A Lynn To Named Later

I spent a little bit of time the past two two days working on cleaning up the space around my computer.  I should have probably done a before and after picture for dramatic effect, but the important thing is that my desk is actually clean.

Believe it, or not, it usually has all kinds of stacks of cards surrounding the computer and scanner.  Throw in some bubble mailers, paper work from school, and random toys my son sets on my desk, and it can be a full out disaster area.  The cleaning usually lends itself to a better work environment, but I can usually also find a few other things sitting around that I meant to put into a blog post, but just never got around to it.

Some of the highlights included an unsorted 2011 Allen Ginter set, a Max Scherzer jersey card, and this cool Lance Lynn Gypsy Queen autograph.

I spend a lot of time collecting Cardinals cards and posting them on here, but I rarely do anything with Lance Lynn cards.  In the past year and a half I have made exactly two Lance Lynn posts, both of which were the same card.  Pretty sad considering the guy has won 48 games the last three years helping the team to three National League Championship Series appearances and a World Series appearance too.  Lance Lynn was also an important member of the 2011 World Series team pitching out of the bullpen.

So, why don't I have more cards of Lance Lynn?  I am not sure exactly.  I have been thinking the matter over recently and have decided to do something to improve my Lynn collection.  Shall we review what's in the box already?   Thin in quantity, but I like the quality.

Two rookie, three on-card signatures.  It's a good start.  I was really happy to add the Lance Lynn Gypsy Queen to my collection which finished off the trade for the Matt Carpenter Postseason autograph that I picked up a few ago.  The Gypsy Queen autograph is on-card and has Lynn's simple, yet consistent autograph.  I am not sure what other Lance Lynn autographs are out floating around, but I am going to try and add a few more to the collection this year. 

#MyCardMonday

I love the looks of this card, but at the time I picked it up I was not necessarily a huge fan of Lance Lynn.  Yes, he's on the Cardinals and he's a pretty good pitcher.  The inconsistency he displayed made him a hard player to watch at times prior to this season.  He would have a good game, then a bad game.  He would pitch well for four innings, then pout over an error behind him.  Aggravating.  Things have changed for the better for Lance Lynn this year.  Better outings, more consistency, great results.

Currently Lynn is sporting a 15-9 record with an ERA of 2.73 and 163 strikeouts in almost 200 innings.  An ERA+ of 134 and a WAR of 3.3.  There is no doubt that Lance Lynn has made himself a valuable part of the rotation.  The Cardinals have risen to the top of the National League Central standings and would not be anywhere close to where they are without this guy's big improvement.  

2013 Topps Heritage Clubhouse Collection Lance Lynn Jersey/Autograph

I am a little bit behind on my work to finish up my Topps Heritage set for the year, but with Gypsy Queen being released this week, I decided to kick my work into high gear.  The Cardinals actually have a couple of really tough cards this year in the Heritage set which has required a little bit of extra effort in tracking down and trading for cards.  The best Cardinals card in the set is the dual David Freese/Stan Musial autograph, I would imagine this would be his last on card autograph, which is difficult to find and very expensive to actually acquire.  Maybe someday.  In the meantime, I have managed to add a nice autographed jersey card of Cardinals pitcher Lance Lynn.

2013 Topps Heritage Clubhouse Collection Lance Lynn Jersey/Autograph

As you can see from the scan Topps only made a grand total of 25 of this card which made it a tough find.  There have been a couple floating around on Ebay and one or two on different trade sites.  The Clubhouse Collection jersey/autographs tend to dry out quickly, so I knew that if I didn't add this card soon I would probably have little chance of picking it up later.  In fact, there are less than 20 of these cards on Ebay currently, from all the different Heritage runs, and only two of them are under $100.  Both of them are the David Freese autograph which I am also hoping to add.  Considering the price of the other Heritage Clubhouse Collection Jersey/Autograph this card was a bit of bargain for me.  Now, I just need to track down one of those Freese/Musial dual autographs...

2010 Topps USA Baseball Carson Kelly Autograph

I picked up my second Carson Kelly autograph this past week.  According to FanGraphs, Kelly is rated as a Top 10 prospect in the deep Cardinals minor league system.  While the front of the card lists Kelly as a right-handed pitcher, he is playing third base in the professional ranks and projects to have a very good bat with power potential.

2010 Topps USA Baseball Carson Kelly Autograph

As I mentioned before, this is my second Carson Kelly autograph.  My other Kelly autograph is also an on-card USA Baseball issue, but the signature clearly has evolved over time.  I actually prefer the signature on the 2011 card better, but still prefer this card to his first professional autograph which was issued in the Bowman Sterling set last fall and features a sticker autograph.  

