My Top 50 On Cardboard- #25 Pedro Martinez

My Top 50 on Cardboard
#25
Pedro Martinez

1991 Upper Deck Final Edition Pedro Martinez RC

Pedro Martinez was one of the top pitchers of his generation.  Some would argue that he could be the best of his generation.  I am not going to get into a debate about where he ranks amongst his peers this evening, but I will argue that Pedro should probably get a little bit more love in the world of cardboard. His rookie card appears in the abundant Upper Deck Final Edition set from 1991, although his 1992 Bowman card is often collected, bought, sold, and traded for more like his rookie card.  In my opinion, they are both really cool early 90s rookie cards, but the 1992 Bowman card is in a very significant set, which makes it the more desirable of the two early Martinez cards.  To make up for it, I posted a picture of the Upper Deck Final Edition.

Hobby Impact-
Pedro really took off on cardboard when he was traded to the Red Sox.  His early cards on the Dodgers and Expos have a pretty good following, but most were put out in the early and mid 90s when the wax was abundant and Pedro was not really always recognized for the pitcher he was at that time.  Extremely under-appreciated.  Then the Red Sox years came and Pedro Martinez took off with collectors.  I remember the first of Pedro cards that Topps put out in 1998 after the Expos traded him to the Red Sox.

1998 Topps Pedro Martinez 

Almost all of Pedro's Topps cards that year featured the same picture of Pedro.  Some of the cards were basically a waist up shot, like the base Topps card pictured above, and others showed Martinez sitting on a wooden stool.  Same picture, just cropped differently.  As boring as the first round of Pedro Martinez Red Sox cards were, they briefly ignited a quiet spark which made Pedro Martinez cards extremely popular.  The Expos and Dodgers cards, outside of his few certified autographs, seemed to lag behind.

The first Pedro certified autograph Pedro signed was a 1996 Leaf Signature while he was playing in Montreal.  The card hovers around $50, but is pretty easy to find floating around different places.  Red Sox autographs were always pretty hard to stumble upon and there was an added premium on the cards due to the fact that he was pictured as a Red Sox.

2000 Skybox Autographics Pedro Martinez Autograph 

The really unique trend with Pedro Martinez cards continued when he left the Red Sox and signed with Mets.  He also later played part of a season with the Phillies.  The Red Sox cards, inserts, short-prints, premium cards, and autographs all trend considerably higher than those same cards where Martinez is pictured on another team.  Only later in his career the other teams were the Mets and Phillies.  Martinez does have a few autographs from his time with the Mets, but there are almost all sticker autographs and not nearly as nice looking as his Red Sox autographs.

I think if Pedro were a little bit more universally liked there would be a little bit more consistency to the value of his non-Red Sox cards.  As a non-Red Sox fan, I never had much of a problem with Pedro and always had a high level of respect for Pedro as a player.  Again, not debating his place amongst his peers, but Pedro is really really high on my list.  A good Pedro card is always worth a look whether he is a Dodger, Expo, Red Sox, Met, or Phillie.  In fact, Topps just added some new Martinez cards to some of this year's products including a few autographs.  It would be nice to add one of those one of these years.

On The Field-
You remember the debate surrounding last year's Cy Young award with Felix Hernandez were people were debating the value of wins as a stat for pitchers.  Yeah, well there are a few people floating around who question whether or not Pedro is a Hall of Famer because he only has a grand total of 219 career wins.  Too low?  There are other numbers besides wins.  While Pedro only won twenty games twice in his career he are some other areas were he excelled:

• He won a total of 5 ERA titles during his career.  One with the Expos and four with the Red Sox in seven years
• Pedro only led the league in strike outs three times, but he had nine season of over 200 strikeouts including four over 250, and two over 300 
• Pedro led the league in ERA+ five times, each time his number was over 200.  A stat line of 100 indicates an average pitcher's ERA+
• Pedro led the league in WHIP six times.  All six seasons his WHIP ended up being less than 1
• He won a total of three Cy Young Awards.  One National League and two American League

JAWS rates Pedro as the 21st best starting pitcher of all-time.  He is the third ranked modern pitcher on the list behind Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux.  While there are pitchers with better career WARs than Martinez, there is not a single pitcher on the list higher than Pedro with a better career ERA+ than Martinez.  His career number ended at 154 with the next closet belonging to Lefty Grove at 148.  

