My Top 50 Players on Cardboard-#34 Will Clark

My Top 50 Players on Cardboard
#34
Will Clark

1986 Topps Traded Will Clark RC

Clark has several different rookie cards in across several different 1986 and 1987 products.  I have also really liked this 1986 Topps Traded card the best.  The design on the 86 Topps set was always one of my favorites as a kid, it's just too bad that the base set from that year lacks any important rookie cards.  The Traded set is a little bit different story and the black border around the top, along with the centering make this a cool card to chase down and clean copies of this card pretty valuable.

Hobby Impact-
Clark has a large hobby following and has remained very popular more than a decade after retiring from baseball.  His cards are highly sought after, the Giants years are clearly more popular, and bidding and pricing on Clark items has always been slightly higher than similar on the field players.  His rookie cards can often be found for a few dollars if you are looking for raw copies, but high graded copies can add significant value and push the price towards $100.

By the the mid 90s Clark left the Giants for Rangers which keeps the prices on some of his low print run inserts down slightly, but only slightly.  One of his key inserts worth looking for is the refractor card in the 1993 Topps Finest set.  The Clark copy is one of the more expensive cards and they can be among the more difficult to track down.  If I had to own one Will Clark insert card and money was not an object, that would be the card.

Clark has a nice autograph and has signed a ton of cards over the years.  I have always kind of wanted a Will Clark Giants autograph, but never found one at a price I liked.  Most of his bulk 90s autographs (Leaf and Donruss Signature, SP Signature) feature The Thrill as a Ranger or Oriole.  They still sell, but I have always pictured him as a Giant.  There does see to be a premium for the Giants autographs and the Cardinals autographs.  My lone Will Clark autographs is....

2005 UD Heroes Will Clark Autograph 

On The Field-
Clark was a blue collar player.  He hustled, scrapped, and did whatever he had to.  Clark hit for power, but never lead the league in hitting.  Clark hit for average, but never won a batting title.  He was just a productive player.  His final career line of .303/.384/.497 mixed in with 284 home runs and 1,200 RBIs is nice.  Is Clark a Hall of Famer?

I think it depends on whether you are a fan of a big Hall of Fame or an exclusive Hall of Fame.  The JAWS rating system puts him as the 24th best first baseman in MLB history.  Remember that there are a lot of first baseman in the Hall.  The majority of players on the list are Hall of Famers, or will be Hall of Famers.

I know that Tony Perez and Orlando Cepeda are in the Hall of Fame, but I am not sure I am a huge fan of them being in the Hall.  I guess I am more of an inclusive Hall of Fame person, but for my money Will Clark is a little bit short of being there.  When I look at some of the names surrounding Clark: Olerud, Keith Hernandez, Giambi, Lance Berkman, etc. I think he fits in well with that group of players.  I don't think any of them are deserving of the Hall though.  I think the percentage stats are in the right neighborhood for Clark, but as a corner infielder he lacked power which puts his OPS and OPS+ a good bit below the top tier of first baseman.

As a Cardinals fan, I really did not like the scrappiness of Will Clark while he was on the Giants.  There was this famous incident between Clark, current Cardinals third base coach Jose Oquendo, and Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith.

The Cardinals actually ended up with Clark at the end of the 2000 season to fill in for an injured Mark McGwire.  He more than exceeded expectations at put up an incredible line of .345/.426/.655 with 12 homers and 42 RBIs in 55 games.  The team made the playoffs that season, beat the Braves in the Division series before falling to the Mets in the League Championship.  During the NLCS that season Clark posted a .412/.500/.706 line.  Very Beltranesque.  

The performance by Clark made him a pretty popular figure around St. Louis and eased some of the hard feelings that existed between Cardinals fans and Clark from his days as a Giant.  

Favorite Card-

When I put Clark on the list I did not have to flip back through his cards are look around to find my favorite card.  I knew exactly what card was going to go in this space.  Here it is:

2001 Topps Gold Will Clark 

From the 2001 Topps set, this was one of my favorites in the entire set.  In fact, I would go so far as to say this card is one of my favorite Cardinals highlight cards of all-time.  Really cool.