2013 Topps Chasing The Dream Lance Lynn Jersey Card

Besides the Carson Kelly card, I also picked up a Lance Lynn jersey card.  This seems to be the basic Topps jersey card for the 2013 set, or the most common, but I am still happy to pick up a nice card of the Cardinals hurler.  

30 Year Top 50: Topps Triple Threads

#34-This post is going to be slightly different than the other posts that I have made for my Top 50 countdown.  I came up with the idea of doing this countdown leading into my 30th year in baseball card collecting this summer and put thought and consideration into where to rank all the different card sets that I have brought into my life since the summer of 1983.  The Triple Threads brand started in 2006 and is still currently running.  Every summer I eagerly await the release of Triple Threads and cannot wait to pick out a handful of really cool cards to add to my collection.  In many ways, the Triple Threads set is a top 10 on my personal list, but looking at the big picture and taking into account important rookies, design, etc, etc this is where it falls.  Note that I did not attach a year.  I do have a few I like more than others, but not a clear cut favorite.  Let me walk you through why I love this product:

2006 Triple Threads
I was initially really excited about the release of Triple Threads in 2006.  I rushed up to a card shop, which is no longer with us, in Durham to buy a pack.  Quickly spotting the product behind the counter I bought a pack of the high end product and immediately remembered my rule about high end wax.

2006 Topps Triple Threads Dan Johnson Dual Jersey/Autograph

Starring me back in this face was this Dan Johnson card.  Of course, he ended up playing for the Durham Bulls and won the International League MVP, so I would have ended up with the card in my collection anyway.  Right?  Disappointed, I did not open another pack of Triple Threads the rest of the year.  Since that time I have traded for a few.

2007 Triple Threads

My second venture into Triple Threads went much better.  I opened approximately zero packs of product, but worked the secondary market very hard to come up with a few gems for my collection.  My favorite:

My first Triple Threads card with a patch piece was a Shawn Riggans with two jersey pieces, a piece of green patch from the old Devil Rays unis, and an autograph.  I found it cheap in an Ebay auction and picked out the card since Riggans was having a great season for the Durham Bulls.  Riggans struggled in the majors and now out of baseball.  Still a cool card and turned the corner for me on this product. 

2007 Topps Triple Threads Shawn Riggans Dual Jersey/Patch/Autograph

2008 Triple Threads 

We all have misses in life and the 2008 Triple Threads set was a miss for me.  I didn't have many players I was excited to collect out of this set and the players I did collect, well....

2008 Topps Triple Threads Elijah Dukes Triple Bat/Autograph

I think I also picked up a few Jo Jo Reyes cards, Melky Cabrera, and a few other infamous characters.  I did pick up a good selection of Matt Holliday relic cards from this set after the Rockies run to the World Series.  This was the first year that I really went after the relics cards along with the autographs.  More recently, I landed a nice Dimaggio relic piece in a trade.  

2008 Topps Triple Threads Joe DiMaggio Six Piece Relic

2008 Topps Triple Threads Matt Holliday Six Piece Relic

2009 Triple Threads

I have two favorites in my collection from the 2009 set and would rank this set in a three way tie for the lead in the best Triple Threads sets.  My favorite card I picked up in 2009 which is a Ryan Braun patch/autograph.  This card has patch pieces from his Futures Game relics, the red/black/yellow pieces along with a thicker piece of black or navy patch.  I also love the word: HAMMER on the card.  If I ranked all of my Triple Threads cards against each other this would finish in the top 5.  

2009 Topps Triple Threads Ryan Braun Triple Patch/Autograph

My second card I picked up a few years ago after watching Nolan Reimold play for the Norfolk Tides. Sometimes I get a feeling about a player I watch in the minors and was fairly impressed by Reimold.  I found this card on Ebay really cheap and figured I would, at worst, have a really cool looking cards.  Reimold is looking like a regular though, so I think I did well with this card.  I love the orange jersey pieces and the yellow/red/black patch piece like the Braun. 

2009 Topps Triple Threads Autograph

2010 Triple Threads

I loved the 2010 release of Triple Threads.  If I had to narrow the Triple Threads sets down to the best, this would be another among my favorites.  The best part of the 2010 release was the inclusion of on-card autographs.  In someways, it gives this release a slight nod over the 2009 set, except the more standard looking Triple Threads cards were still sticker autographs.  My favorite two on card autographs were Andrew McCutchen and Howie Kendrick.  The McCutchen was my first McCutchen autograph and the Kendrick card is just signed really cool.  I've always like Howie's signature and I like how he just wrote over the whole card.  

