How's Baseball Season Going?

I am not here to talk about the Cardinals finishing last for the first time since 1990 or any of the horrible roster moves they made leading up to this season.

We could talk about the Durham Bulls?  

They're in first place again at the moment, because it's the end of the year and it's the Durham Bulls. If the past twenty-five years has taught us anything, the team will likely win a bunch of stuff during the next few weeks.  

The banner outside the stadium is about to be out of date.  

I have squeezed a handful of Durham Bulls games into my summer and have a few new players to collect, as well as a few old ones that I need to revisit. One of my highlights was getting to see a rehab start by Rays ace pitcher Tyler Glasnow.  

Really impressive player.  

I actually had seen Tyler Glasnow a few years back while he was with the Pirates Triple A team. He was good enough that I decided to add a Bowman Chrome autograph of him to my collection.  

Nice card.  

Most of Glasnow's autographs are under $20, many are under $10. While I still enjoy the Pirates autograph, I thought it would be nice to own an autograph of Glasnow in a Rays uniform and found one that was really cheap.  

This is the second Stadium Club Chrome autograph I have posted in the last two weeks, with the first coming in a Blake Snell post.  These are really nice cards with good stock, and nice finishing touches.  Glasnow's signature has been pretty consistent throughout the years. 

Great card, a few more Durham Bulls cards this week.  

2016 International League All-Star Set

Why I am I posting this a few months after the set came out?  See the post from yesterday about the Durham Bulls set.  I picked this up at a Durham Bulls game and it features some really good talent from the International League which is Triple A level teams.  Sometimes the amount of high end talent in Triple A can be short lived, it seems that more and more teams get players past Double A and promote them very quickly.

Cards and a little snippet about one of the players, maybe two....

Out of this group I really like Josh Bell.  Berrios could be really good too, but he's been really shaky at the Major League level.  Bell made it to the Majors last year too, and while the pop in his bat did not shine through in the 40 or so games he played in Pittsburgh, he had more walks than strikeouts.  That translated into a .368 OBP.  Getting on base is always a good skill to have and a great way to stick around...

A lot of players to like here....Pompey is a great defensive player, should be around a long time as a good centerfielder.  Glasnow is going to be a good pitcher, Judge is going to hit, and I am still pretty high on Buxton.  Feel like people have gotten down about him, but he is still only 22 and has a lot of potential.  

Sanchez and Turner are the real standouts here, but there are others in this group who could be solid players.  My favorite here is obviously Snell, also good to see Shaffer in this set, but I think he's lost a lot of his luster as a prospect.  Severino and the two Red Sox could also be pretty good.....

Last three...

Hey, I like that Bacon USA jersey Nick Williams is wearing.....

The Penultimate: The Great Glasnow

One of the more impressive players I saw last year in Triple A was Pirates pitching prospect Tyler Glasnow.  Durham Bulls pitcher Blake Snell ended up winning the majority of the Pitcher of the Year honors by a bunch of different publications, but I would have to put Glasnow in that conversation.  He came into the year rated as a Top 20 prospect and did not disappoint in his three stops last year.

I always throw out the win-loss record in the Minors, he only won 7 of his 22 starts, but also managed to keep the ball in the park, struck out more than a batter per inning, and barely allowed more than a base runner per inning.  Overall, a great prospect, so I thought I should pick a copy of one of his autographs.

Surprisingly, for being a high profile prospect, Glasnow is not a really expensive autograph.  Big name prospects can be pricey at times, but not I guess people aren't doing much with Glasnow.  I found this card for slightly less than $10 shipped.  This is an on-card autograph and I really like the horizontal design of these autographs.