Variation Insanity!

I remember the 1999 Topps Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa variation cards.  I loved those cards.  Long after I had assembled the entire 1999 Topps set I was still tracking down the different home run cards of McGwire.  The variations were challenging to collectors and yet, since there were only two cards that had variations, not completely impossible to put together.

1999 Topps Mark McGwire #220 Home Run #53

There were plenty of collectors who picked up one copy of the McGwire and one copy of Sosa and called it quits.  If you opened a box 1999 Topps cards there was a really good chance that you were going to pull at least one Sosa and one McGwire.  Overall, if you surveyed collectors who were around to bust some wax and put together that set, they probably had a pretty favorable opinion of the variations.  Not too hard to find, but not super easy to assemble into a complete set.

Topps continued to use variations into the early 2000s, but the company often followed the same pattern used in the 1999 Topps set with McGwire and Sosa.  The variation cards weren't too difficult to find, but not too easy to put into a set.  Although, some were pretty easy to put together.  Case in point would be the 2000 Topps set variations which featured the Magic Moments subset which featured several Hall of Famers (or HOF caliber) players.  There were a total of five cards for each player which highlighted a different career accomplishment.  Here's a Griffey:

2000 Topps Ken Griffey Jr. Magic Moments 1997 AL MVP

Well, you get the picture on the early variations that Topps used in their sets.  They were generally very well done and offered a slight wrinkle to the set which offered collectors a challenge.  Topps continued to use variations and different chase cards and generally did a great job until 2007.  That's when the hobby entered a "ridiculous" phase with the variations.  It all started with this gem:

2007 Topps Derek Jeter George Bush/Mickey Mantle SP 

I am pretty sure the official word from Topps was that this card was a prank gone wrong.  I am not sure that I have really ever bought that.  Since this card we have had more and more silly time with variations.  Players with sunglasses, players without sunglasses.  Players in uniform, players out of uniform.  Pies in the face?

2010 Topps Ike Davis Pie Card 

Completely lame.  I had three of four of these for a week before I discovered that they were a "short print".  (Sigh) I sold them all, except Ike, as fast as possible.  We've also had sparkles on cards have been introduced to the term Super Short Print to describe cards of Jose Reyes and Albert Pujols.  The worst variation ever?  Thanks to the good folks at Everything Lincoln for a scan of the card:

2010 Topps Ryan Dempster Abe Lincoln 

Words cannot describe how much I do not like this Ryan Dempster card.  Why is Abe Lincoln airbrushed onto this card?  Is that in Pro Player Stadium?  Ridiculous.  

Before I continue further into my rant about how much I despise what Topps has done with the variation concept in recent years, let me point out a couple of ways the company has done well with this concept.  Let me ask you this:  Why do you collect baseball cards?  I collect cards because I enjoy the game of baseball, I follow the game, and enjoy collecting the cards of players I watch.  Especially those whom I see in person.  So, here is a cool variation card made by Topps in this year's base set:

2013 Topps Albert Pujols Out of Bounds

You are going to give me a variation set of players jumping over walls, sticking their gloves into the crowd while fighting of fans for foul balls, and players hanging over the railings of their dugouts try to snag popouts?  I accept.  That's a cool idea.  I get action photos of players and the cards are focused on the game.  Card collectors get plenty of still shots of players standing next to a base or holding a bat.  I've collected Pujols cards since he came in the league in 2001 and can honestly say this is the best action card of the future Hall of Famer.  Really cool.  

2012 Topps Skip Schumaker Squirrel Card 

If you are looking for something cute then this should be as cute as it gets.  The Rally Squirrel gets on the Cardinals World Series rings, he can get on a baseball card.  Unlike the Abe Lincoln airbrush card, this variation is features a piece of baseball lore which actually happened.  Whatever happened to this Mariners groundskeeper?  He was on every blooper real at a baseball game when I was a kid.  He could have a variation and I would be cool with that.

