Hope You Can Help The Ballclub......

Do you play fantasy baseball?  

I had not played in roughly a decade, but decided to take on a team this year. I figured I was going to be a little rusty, so I just signed up for a team on Yahoo.That's all people do on Yahoo these days, right?  

Anyway, my team is doing well. I am currently in fifth place a few games out of first place in a 12 team league. My team is heavy on offense, I tend to fill in my pitching stats by picking up probable starters. I have always used that approach with my teams and it has generally worked well. 

Anyway, besides playing fantasy baseball for the competition, I learn a lot about some players I might otherwise miss. It also is a great excuse to go find some baseball cards of these new found players. There are several non-Durham Bulls/non-Cardinals who have helped my fantasy baseball team this year and four of them have also joined my baseball card collection. 

Hope these guys can still help my baseball team and my card collection.  

First up, Braves pitcher Bryce Elder.  

He's won a bunch of games and has a low ERA. Not the best strikeout pitcher, but a solid contributor to my baseball team. I worry that his first half performance has been "smoke and mirrors", but I am not really attached to starting pitchers. I will move on to someone else.  

In the meantime, Bryce has some nice on-card autographs. Picked up a 2021 Heritage Minor League card from his time in the Gulf Coast League.  

Next up is Yandy Diaz.  

Yandy has also been a good average and on-base player, but the extra base hits have been a pleasant surprise this year. I originally had him on my roster to balance out some of my power guys who hit for a lower average, but Yandy is actually hitting home runs this year.  

Yandy is on the Rays, so it might be a little surprising that I don't own one of his autographs already. However, Yandy was never actually on the Durham Bulls. He came up with Cleveland, played part of two seasons with the Guardians, and then was traded to the Rays. Yandy never touched Triple-A with the Rays and won't at this point barring an injury-rehab assignment.  

Yandy has only two certified autographs, both stickers, and they are messy. Yandy has a really tall signature and should not be trying to squeeze it onto a sticker autograph.  

Next.  

I kind of dig this card as much as I have enjoyed Mitch Keller's wins and strikeouts during the first half of the baseball season. When did this guy turn into a good player? He's like the one pitcher on my roster, not quite, that I won't release after every start and resign two weeks later.  

The card is a Bowman Tek, which only lasted one year. It was like Topps Tek, but with prospects. I am guessing it was not a very successful set and this card only cost me $2.  

Last one.  

Bryan Reynolds is my glue guy. I have Ronald Acuna, Corbin Carroll, and Wander Franco doing a lot of the heavy lifting for my offense, but Bryan Reynolds helps out everywhere. His average is decent, he hits for power sometimes, and he steals bases. At the end of the week when I look at my totals and see that I won a category by 1 home run/stolen base/run, I can look down and see that Bryan Reynolds is the player that put me over for the week.  

Fist bump.  

Reynolds was good last year and I guess his cards are becoming more popular.  At $12, this is the most money I have spent on a modern Pirates card in at least a decade. 

Let's Just Get Through This Week

Five more days during this school year and I am on vacation.  I am going to spend my vacation sleeping, traveling, and catching up on some baseball.  I have seriously neglected the Durham Bulls this year.  Have I been to a game?  No.  Have I collected any Durham Bulls cards? Well, not really many from this year's team. 

They are the best team in the International League at the moment. Seems like you can say that at some point every year.  They have some great names on the roster.  My favorite player on the current roster has to be two way player Brendan McKay.  I got to watch him a few times in college while he was playing for Louisville, and in summer baseball for the USA Baseball college national team. 

I picked up a few of his cards.  They have been sitting on my coffee table, but I have not taken the time to post them in my space here.  Waiting to go to a Bulls game.  Let me go ahead and post them ahead of time. 

Two from 2019.

I really like the 1989 Bowman style cards that are an insert in this year's Bowman set.  The cards are obviously not as big as the original set, which were the same size as the 1950s Bowman cards, but I love the simple design.  They have that Chrome finish, but I kind of wish that Topps would use some old stock on these cards. 

A Top 100 Prospects insert card.  Speaks for itself.  Very industrial looking on the bottom, with honeycomb pattern on the top.  What is even happening here?

Final card.  

I have always dabbled with the TEK brand cards from Topps.  This was from last year when Topps put out both a Topps TEK set, along with a Bowman TEK set.  I like these cards, but I only buy them as singles, and I try to stay away from trying to buy all the pattern variations.  That's ridiculous.  McKay has always had that tiny signature.  