Pedro was also a pretty tough player.  He was really short and not sure he could out muscle many other players in the Majors, but that did not stop Pedro from standing up to other players, pitching inside, and drilling a few batters.  Here's a few of my favorites (Thank you MLB Classic channel):

The sound Gregg Jefferies make when he gets drilled is awesome.    How many times have you seen the pitcher charge the other pitcher?  

There was this gem against Reggie Sanders

and then there was this gem.  Great Pedro moment. 

Favorite Card-

This is really pretty easy.  It's got to be a Red Sox card.  Slight temptation to throw an Expos card here, but I just like Expos cards.  I've always really like his 2001 Topps card.  Pretty classy looking card here that has a really good picture of Pedro.  

2001 Topps Pedro Martinez

It also helps that this was a really good set too.  Pedro has several inserts in this product, and unlike the 1998 Topps cards, they actually use different photographs on the different cards.  Definitely worth your time to pick up a copy of this card and also worth checking into the inserts from this set.   

Buy Local- #4- Wil Myers

There are several ways that Wil Myers is a local product for my blog, so we'll start with the most obvious.  Wil Myers started out this season playing for the Tampa Rays Triple-A affiliate the Durham Bulls.  Myers is also a High Point, North Carolina native and graduated from Weslayan Christian Academy....back to the Bulls....While Myers only played about half the season the Bulls, he was clearly one of the better players in the International League.  In fact, Myers ended up tied with super utility man Leslie Anderson for the team lead in home runs with 14 despite having almost 200 less at-bats than him. 

 I saw Myers a few times and was really impressed by his sheer power.  While his dip in power concerned many this season, Myers still managed to post almost 30 extra base hits in his 76 games in Durham and posted an OPS of almost .900.  While there is still room for improvement in Myers game, he is still a really good player at this stage of his career and, in my opinion, an impact player for some time to come with the Rays.  Check out his first home run off of C.C. Sabathia:





Look further into his numbers this year, Myers posted an OPS+ of 132 which would have ranked just outside the top 10 in the American League had he taken enough at-bats to qualify for the the league leaders boards.  Baseball Reference actually projects out Myers nicely with their 162 game average, which is right below the players career totals on the page.  The Myers line looks something like this:

Not the easiest to read, but the BA, OBP, SLG, and OPS are still set at his season average of .293/.354/.478 with a .831 OPS.  Add in 42 doubles, 24 home runs, and 98 RBIs and I bet you would have a lot of people on the Rays and fans take that kind of line from Myers over the course of a full 162 game schedule next season. 

For my cardboard fans, Myers has plenty of cool cards to track down.  His most popular and common rookie card comes from the 2010 Bowman Chrome set.  There is an autographed version of this card which can be a pretty pricy get, but if you are just starting on your Myers collection this is a good place to start. 

2010 Bowman Chrome Wil Myers RC

There are several other early cards of Myers on the Royals, but the vast majority of his cards have been released this year since his trade to the Rays.  If you are looking for an inexpensive autograph of the American League Rookie of the Year, I would actually point you in the direction of that small stack of Royals cards.  While the Bowman Chrome Autographed rookie card of Myers is pricey, the opposite can be said about his In The Game Autograph. 

2010 ITG Heroes and Prospects Wil Myers Autograph

Myers has actually also signed a lot this year with the Rays.  His autographs seems to be getting a little bit more affordable, but they will still probably cost you at least $20-$30 with premium and low print runs costing you more depending on what it is and the quantity of the print run.  I went hard after the Bowman Inception set this year and was happy to add this gem to my collection earlier this summer. 

2013 Bowman Inception Wil Myers Jersey/Autograph

I have been collecting Myers cards for a short time, but have had a blast adding some of his cards to my collection.  Ignore the people complaining about his signature (see Greg Maddux) and track one of these cool cards down for yourself. 

