2011 Topps Finest Green Brett Wallace
For those who are indifferent about Brett Wallace, he is one of those perfect cautionary tale about sinking too much into a player before the succeeded in the majors. Seems like the kind of thing to talk about right now with everyone running around going crazy about their new Bowman cards.
Brett Wallace was one of the top bats in college baseball during his senior season at Arizona State. The Cardinals drafted him with the 13th pick in the 2008 draft. Cardinals fans were excited about Wallace quickly advancing to the majors and holding down third base long term for the team. Sure there were some whispers about him not transitioning well away from metal bats and his lack of conditioning, but there were plenty of Cardinals fans and card collectors who loved the Cardinals minor leaguer.
The first Wallace cards to appear on the market were his appearances in the Upper Deck USA Baseball set and the Razor Rookies set. Both sets featured autographs of Wallace and were fairly steady movers for most of the 2008 and 2009 season in the range of $20-$30. Wallace even appeared in the Futures Game in Busch Stadium during the summer of 2009.
The Futures Game appearance would be his only home game ever played for the Cardinals who would trade Wallace to the A's for Matt Holliday later in the summer. Then he was traded to the Blue Jays and later to the Astros. Collectors still were pretty sold on Wallace and his card fell slightly, but were still desirable commodities.
Wallace was called up to the bigs during the 2010 season and has been unable to hit for power, average, or get on base. This season he has posted a line of .042/.115/.042. Obviously the market for Wallace cards cannot get any lower at this point, hence the trade for the Finest card pictured above.
Big thanks to my brother in-law, Matt Seguin, for the chance to trade for this card.
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