So, where am I going with my rant about variations?  I went to put together one of my last sets of the 2013 calendar year with the 2013 Topps Update set.  It's out early this year, so I guess we are somewhat limited in the rookies appearing in the set and will have to wait on the postseason highlights until next spring.  I can live with that.  However, I do not like when I am in my planning stages and hear that there are up to 50, YES 50!, different variations within the Update set.  

We've gone from McGwire and Sosa, two cards with 70 variations with a few cards in each box, to 50 variations including the dreaded Super Short Print which is available in a few cases.  So, here's where it gets really bad.  

Here's a base Buter Posey Update card showing him as a National League All-Star.  Really cool.  

2013 Topps Update Buster Posey 

Now, if I told the average Giants fan that there was a Posey short print, they'd be ecstatic.  No, there's not.  The variation for this card is actually another Giants player.  It's Will Clark.  Many Giants fans would still be really cool with a Will Clark card.  As a Cardinals fan, I still remember 2000.  Will Clark is cool, but Topps mucked up his card with a 50/50 photo of Clark and Matt Williams.  

2013 Topps Update Will Clark Variation

Now, Buster Posey also has another variation with Willie Mays, but half the card is Sandy Koufax.  Don't worry Giants fans, it doesn't say Sandy Koufax.  He's just airbrushed onto the card.  

2013 Topps Update Willie Mays Variation

Like I said: Ridiculous.  I understand that Topps wants to put a little bit of fun and excitement into collecting, but there comes a point when you completely overcomplicate things are drive people away.  I am not sure that I want anything to do with the 50 different variations that Topps has offered in packs of Update.  In fact, it's my understanding that not all of the short-prints are even from the Topps Update set, but they actually went back and created variations for cards in the base Topps Series 1 and 2.  Insane.  

Shiny Lankford.

I have been having good luck finding Ray Lankford cards recently.  I went through a stretch awhile back where I couldn't find anything new that was not already in my collection.  The past several months it seems like I have been able to add a Lankford card or two to my collection every month.  Some of the hardest parallels to track down come from the late 90s and early 2000s Pacific cards.

2000 Pacific Prism Holographic Mirror /160

Two factors make the Pacific parallels tricky to track down.  First, Pacific mastered the "rainbow" concept long before Topps.  Many Pacific sets have different colored foil parallels which were all serial numbered to a different amount.  Throw on top of that the fact that most sets included a "Premier Date" parallel numbered to 34, and you've got a lot of cards to track down.  Which brings me to my second point.  While some of the short prints, like my new Holographic Mirror-it's just really shiny-, are not too difficult to find with print runs north of 100, there are plenty of parallels from Pacific that are 50 or fewer.  In fact, Lankford appeared in a few dozen Pacific sets, but I still do not own a single "Premier Date" parallel speaks to the difficulty of tracking them down.

and the Gold Glove goes to....

I know that at the end of the 2012 card calendar, many collectors were high on Rockies third base prospect Nolan Arenado.  His cards were selling and seemed to offer good future value for collectors given his stats in the minors where he displayed the ability to hit for power and average while playing an elite level of defense.  The 2013 season rolled around and Arenado got a lot of time at the hot corner for the Rockies.  Arenado did not exactly set the world on fire at the plate this season and slowly collectors have slowly moved on past Arenado.  Not me.  I actually just went out and picked up my first copy of one of his autographs.

2012 Bowman Platinum Nolan Arenado Jersey/Autograph

The card is from last year's Bowman Platinum release and features a cool jumbo swatch of Arenado's road jersey with a nice purple pinstripe.  Good autograph too and a limited print of 199 all make this card a winner.  So, you might wonder why I have decided to run into the Arenado market after his disappointing 2013 campaign and collectors dumping his cards left and right.

First, I always felt that Arenado's cards were a little bit on the high side.  This card was selling in the high teens or low twenties last year.  I picked it up for a little bit more than $5 last week.  I am sure that Arenado will see a little bit of a bounce in pricing over the coming years, but I don't think he's going to be a player with really valuable cards.  Meaning high end.