1999 Skybox Molten Metal Set

I am still working on my reorganization project which I started several months ago.  These things always take a lot longer than you'd think they would and I probably have not been too great about giving enough updates here on my blog space.  If you follow my Twitter feed, and can stand me complaining about NC State's football team every Saturday, it's clear some days that I am sorting and organizing my cards as quickly as I can.  I even post pictures sometimes.  Here's the finish product for all of my 2001 sets. 

Somewhere along the line I started posting some of the completed sets I pulled out during the process and posting them in this space from time to time drawing attention to some of the cards I have enjoyed collecting during my thirty years in the hobby.  I think I even started posted the 2013 sets that I was working on and posted the completed set and favorite inserts when I finished them off.  Somewhere along the way I lost my footing and have disappeared from posting both updates of my reorganization project and the complete sets I am assembling out of the cards.  I will do a little better starting right now.  I have a few sets planned for the next few weeks and will post a few sets too. 

I am working on my 1999 cards at the moment and spent part of my day off working on sorting out the Skybox Molten Metal set along with the Pacific Private Stock.  More on the Private Stock set next week.  I bought my first box of Molten Metal cards while I was working my summer job after graduating from college.  My summer job was that cool.  I split a box with one of my bosses and loved the cards.  The base set is a total of 150 cards and is shiny and glossy like every good late 90s set.

1999 Skybox Molten Metal Jim Edmonds

 

The set really is not far off from several other Fleer/Skybox sets which were released around that time, but I just liked this set better than most of the others.  The base set had some of my favorite players like Jim Edmonds, Ray Lankford, Fernando Tatis, Mark McGwire, etc.  I was pretty much exclusively a Cardinals person at that point in my life.  The set lacked star power, in terms of the rookie cards, but there are still some solid rookie cards on the checklist. 

1999 Skybox Molten Metal A.J. Burnett

The rookie cards in the set mainly include guys like A.J. Burnett, Jeff Weaver, and Pat Burrell.  Solid Major Leaguers who enjoyed good solid careers, but you are not going to knock down the door to find or pay for their cards.  Burrell was really popular at the time the set released, but Burnett and Weaver caught up, if not passed him later on in their careers.  All three cards are now available for less than a dollar if you really want to pick up those cards. 

All the base set cards in the Molten Metal set are fine and good, but the real draw to this set is the inserts and parallels.  Fleer did it right.  Let's start with the parallel. 

1999 Skybox Molten Metal Xplosion J.D. Drew

The parallel set, Metal Xplosion, was a full parallel set to the base set made out of metal cards.  Leaf had done this a few years before with the Leaf Preferred Metal set, but these cards did not have a goofy piece of plastic wrap over the card and the Skybox Molten Metal cards are die-cuts.  There were no serial numbered parallels or rainbow color variations in this set.  Just really cool cards.  I have about two dozen cards from this parallel set, but have always thought it would be a cool challenge to assemble.  Maybe someday.  One more cool insert set. 

1999 Skybox Molten Metal Derek Jeter Supernatural Fusion

It's hard to tell from the scan, but the right-hand side of the card is a picture of Derek Jeter made out of little pin holes.  A card shop owner, who shall remain nameless once told me that these cards were an example of pointillism.  Hmmmm....

Not quite the same thing.  Anyway, the Jeter is a really cool card and is part of a fifty card insert set which Skybox seeded at a rate of two per box.  I actually did collect this set for awhile and got through about half of the set.  It's not too hard to find, but there are serial numbered version of the card which run at 500 and 50.  The 500 versions have a slight premium and the 50 can have a significant depending on the parallel.  Also could be a good future project, especially since I have half of the set already.  More 90s sets next weekend. 

My Top 50 On Cardboard- #26 Stephen Strasburg

My Top 50 On Cardbaord
#26
Stephen Strasburg

2010 Bowman Platinum Stephen Strasburg RC 

The summer of 2010, in the world of baseball cards, was all about Stephen Strasburg.  The previous summer the Washington Nationals used the first selection to pick the San Diego State hurler and from there the story writes itself.  Collectors are always drawn towards shiny objects, and Strasburg was the shiniest object that had appeared in the hobby in quite some time.  My opined him a sure fire ace before he even began his career during the spring of 2010.

