ACC Baseball on Cardboard

College baseball season is getting close and I am pretty excited to check out some of our local teams around Raleigh-Durham.   I am planning on making it to several games this year and have a list of players I want to see from various colleges making trips in to play one of the three Triangle schools.   Last year both NC State and UNC made the College World Series and this year look just as promising for both teams.  NC State is lead by star pitcher Carlos Rodon and shortstop Trea Turner.  The Tar Heels will be lead by pitcher Trent Thorton and outfielder Skye Bolt.  The rest of the ACC has some talented players as well and the conference should be pretty deep this year.  

While it's great to live in an area where I have several great college baseball programs nearby, fans all across the county have had more and more access to the best players in college baseball regardless of their location.  The availability of college baseball cards has greatly increased during the past decade mainly through the popularity of the USA Baseball program and its continued popularity amongst baseball card collectors.  Here's my look at four good players in the ACC who are already featured on cardboard:


Carlos Rodon-P
NC State

Rodon projects to be the National Player of the Year, the ACC Player of the Year, and should also be the first overall draft pick in the MLB Amateur Draft this summer.  He's won every individual award there is to win during his two years in Raleigh.  He has also played a few summers over at USA Baseball which means he has several autographs and relics cards floating around already.  Here's a look at an autograph:

Rodon is a pretty hard player to collect.  He has a few cards out on the market, but they are pretty pricey for a baseball player who has not thrown his first professional pitch yet.  The average Rodon card frequently costs more than $50 and the bidding is usually very competitive.  I've been trying to get my hands on one of his new Panini cards, have the money to make a serious offer, but have been outbid, sniped at the last minute on Ebay, and everything else.  You almost have to overpay to land a copy of his cards.

Here's a look at Rodon in action:

Trea Turner-IF
NC State

 Turner currently is projected as the top position player available for this summer's MLB Draft.  Turner had a great freshman year, but had battled the injury bug a bit last year which limited his playing time.  He is incredibly fast and has pretty good patience at the plate.  Like Rodon, he's been around the USA Baseball program for a few years and has several cards out floating about.  They are much cheaper than Rodon's, but I would not say they are cheap.

Turner autographed cards are frequently more than $20.  Not a terrible price, but he still has never played an inning of professional baseball.  I think Turner is a pretty safe bet for Major League teams, so I am not sure where he will go in the first round, but he will be in there somewhere.  I would also guess he is not in the minors a really long time.


Skye Bolt-OF
North Carolina

Bolt is still another year away from the MLB Draft, but should be a pretty high pick coming up in two years.  He's a very patient hitter who posted a great average average, on-base percentage, and walked more than he struck out during his first year in Chapel Hill.  He doesn't have a ton of pop last year, but I am guessing he still develops some good power.  His cards are all from releases put out during the past year.  There are some really cool ones out there, but he's already pretty popular.  I am not sure if people love the name, or they know the potential talent.

I have a base card of Blot, but his autographs are already north of Trea Turner.  Bolt also has some great relic cards that can be found for less than $10. 


Luke Weaver-P
Florida State

Weaver was a second team ACC performer last year in Tallahassee and projects as a top 10 pitching prospect for this summer's MLB entry draft.  I did not get a chance to see Florida State's baseball team last spring, so I cannot speak on Weaver's abilities first hand.  He did pitch for the USA Baseball team this summer, but honestly I made sure that I saw Rodon when I went to their games.  Here's what I know about Weaver: he throws in the mid to low 90s and has a pretty incredible strikeout to walk ratio.  He does have baseball cards.

Weaver's cards are pretty affordable with his autographs sitting below $10 and his relic cards sitting below $5.  Worth a role of the dice given he is likely a first round draft pick. 


Name to remember for later in the summer, they will have baseball cards soon:
Trent Thronton-P University of North Carolina
Landon Lassiter-IF University of North Carolina
D.J. Stewart-OF Florida State
Bryan Radziewski-P Miami
Mark Zagunis-C Virginia Tech
Mike Papi-OF/1BVirginia
Daniel Gossett-RHP Clemson
Brett Austin-C NC State
Brandon Downes-OF Virginia
Derek Fisher-OF Virginia

Buy Local Part 3- Colin Moran

So far I have covered a high schooler and a Blue Devil with my Buy Local posts.  Today I am going to drive down 15-501 from Duke University to the other blue North Carolina school located in Chapel Hill.  The University of North Carolina has had a great run of baseball teams during the past decade headed by Coach Mike Fox.  There are several Major Leaguers or serious prospects that I could put in this space for a UNC post.  I will get to a bunch of them eventually, but for today I am going to focus on the school's most recent top amateur draft pick, Marlins third baseman Colin Moran.

Moran "slid" in the draft because he was picked sixth instead of the top 5.  He was one of the better players in the ACC last year, and in my opinion, the best offensive player.  His stance reminds me a lot of Andres Galarraga where he is a big guy with an open stance as the ball approaches.  I don't think he will have that kind of pop in the majors, but you never know what can be changed and improved with work in the minors.

Moran's one real weakness, again just my opinion, is once he gets on base he can be kind of a base clogger.  He's a smart base runner, but not a speed burner.  Here's a good example of a base hit to the outfield, not hit directly at the outfielder, with Moran on second he is thrown out at the plate.

He is also a good defender.  Not Scott Rolen or Nolan Arenado, but good.  I am always really surprised by his arm.  If he fields the ball cleanly and has time to throw there is an excellent chance the runner is out.  I think that Moran will likely be a good everyday Major League player, but I am not going to use the word great.  He seems like a guy who will get to the Majors quickly, but he is kind of who he is at this point.  Low ceiling, high basement would be my best description.  On to the cardboard.