Right now, Arenado is the best defensive third baseman in baseball.  He posted a dWAR of 3.2 last season which was tops amongst third baseman and also lead the National League in Range Factor.  If he doesn't win the Gold Glove I think he should probably feel slighted.  He finished in the top five in double plays, assists, putouts, and fielding percentage.  I know that card collectors are not out scouring for cards of Brendan Ryan, or other great defense first players, but I actually think that Arenado will be fine in the long run.

Now, I hate that rookie card issue of Beckett where they publish a picture of every player with a rookie card and compare them to a current Major League Player.  All of them are generally, according to Beckett, going to be productive Major Leaguers, and many of them have too lofty of comparisons.  Despite the fact that I hate that issue, I am going to do the same thing right now, but I will give a little bit more reasoning than our friends at Beckett give.

In my opinion, Arenado reminds me a lot of Adrian Beltre.  The same Adrian Beltre whom I consider to be a borderline Hall of Famer.  I am not saying Arenado is going to be a Hall of Famer, or a border line Hall of Famer.  That will take time and years of consistency.  However, flashback to the late 90s and look at some of the lines put up by Beltre.  He was always considered a plus to great defensive third baseman.  He reached the majors quickly and it took a few years for his offense to come around.  Beltre is now, not only one of the best defensive third baseman in the game, he is also an offensive force.

In many ways, I see Arenado as a similar player to Beltre.  He's already an elite defensive player.  Arenado is only 22 and I believe his offense will gradually come around.  For example, many critics of Arenado will point out the fact that his home run total of 10 was total unacceptable.  However, if you look at the big picture and add in all of his extra base hits, they accounted for roughly one-third of all his hits.  That's roughly the same ratio as David Wright, who was the National League's All-Star third baseman.  Give it time, and hopefully Arenado will take a few more walks, knock a few more over the walls at Coors, and opinion on the third baseman will quickly reverse course.

My Top 50 Players On Cardboard-#35 Jose Canseco

My Top 50 Players on Cardboard
#35
Jose Canseco

Before I get into my Canseco write up, I will preface my write up with this: I am not a fan of Jose Canseco.  In fact, he is my least favorite player on this list by far.  When I post material on my blog I always write my own articles and post pictures of cards in my collection.  This is one article where I sought some outside input on ranking fairness, not sounding too biased against Canseco, etc.

When I came up with the idea of this countdown and started making a list he naturally appeared on the initial planning list which consisted of more than 100 players who have appeared on a baseball card during my thirty years in the hobby.  Despite the fact that I am a little bit grossed out by Canseco, there can be little doubt for those involved in the hobby over the last 30 years that Canseco has had a huge impact both on and off the field.  Let's start out with a rookie card.

1986 Donruss Jose Canseco RC 

Canseco has several rookie cards that appear in 1986 releases.  The regular Topps base set from that year was lean in terms of any rookies, but he did appear in the regular Donruss and Fleer sets from that year.  Canseco would also make an appearance in the 1986 Topps Traded set.  The three rookie cards, Donruss, Fleer, and Topps Traded, are all kind of iconic 80s baseball cards.  The Donruss has always been my favorite.  I like the Rated Rookie sign in the corner, the yellow A's jersey, and the mullet and bad mustache.  There all pretty inexpensive, unless they grade high, and fairly easy to find.

Hobby Impact-
Canseco cards have always been extraordinarily popular with collectors.  It was kind of a mark against your collection in the late eighties/early nineties if you did not have a Canseco rookie somewhere.  The beginning of his career in Oakland was phenomenal and his popularity in the hobby swelled when a reached the 40/40 milestone and also helped the A's become one of the dominate forces of baseball in the late 80s.  He was later traded to the Rangers and Red Sox, back to A's, throw in sometime in Toronto, Yankees, White Sox, Angels, and maybe a try-out with the Expos during spring training.  Through it all, Canseco maintained a core of collectors who were loyal to his cards.