Strasburg was an extremely polished college pitcher and breezed through the Nationals minor league system in quick order posting an 8-3 record in 17 starts with an ERA of 1.90 and 94 strikeouts in 75 innings.  Strasburg made his debut on June 8th of 2010 and was pretty incredible from the get go.

Strasburg pitched 7 innings, struck out 14 batters, and only yielded four hits.  The much anticipated debut of Strasburg and subsequent craze was unlike anything else I have seen in following the sport and baseball card hobby over the last thirty years.


Hobby Impact-
Topps has never had a problem with production quantities, but at certain points during the summer of 2010 I think the unthinkable might have actually happened.  Collectors had been hearing the Strasburg hype for several summers.  His dominance in the minors drove some of his USA Baseball cards up, and as Topps began putting out Strasburg rookie cards their prices skyrocketed too.  After his debut performance they were pretty much ridiculous.

I believe in the talent of Stephen Strasburg and have no doubt that is a really good pitcher and will continue to be a really good pitcher.  There is a point however where, as a collector, you have to seriously question whether or not a pitcher with less than a year's worth of professional experience was really worth several hundred dollars for an autograph.

I asked myself that question sometime during the summer of 2010 and decided to unload some of the Strasburg cards in my collection which featured Strasburg in a USA Baseball uniform.  I kept a lot of his base rookie cards, especially if they were essential for completing a set.  I actually ended up with a Topps Chrome (that was the year they were extremely curved) and sold that card too.  Here's a look at one of my USA Baseball autographs I owned from the 2008 Upper Deck Timelines set.

2008 Upper Deck Timelines Stephen Strasburg Autograph 

The Strasburg USA Baseball cards (I owned two, only have a scan of one) sold for somewhere in the low triple digits, while his Topps Chrome card and all it's natural curviness sold for almost $150.  Pretty good amount of money for a few rookie cards.  Base Strasburg rookie cards were pretty easy to move too and would often even sell for more than $5.  Pretty impressive for a modern rookie card.  Inserts, short prints, and serial numbered cards could get really ridiculous.

That was 3/4 of the summer of 2010.  Then Strasburg was diagnosed with a tear in his elbow, under went Tommy John, and then there was the debacle of 2011.  Not his fault, more below.  The end result for Strasburg's hobby status is this: He is a really popular and pricey player to collect, but his cards have lost some of their value over the last two summers.

The best example might be his Topps Chrome rookie card which was selling for $150, or thereabouts, during the summer of 2010 and can now be found for $70 to $80. Pretty significant price drop, but again still pricey for a guy who has four years of experience and will be looking for his 30th career win on Opening Day next season.

The fact remains though that the Strasburg rookies are some of the better cards of the best decade and have a chance to be pretty iconic if the career of Stephen Strasburg pans out into anything resembling an above average to excellent pitcher.  I still think he has an excellent chance of making it happen.  Strasburg does not turn 25 until the middle of next summer and it would appear that the Nationals are trying their best to surround their cornerstone pitcher with some good young talent.

The base Strasburg rookie cards are all very affordable at the moment.  If you add to sneak a Strasburg autograph into your collection I would recommend:

2010 Topps 206 Stephen Strasburg Autograph 

The card sells for more than some of the other Strasburg autographed rookies, but it's also not a sticker autograph and looks a little bit nicer than both the Topps Chrome and the Bowman Platinum card.  By more expensive I am talking $20.  If you are going to spend $75 on an autograph, what's $95 to $100.  Nothing.  If you want a nice looking Strasburg rookie with a signature on it, this is a winner.

On The Field Impact-
This is usually the part of the post where I throw a bunch of numbers at you and tell you how great the player in my post is and why you should value you them as a card collector.  Strasburg is a challenge.  According to JAWS he is the 1,127 best starting pitching of all-time.  One of his similar pitchers through age 24 on Baseball Reference is Bob Knepper.  There's nothing wrong with Bob Knepper, but would you pay $75 for an autograph of a Bob Knepper rookie card?

No, the real argument for Stephen Strasburg on the field revolves around the fact that he is still only 24 and there are some very good signs that he is going to be a very good pitcher in the Majors.  Whether or not he's a good enough pitcher to support his card following and prices remains to be seen, but here are a couple of Strasburg factoids that I like to bring up in support of him being an excellent pitcher.