2010 Topps Triple Threads Andrew McCutchen Jersey/Autograph

2010 Topps Triple Threads Howie Kendrick Jersey/Autograph 

The regular Triple Threads cards were still cool, but again, Topps used sticker autographs.  My favorite has to be Zorilla.  Ben Zobrist.  Again a personal Top 5 Triple Threads card. 

2010 Topps Triple Threads Seven Piece Relic/Autograph

2011 Triple Threads

The 2011 release was similar to the 2010 release in many ways and again, I would consider this to be among the three best Triple Threads sets along with the 2009 and 2010.  The veteran cards were generally sticker autographs.  My favorite is my Miguel Cabrera autograph, which I also collected all of the similar relic cards.  

2011 Topps Triple Threads 13 Piece Relic/Autograph

The young star players in the set were on card autographs like the 2010 release, but I felt the design of the 2011 cards was a little truer to the set.  

2011 Topps Triple Threads Jaime Garcia Triple Jersey/Autograph

The real drawback to this set, in my opinion, is the veteran cards with a single piece of jersey or patch.  If you are going to use sticker autographs the only reason to duck the design of the Cabrera card above is to cheapen the product.  I love the Matt Holliday card below, but I would have gladly tried to find a copy with multiple relic pieces in the regular Triple Threads format.

2011 Triple Threads Matt Holliday Patch/Autograph

2012 Triple Threads

I feel like the set has taken a little step back this year.  Still a really cool product and I own several really nice cards from the set, but the player selection is a little lacking in my opinion and there are several cards which are repeats from previous years.  Also, similar to the 2011 is the pattern on the autographs. Veterans are on stickers, younger players are on card, and there are single jersey autographs that are also stickers.  My two favorites from 2012:

2012 Topps Triple Threads David Freese Autograph

 2012 Topps Triple Threads Lance Lynn Jersey/Autograph

If you like the follow up I do on card sets not in my Top 50 be sure to check back tomorrow for a special piece I am putting together on a few sets released over the past few years similar to the Triple Threads releases.  

The Circle of Cards Pt. 1

I have been on a bit of a Twitter kick the past few weeks.  It's not a bad place to trade cards some days. In the waining hours of my vacation a few weeks back I ran across a cool collector that was looking for some Marlins cards.  How rare is that?  I've been collecting, buying, selling, and trading for a long time and can think of lots of different collectors I can turn to for all kinds of players and teams.  However, the Marlins have always been a little trick for me.

At the same time I run into my Marlins friend on Twitter, I run into another person on Twitter from the West Coast somewhere looking for Matt Kemps.  I have a few and listened a little more when I heard there were some Cardinals autographs in the mix.  So, I am managing two conversations at once of which I am not a huge fan.  Marlins guy throws up a Kemp card.

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter Matt Kemp Autograph

Very nice card indeed.   So, I dug through my Marlins cards and interested him in a nice Mike (Giancarlo) Stanton autograph out of last years Triple Threads.  Pictured below.  Now, the Stanton is a great card and I think that Stanton is going to be a nice player.  Honestly, I was a little bit hesitant to trade the card.  

2011 Topps Triple Threads Autograph

So, while I am listening to the offers for the Stanton card I am also listening to my Dodgers fan talk about Matt Kemp cards.  The conversation gets to the point where he basically tells me he is hunting down Kemp autographs one at a time and he needs on-card autographs.  Have I seen any? Hmm...  

2009 Bowman Chrome Lance Lynn Autograph

In the meantime, I am still working with my Marlins guy who try to find an additional card to throw into the trade for Stanton besides the Kemp card.  He has a bunch of Cardinals autographs, but they are all cards that are already in my collection.  He had put up a Lance Lynn autograph at one point and I knew someone back in St. Louis looking around for Lynn cards.  After a few hours I worked out a side deal to trade the Lance Lynn card away.  My hesitation to trade my Stanton were greatly relieved to say the least....

More 2012 Triple Threads. Again.

I am going to make this a quick post.  I picked up a few more Triple Threads cards this past week in a trade.  I was really interested in trying to find a Lance Lynn autograph from the set and managed to locate one for trade.  However, sometimes you start trading and you take on a few extras to balance everything out along the way.  So, I actually ended up with a total of five cards.

2012 Topps Triple Threads Lance Lynn Jersey/Auto

I picked up one other Cardinals card with a nice Lance Berkman jersey and the rest were just gravy.  My haul ended up including a Tommy Hanson autograph, a Yovani Gallardo jersey, and a Cory Kuebke jersey/autograph.  Overall, a pretty nice set of cards.  

2012 Topps Triple Threads Lance Berkman Jersey

2012 Topps Triple Threads Cory Luebke Jersey/Autograph

2012 Topps Triple Threads Tommy Hanson Jersey/Autograph

2012 Topps Triple Threads Yovani Gallardo Jersey