2013 Leaf Draft State Pride Blue Colin Moran Autograph 

I recently had a chance to pick up my first Colin Moran autograph for the 2013 Leaf Draft set.  I'm not a huge fan of Leaf (long story that would make a great blog post) and was reluctant to pick up an unlicensed card, but the flag in the background and the fact that there are no other choices made this the only choice.  I know that Moran is on the initial checklist for Bowman Draft this fall, so maybe the choices will increase shortly.  Hopefully.  

His card prices are pretty reasonable as long as you stay away from the really low print runs of 5 and 10 on autographs.  If you have $10 and want a Moran autograph you will likely find one and have enough money left over to buy yourself a bottle of Cheerwine.  Given that Moran is on the Marlins, and is not named Stanton, I would guess that the trend will continue for sometime.  The Marlins always seem to have some good young players that baseball card collectors are slow to pick up on.  See Jose Fernandez.  Moran could hit 30 home runs for the Marlins next year and few would notice.  

After a year and a half, a football card

I had the chance to pick up a really nice card the other day in the dime bin of a local card shop.  It was a surprising card to find there since much of the Raleigh-Durham sports market revolves around college sports and the athlete featured on today's card is one of the better local athletes that you can find.  Now, the title of my post would suggest that I was going through the football dime bin, but I was actually in the baseball bin.  The card is technically a baseball card, but it just has a football player on the front.

2010 Bowman Draft Green Russell Wilson 

This 2010 Bowman Draft Russell Wilson is the green parallel to the base card that he has in the set and is numbered out of /399.  I have a pretty good start to the Russell Wilson "card rainbow", but I guess I was maybe one of the few people that was excited to see him appear on a baseball card back in 2010 which made it fairly easy to pick up the parallels on the cheap.

Wilson's popularity has grown over the past few years since he has been drafted by the Seattle Seahawks and is now considered one of the up and coming college quarterbacks.  His NFL stardom has actually made the prices of his baseball cards skyrocket from cards that were worth a few cents to cards that are worth a few dollars.

Frankly, I was surprised that a Russell Wilson card was in the dime bin at a card shop in this area considering that Russell Wilson brought the area three years of great football.  I am a baseball person first, basketball second, and football third, but I still watch all the NC State games and loved when Wilson was making plays like this for the Wolfpack:

Plus it was against the Tar Heels.  GTHC.  Now, baseball complicated Wilson's football career at NC State since he was drafted by the Rockies as a baseball player after his junior year.  Wilson played two summers of professional baseball and returned to NC State to be blocked by Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Mike Glennon.  State released Wilson from his scholarship and he ended up at Wisconsin.  

Personally, I had no problem with Wilson trying his hand at baseball and also had no problem with NC State releasing Wilson from his scholarship given that they thought he had moved on to baseball.  State fans though are apparently, at least some that own card shops, are still seething over Wilson's final college season spent at Wisconsin.  For what it's worth Wilson has tried to smooth things over by saying "Pack of Badgers" when he is on Sunday Night or Monday Night Football giving credit to both Wisconsin and NC State.  

In the meantime, I did see Wilson play baseball and can say he was really raw.  He's a great athlete, but he also did not get a ton of playing time until later in the baseball season which seemed to hold him back.  His last minor league season was spent in Asheville, but I did not drive out to see him play, but ESPN did run a story about his baseball talents in January.  It's fun to think about what ifs, but will always really enjoy collecting Wilson's one baseball card which is a cheap and inexpensive cool card to add to your collection.   

2010 Donruss Elite Patches Matt Harvey Autograph

2010 Donruss Elite Collegiate Patches Matt Harvey Autograph 

There are not many nice things that I have to say about the blue Carolina schools, especially the powder blue wearing one at the south end of 15-501.  "Go To Hell Carolina" is not a phrase reserved only for a football game or a few basketball and baseball games, but almost everyday.  Cannot say that I really dig schools with fake classes or Hansbrough.  

However, I will give a brief tip of the cap to the Heels baseball team this evening and the wonderful season being crafted together by UNC alum, and New York Mets pitcher, Matt Harvey.  In 16 starts this season the second year pitcher has posted a 7-1 record with a 2.05 ERA and 121 strikeouts in 110 innings.  While most have taken notice of Harvey's performance this season, he also put together a solid, yet brief, appearance with the Mets in 2012 too.  During his rookie campaign he only went 3-5, but post an ERA of 2.73 with more than a strikeout per inning and less than a baserunner per inning.

Of course, Harvey's connection to the Mets and Tar Heels somewhat limited my interest in his cards.  Then again I am interested in a Matt Harvey card if you are interested in trading a card, like the one pictured above, to me for the right price.  So, what is the right price for this piece of cardboard?

Let's just say the reorganization project might be paying off some dividends.  I have not necessarily sold off any of my doubles or triples, maybe some quadruples, but I have floated out the fact that I have surplus quantity at the moment.  So, the question was posed to me?  How many A-Rod doubles does one collect in amass in thirty years?  I recently found the answer to that question and cashed in a chunk of them for a Matt Harvey autograph.

Now, some of the A-Rod cards were very nice.  A few relics, but I still am liking the idea of having a smaller collection if the quantity I am sacrificing will land me some nice pieces for my collection.

One Win Down, Go Pack!

I am not really big into empty, cardless posts, but here's the first in a long time.  It was a big baseball day around Raleigh-Durham.   More details sometime this week.

NCAA Tournament

Figuring out my bracket predictions.  Baseball cards of basketball schools.  Why not.  Go Pack! Go To Hell Carolina!  Sorry.  No Duke or Wake cards.