While the Nationals limited Strasburg to only 28 starts during the 2012 season, he posted an ERA right around 3 and managed to win 15 games.  If Strasburg had been available for the NLDS, as a Cardinals fan, I have no doubt that they would have won the series.  During the 2012 season Strasburg posted an ERA+ of 126, which would have placed him in the Top 10 for the National League had he qualified for the league leaders.  He posted nearly identical stats for the Nats during the 2013 season, minus the wins, but he also played on a fairly mediocre team.

There are a bunch of other things that I could post about the potential greatness of Strasburg, but we've all been hearing it for years.  When I doubt Strasburg, I sit down and watch a Nats game.  I mute Bob Carpenter though.  I suggest you do the same.

Favorite Card-

One of the things missed in the Nationals stockpiling all of the talent during the past few years is the fact that, as the team formerly known as the Expos, they have always struggled to have an identifiable player.  The Expos had good players, but when you think of Andre Dawson is your first thought of him as an Expo?  Tim Raines has always been a yes for me, but Larry Walker is a Rockie, Pedro is a Red Sox, Dawson was a Cub, etc.  

Strasburg, Harper, Ryan Zimmerman, Anthony Rendon offer the franchise it's first group of star players which it might actually retain and build around to produce a winner.  It's weird.  If you ever watch a Nationals game on television and they start talking about the team's past it's like having a really odd and uncomfortable conversation.  It could just be Bob Carpenter's fault, but I really think it might be hard to bring up history when you are on the wrong side of it.  

Which brings me to my favorite Strasburg card:

2012 Topps Archives Stephen Strasburg

and you are asking why this card?  First, the 1984 Topps set was one of my favorite sets as a kid.  I really liked the design.  Each team within the set has a unique color combination for the player name and team name.  The Expos combination was the purplish name with a pink team name as displayed on the Strasburg card.  It's a little thing, but I always liked the subtle shout out Topps gave the Expos even if the Nationals are a little too embarrassed to do it themselves.  

500th Post Giveaway

I will be posting my 500th entry to the Snorting Bull Baseball Card Blog coming up sometime during the next week.  I am currently sitting at 493 posts and I usually make one post a day which would put me at 500 sometime next weekend.  I started this blog roughly a year and a half ago and am amazed at how many people visit this website on a daily basis to hear about what cards I have added to my collection, or to hear my opinion on a card, player, or set.  I cannot thank you enough for your support.  

That being said, I am going to do a giveaway in conjunction with post number 500 which is currently scheduled to be about local Durham, North Carolina Major League manager/player Roger Craig.  The coolest card in the post is looking like a copy of a 2001 Fleer Greats of the Game Autograph, so that will be the giveaway card.  

To enter the drawing for the Roger Craig autograph simply like the Snorting Bull Baseball Card Blog on Facebook.  Family members are not eligible (Sorry Christina Seguin).  I will give readers a few reminders and until Thanksgiving day to enter the contest.  Drawing will be held sometime around carving the turkey day festivities at my house.  Again, thank you for your support and taking time out of your day to read my musings on baseball cards and baseball.

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.  

My Top 50 On Cardboard- #27 Nomar Garciaparra

My Top 50 On Cardboard
#27
Nomar Garciaparra

1992 Topps Traded Nomar Garciaparra

My favorite, and maybe only tolerable, Red Sox of the past fifteen years.  Nomar Garciaparra was also a pretty fun player to watch and one of those players who you wouldn't mind seeing win something.  Unfortunately, the Red Sox traded him before they won they title in 2004.  Would have made that pill a little easier to swallow.  Anywho, Nomar's rookie card showed up in the 1992 Topps Traded set as a USA Baseball player.  This was a really cool, and slightly pricey card back in the day, but has lost much of its luster nowadays.  A really easy find on Ebay for a couple of bucks.  You can also check out the 1993 Stadium Club Murphy which has the added bonus of being sold in a set that comes in a giant plastic model of Jack Murphy Stadium.

