2013 Panini Prizm Marc Rzepczynski Autograph

Honestly, this card has everything that I despise about baseball cards: airbrushing, no logos, and a sticker autograph.  Why would I go out and by such a card?  While the three negative attributes above made me seriously think about leaving this card on Ebay untouched there is one good reason that I decided to buy this card.  The good people over at Panini do a great job of picking a variety of different players to sign in their sets.

2013 Panini Prizm Marc Rzepczynski Autograph

When has Topps ever picked a role player to sign for one of their sets?  Never.  During the past two years of collecting Cardinals and Rays autographs from Topps products the autograph lines have been dominated by the same four or five players for each team.  The Cardinals always have some combination of Lance Lynn, Jon Jay, Allen Craig, and David Freese.  Throw in a Gibby and repeat ten to fifteen times a year and you've got a year's worth of Cardinals autograph.  Rays are the same way with Matt Moore, Hellickson, and Longoria.  There is not a really bad player on the list, but sometimes it's nice to branch out and see some other players signing.

In fact, after spending a little bit of time researching some of the autographs in the recent Panini recently I found several other Cardinals related players who signed for their products including Skip Schumaker and Reggie Sanders.  Sure, their not the biggest names in the collecting world, but both were solid contributors on World Series teams.  Schumaker for the 2011 team and Sanders for the 2004 team.  Neither player has much of a history of signing (I believe this is Sanders first certified auto) and they will be nice additions to my collection when the cards arrive.

In the meantime, I have started out my Panini additions by picking up this card of Rzepczynsi, or Scrabble as he is know around St. Louis.  Scrabble has never had a certified autograph before this issue despite being a good relief pitcher for two seasons in Toronto and another two in St. Louis.  He was a key contributor during the Cardinals 2011 run to the World Series picking up a win in the NLCS with an ERA of 1.93 and 4 appearances in the World Series without giving up a run.  Despite all that is wrong with this card, I guess I might revise my previous position on non-licesnced cards and pick up a few more Paninis.