It always surprises me how popular his cards have stayed throughout the years.  In many ways he was one of the villains (or a hero-depends on your perspective) of the steroid era, but unlike other players caught up in the mix, Canseco's cards have remained popular and valuable.  He has a few relics floating around and a few autographs too.  One of the biggest downfalls of Canseco relics and autographs has always been the fact that many of these cards are from the end of Canseco's career.  That means you aren't getting Canseco as an A's player, how most remember him, but rather a Devil Ray or White Sox.

2000 UD Ionix Authentics Jose Canseco Autograph 

The autographs easily sell for $20 and short-printed, low serial number autographs can often drift towards $50 or higher.  Find an autograph of Canseco in an A's uniform and you will pay a premium on those prices: base autograph will be closer to 30 and serial numbered low will be north of 50 no problem.  For many Canseco fans, these cards are nice to add to their collection, but many just like the cards from his days in Oakland.  It doesn't matter whether it was his first stop, or second stop, nothing beats seeing Canseco in the green and gold.

On The Field Impact-
Sometimes I forget how good Canseco was his first few years in the game.  He won the 1986 American League Rookie of the Year, the 1988 American League MVP, the first player in MLB history to record a 40 steal/40 home run season, and was a World Champion on the 1989 Oakland A's. Really, it would be easy to make a huge list from Canseco's first few seasons in the Majors.  Canseco's numbers slid slightly his last two or three years in Oakland and I remember being really surprised when he was traded from the A's to the Rangers at the end of the 1992 season.

Just strictly looking at his home runs and other surface stats the level of Canseco's fall is not totally clear, but his oWAR went from 6.1 in 1991 to 1.9 in 1992.  Mix in that his OPS+ had fallen from a high of 170 all the way down to 128.  Canseco was definitely an above average offensive player after leaving Oakland, but he was pretty much a DH most of the rest of his career, and his real value was hitting home runs.  His end of career high notes were hitting 46 home runs for the Blue Jays in 1998 and following that up with a season of 34 for the Devil Rays in 1999.  Canseco also picked up a World Series ring in 2000 with the Yankees.

Canseco's real impact on the game since his retirement, Canseco insists that he was blacklisted, has been his whistle-blowing surrounding the steroids.  In 2005, Canseco wrote a book, Juiced, which detailed his steroid use throughout his career.  While penning the book he managed to throw a few other players under the bus including: Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez, Ivan Rodriguez, and Jason Giambi.  Most of the names on this list, minus Pudge, have all been caught or admitted their steroid use.

Canseco also appeared in the Mitchell Report as a source and also wrote a follow-up book which named ARod as a steroid user, along with Albert Belle and Magglio Ordonez.

Favorite Card-

1987 Topps Mini Jose Canseco 

Is this considered a rookie card?  No?  The 1987 cards have always been some of my favorites and the mini version is also really cool.  The cards still feature the trademark wood frame of the regular 1987 Topps cards, but they don't have the same name box at the bottom and lack the team logo at the top.  In someways, these cards are similar to the 1986 Topps mini cards, but they just changed the border.  Either which way, a really cool set and the Canseco card features him with his mullet and polyester A's uniform.

Go Cardinals!

You know what it is......Go Cardinals!

Die Cut Kick

The Topps Chrome posts from last weekend have put me in a bit of a die cut kick during the past week.  I went back through some of my old card boxes and found a couple of cool die cut cards from yesteryear, thinking of making a post, and also scoped out the die cut market on a few trade pages, Ebay, and COMC.  There were plenty of newer die-cuts from some of the newer Topps sets, but nothing really seemed to be calling my name until I saw an old cheepy Pacfic on Ebay. 

2000 Pacific Greg Maddux

The Gold Cut Crowns were seeded at a 1:25 rate with a box being 24 packs.  Not the toughest find, considering some of the odds on the Pacific die cuts could range into the 1:700 or higher range, but still these were some really cool looking cards.  It's hard to tell on the scan, but the card has some pretty cool hologram action in the background with numbers and fireworks.  I am always surprised at how cheap these cards on different secondary sites.  This card cost me a whole dollar minus one cent.  Shocked, but I am going to keep looking for these.