Hobby Impact-
Nomar was part of the big three AL East shortstops in the late 90s with the other two being Derek Jeter and Miguel Tejada.  Garciaparra has always been second fiddle on that list to Jeter with baseball card collectors and it appears it is kind of permanently etched that way at this point.  Garciaparra is still plenty popular though.  In my opinion, he was the face of the Red Sox from late 90s through the early part of the 2000s.

 Even after he was traded, he remained a popular figure with Red Sox collectors.  Topps has put out several Nomar cards including autographs and relic cards since his retirement from baseball in 2009.   My key to find good Nomar cards goes like this: remember that Nomar played for the Cubs, Dodgers, and A's, now go find his Red Sox cards.  The Red Sox traded Nomar for a good reason and the later years of his career were not really reflective of the type of player he was for much of his time on the Red Sox.  Well, maybe 2006 with the Dodgers.

Nomar has plenty of cool cards out on the market largely due to the fact that he was a great player, a popular Red Sox, and just a cool player to watch.  Collectors have their choices with plenty of cool base cards, inserts, and short prints to nab.  If I had to add one Nomar card to my collection though, I would save my money up and buy one of his autographs.  Like this one:

2000 Topps Stadium Club Nomar Garciaparra Lone Star Signature Autograph

Nomar has a great signature which has changed very little over the past fifteen years and is a great add to any collection.  Many of his early Red Sox autographs are on-card signatures (Dodgers and Cubs tend to be stickers) and can be had for between $40 and $50.  A little bit more than the average autograph, but the popular Red Sox factor drives up the price a bit.

On The Field Impact-
As mentioned before, Garciaparra was apart of the big three shortstops in the AL East during the late 1990s.  The American League also had Alex Rodrgiuez at the time making the position quite deep.  Don't tweet me about Omar Vizquel.  For the time being I am just going to focus on Jeter and Garciaparra.  ARod was better than both Jeter and Nomar, and despite spending half his career at third base, ranks as a top 5 shortstop all-time on several different lists.  However, I really despise those who think that Jeter was really better than Garciaparra during the late 90s.  Lets look at some numbers.

Let's start by look at their WAR (Wins Above Replacement) for the years 1997-2000.  That would be Garicaparra's first season through Jeter's fourth World Series title.  According to the court of public opinion, I would guess that many would place Jeter ahead of Garciaparra, but math doesn't lie.

When you compare the years each player you can see that Jeter has two years where he is high than Garciaparra and vice versa.  However, the total number of WAR over this four year stretch is slanted in favor of Garciaparra with 30.6 Wins Above Replacement compared to 28.4 for Jeter.  Jeter also had a negative defensive WAR in two of the seasons during the four year stretch, meaning the Yankees had better defensive options at shortstop, while Nomar had none.

In fact, if you look at the 7 year-peak WAR used for the JAWS rating, Garciaparra is still higher than Jeter despite the fact that Nomar's seven seasons are diluted by injury shortened seasons.  It's one stat, but there are others we can compare too...

Let's take a look at one more.  Here are the two shortstop's OPS+ from the same four year stretch.

Garciaparra has a clear advantage in this stat too.  While Jeter is shown to be an above average player, though 1997 he's rather pedestrian, he is below Garciaparra in three of the years and be large amounts.  The one year that Nomar is not ahead of Jeter, they are just even.

Really the only thing Jeter has going for him in an argument against Nomar Garciaparra is longevity and his World Series rings.  Although it would probably pain Yankees fan to know that Garciaparra has a higher postseason batting average.  If Nomar had played twenty seasons and been manning shortstop in 2004 and 2007, maybe this season too, nobody outside of New York would even debate the better shortstop.

Garciaparra could be a Hall of Famer.  Still really popular as witnessed below.

Favorite Card-
My favorite part of watching Nomar play was watching him hit.  He could hold his own in the field, but he was a great hitter.  He was really busy while he was up at the plate and had the same busy routine before every pitch.  Here it is while he was in AA

 

The pre-pitch routine was cool, but the guy could hit.  I have always enjoyed the cards of Nomar batting more than the cards in the field, so I am going with this one as my favorite. 

2002 Upper Deck Vintage

This appears to be somewhere during the foot shuffle/stomp part of the pre-pitch routine.  Really good photograph by Upper Deck.