Brewers' Best

Last night I wrote about a Durham Bulls player.  That happens often in this blog space.  Sometimes, I feel like I really neglect the rest of the great baseball that is played in my little corner of the world.  There is not a Major League baseball team in the state of North Carolina, but within an hour of my house I can get to:  

• Five Different Minor League parks: Durham, Zebulon (Carolina Mudcats), Fayetteville, Burlington, and Greensboro.  Kinston is just over an hour.   
• Three ACC baseball teams that are frequently ranked in the top 25: UNC, NC State, and Duke 
• The ACC Baseball Tournament is frequently held in Durham 
• The USA Baseball program is 10 minutes from my front door

I have often thought about finding more time and space to write about these teams and players.  I will be a little proactive about the matter and write about a former Carolina Mudcat tonight.  The team plays about forty minutes away from my house headed towards the coast from Raleigh.  In the decade plus that I have lived in North Carolina, the team has cycled through a few different affiliations.  The past two years, the Mudcats have been the Milwaukee Brewers team in the Carolina League.  

Last year the Mudcats best player was Keston Hiura.  I'd argue that he's also the Brewers' best prospect.  The second baseman was a first round draft pick out of UC Irvine back in 2017.  While he was there he played for the College National team as a part of the USA Baseball program, so I had seen him before he was in the Minors.  

Very good player.  

Hiura passing through town twice has sort of outweighed the fact that he is on the Brewers.  Easily one of the best prospects to pass through the area in the past few years.  

He's a top 50 prospect and you can buy his autographs for between $5 and $10.  Keston Hiura has actually hit while he has been in the Minors too.  Some of his autographs are actually quite pricy, but if you're like me, you just want to own an autograph of a good player, there is nothing wrong with finding something like this Bowman Tek card.  

The design on Bowman Tek cards this year is a lot better than Topps Tek in my opinion.  There is still something goofy behind the player picture, but it's geometric and fits into the overall appearance of the card well.  The diagonal name plate looks pretty nice too.  

Two Nice Sox

Not cards that necessarily fit my collection, but two players who both appeared locally for White Sox Minor League teams and impressed.  For whatever reason, there are three different White Sox Minor League teams in North Carolina.  In their current state, the White Sox are a bit of a disaster, but there is help on the way soon.  

First up.....

is a card of outfielder Luis Robert.  The Cardinals had actually tried to sign him a few years ago when he defected from Cuba, but they missed out on him to the White Sox.  I actually have other Robert cards, slowly building a little collection.  Sometimes it's nice to branch out from usual Cardinals and Durham Bulls cards.  I like his potential.  

As for the card, this is from Bowman Tek.  Second year Topps has put out this set, not sure that I love the idea of having a Topps Tek and a Bowman Tek, seems repetitive.  Still, a pretty big fan of this 1990s/early 2000s rehash.  

Next.  

The great Eloy Jimenez.  Originally started out in the Cubs farm system, but was traded over to the South Side for Jose Quintana.  Sure most Cubs front office people would love to have that one back.   He's a really impressive prospect that made it all the way to Triple A Charlotte this year.  Jimenez had a .996 OPS as a 21 year old.  He's going to be really really good.  Jimenez will be on the White Sox at some point next season.  

Jimenez has a few Bowman cards, but they are really expensive.  If I am going to spend that much money on an autograph, I will just buy a Mike Trout.  His Panini, Leaf, and Pro Debut autographs are a little nicer.  I went with the Pro Debut since it has him in a uniform where the logos are not airbrushed off.  Great looking card.  

These Might Be Good Cubans

Three and a half years ago I went to the deciding game of the International League Championship between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Durham Bulls.  The game was not only a chance to see a team win the Governor's Cup, it was also a chance to see heralded Red Sox prospect Rusney Castillo.  

Castillo had defected from Cuba and signed a 72 million dollar contract with the Red Sox.  I took it as a chance to see a Major League player in a Minor League stadium.  Always cool to see Major League talent up close in a smaller stadium.   

Since that last game of the 2014 playoffs, I have had the chance to watch Castillo play for the Paw Sox in 2015, 2016, and 2017.  He's halfway through his $72 million dollar contract and he's made $34 million dollars playing three season in Triple A.  Although, Castillo has played 99 games with the Red Sox, but 80 of those games were in 2015.  

