As a Minor League baseball fan, inevitably all of your favorite players are going to leave. Minor Leaguers get promoted to the Majors, get traded, and get released all the time. Sometimes it is easier to maintain a connection with the player after they have moved onto a different team. Other times it is a little bit more challenging.
I have spent a lot of time lately trying to process the Blake Snell trade from the Rays to the Padres. I was expecting him to leave at some point, not exactly the type of player that they can afford to re-sign, but this off-season felt a little soon. I thought I would get at least half a season more of Snell with the Rays.
I guess not.
Snell is one of my all-time favorite former Durham Bulls. How many autographs of Snell have I posted on here over the past four or five years? Fifty or sixty something?
The number is large.
I don't mind the Padres. There are far worse places he could have ended up. Do you know how many former Durham Bulls have been on the Cubs the last few years? I know there was a strong connection with Joe Maddon managing the team. A little hard to think good thoughts about players like Mike Montgomery and Ben Zobrist while they are beating the Cardinals.
For the moment, I am going to press on with my Blake Snell cards. I picked up a few inexpensive singles over the past two weeks. There are still a few Snell autographs from 2020 that I am still missing from my collection, but not going to buy them at their current prices.
Here are the new cards:
How many times can Topps remake the 1993 Finest set? It seems like an annual event at this point. Maybe it's not that often, it just feels that way. Not scanning the back of the card.
Last card.
The card is serial numbered to 571 copies.
This is going to be the first of many Blake Snell posts I make in 2021. Even if I get annoyed with the Padres, still more preferable than the Dodgers, I will just go back and collect all the Rays cards I am missing.
I'm stoked that Snell will be pitching for the Padres this year. Outside of 2020... it's been a long time since Padres fans have had the opportunity to root for a team with a winning record. That's pretty darn exciting. Adding Snell, Darvish, and Musgrove will hopefully help them return to the postseason in 2021.
ReplyDeleteI am happy for the Padres. They have had some really good teams and players at times, but never gotten a World Series title. I think they have a pretty good window the next few years. Would love to see Snell get a ring.
DeleteWill his cards see a jump in price just because he's playing for a non-Florida team? Or is it gonna be based on individual/team performance?
ReplyDeleteMaybe his popularity will increase by playing outside of Tampa, but I am not sure that the Padres are really going to drive the value of his cards up that much. I think that player popularity drives the price more than performance to a large extent.
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