was drafted by the Cardinals as a third baseman last summer by the Cardinals. He is often listed as a pitcher on his baseball cards, but is sticking with the hot corner for his professional career. It's a little bit tricky to get a good read on where Kelly will fall as a professional. He ranks highly with several different prospect sites, but his numbers in the minors are not all that great. For example, FanGraphs ranks him in the top 10 with a very highly ceiling. They even go as far to compare him to Buster Posey. Not sure I am ready to get too hyped up about Carson Kelly, but his autographs usually sell in the ballpark of $5 to $10. If you are going to roll the dice on someone who is a high ceiling prospect than I suppose that is a small price to pay.
That's the fun in collecting prospects, you never know what's going to happen with them. Usually for every 2 or 3 that doesn't turn out there's one that does make it worth it!
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