While Castillo has not worked out, there have been plenty of other Cuban players who have been able to successfully make the jump to the Majors.  

Yoenis Cespedas, Jose Abreu, Yasiel Puig, Aroldis Chapman, Jose Fernandez, the list could go on and on.  

I have recently picked up cards of two former Cuban players.  Hopefully they will be joining the list of successful players above. 

First up is a Blue Jays prospect.....

easier and the cheaper of the two prospects that I am featuring in this post.  Lourdes Gurriel is the younger brother of the Astros Yuli Gurriel.  He's turning 24 this season, and he's not past Double A, but there are a lot of people who think very highly of his future.  Baseball America has him rated as a Top 100 prospect.  Since his cards are fairly inexpensive, I paid more for this card in shipping off of Ebay than I actually did for the card, I am willing to risk it.  

I also like these Bowman TEK cards.  The Topps TEK cards are better, but these are not that far behind.  Besides picking up the autographed version of this card, I also landed a base card.  

Not any difference between the cards outside of the autograph.  

Little bit bigger prospect, more expensive card, and a guy who has not played outside of the Dominican Summer League.  He did hit really well there though.....

Luis Robert (pronounced row-bear) signed last year with the White Sox.  Panini has several cards of him out in a White Sox uniform.  Well, a White Sox uniform with the logos air brushed out, because it's Panini.  I am guessing that Topps will get a Robert card into some sort of Bowman product this year.  The autographed version of whatever card they give him will cost an arm and leg.  

This International Contenders card is a little goofy with Robert wearing some sort of aqua colored worksheet.  I believe that this picture is from one of his showcase workouts.....

The opinions of Robert are mixed.  I have seen some baseball people claim that he is the next coming of Bryce Harper, or Mickey Mantle.  I have also seen baseball people cite the fact that there have been far more Cuban position players who have not measured up to the amount of money spent up front to sign them, nor do they live up to the hype.  

The White Sox have two A ball teams in North Carolina, so perhaps there is a chance that I will be able to see him play at some point this summer.  Guessing he would be a fun player to see in person.  If not this summer, he will surely end up in Charlotte in a few years.  The Knights are in the same division as the Durham Bulls and they play frequently.  

High Tek Minor Leaguers

A really quick post about some Minor League cards.  I was initially worried earlier this year when I saw that there was a Bowman TEK product on the card release calendar, but no Topps TEK.  Luckily, Topps still managed to put out the regular set, which meant that after taking care of finding a couple cards out of it, I could move on and check out the Minor League version of one of my favorites.  

There are some Rays/Durham Bulls and Cardinals players in the set, some of them even have a few autographs.  I decided to go a little bit different route for my first Bowman TEK cards, but still knocked a card out from one of my favorite teams.

The first card I picked up is actually a player I saw while he was in college.  

A.J. Puk was one of the better college pitchers a few years ago while he was at the University of Florida.  He spent a summer pitching locally in central North Carolina with the USA Baseball team.  I managed to see him pitch a combined no hitter with Tanner Houck (Missouri/Red Sox) and Ryan Hendrix (Texas A&M/Reds).  Makes him an automatic favorite.  

I have a few other nice Puk cards that I have picked up the last two years.  This TEK card was something a little different.  Puk has always had a really simple signature and I like that he signed his cards in a spot away from the pattern.  

I know that there are a bunch of different patterns on the TEK cards, but I didn't even worry about that when I bought this card.  Just picked one I liked and went with it.  The overall design of the set is nice.  My only complaint would be the card backs.....

Seriously, why even bother with a stat line?  It is barely readable.  

Next card is a Cardinals player.....

just not on this card.  

The team picked up Tyler O'Neill last summer in a trade with the Mariners for pitcher Marco Gonzales.  The Cardinals do have a ton of outfielders, but they do not have a ton of power hitters which is what O'Neill should bring them.  

I posted a few O'Neill cards this summer after the trade.  Still waiting for a Cardinals card of this prospect, maybe soon, but until then I am willing to take on some more Mariners cards.  I kind of dig the picture of him on the card.  These don't have the standard backgrounds, but he looks like he's taking a big swing.  

The back of the card is the same as Puk's with the tiny stat line....

but the background silhouette is a little bit clearer on this card.  It's a common design element on the TEK cards, but it does not show up very well on the Puk card.