The Agony of Defeat

I have been on the lookout for a few Triple Threads over the past weeks when I stumbled upon a rather curious looking card of Cardinals third baseman David Freese.  The jersey pieces on the card appeared slightly off-white and I was hoping that I might land my first Cardinals card featuring a relic piece from the team's newly added third jersey.

The Cardinals had been one of the last team's to add a third jersey, but rather than adding a solid red or blue top, the team opted for an old fashion creme colored jersey.  Several teams, such as the Giants and Braves, have added these to their closets in the past year, so the Cardinals joined the pack.  Here's what the Cardinals version looked like in case you've not seen it:

While the third jersey still has the birds on the bat, it has switched out the word "Cardinals" for the word "St. Louis".  I woke up sometime around 4:30 this morning and it's now almost 11, otherwise I would go ahead and tell you the last time the Cardinals jersey said anything other than Cardinals on the front.  It's been a really, really long long time.  Really long.

Anyway, landing a Cardinals card with a relic of the third jersey would be really coll and a first for my collection.  I tracked the card for a few days and won this auction for a little more than $6 in hopes that the card would be the first of many creme colored Cardinals relics in my collection.  This is what the card looked like on Ebay.

After paying for the card I was eagerly awaiting its arrival in my mailbox.  Today was the day.  I ripped up the envelope and took the card out to check out the relics, paying special attention to the Mr. Freese. The card looks like this up close...

While I was counting on creme colored a closer inspection of the card shows that the relic patches have more of a pink hint to them, than a creme color.  Meaning that more likely than not, someone on the Cardinals clubhouse staff mixed in a red sock into a load of home white jerseys.  Don't get me wrong, it's still a really unique card, but it was not the sort of unique that I was aiming for in going after this card.  Find the David Freese pink relic card can best be summed up by this quote:

So, as it turns out I am still looking for my first creme colored Cardinals relic.  At least, in getting my hopes up, I created the framework for a blog post for when that special card comes into my collection.  Until then, we can't be too gloomy, there was another cool card in the package besides my pink David Freese: 

2013 Triple Threads Matt Holliday 7 Piece Relic "11 Champs" 

This is one of the better Cardinals cards in the Triple Threads set this year and I am really happy to add this card to my collection.  Holliday was the starting left-fielder for the Cardinals during the 2011 season when the Cardinals beat the Rangers to win the World Series.  Holliday, being the model of consistency, put together his usual solid season.  Luckily, a Yankees fan on YouTube managed to put his highlights from the 2011into a single video with some suspect music.  

My Top 50 On Cardboard- #24 Buster Posey

My Top 50 On Cardboard 
#24
Buster Posey

2010 Upper Deck Buster Posey RC 

This is one of the higher young players on my list.  There is one more who is slightly higher, but Posey belongs on this list for two reasons.  First, he's a really good player with a Hall of Fame trajectory to his career and he's only 26 and already won an MVP award, batting crown, and two World Series rings.  Posey has a ton of rookie cards if you are looking to pick one up.  I flipped through my boxes before making this post trying to find one and found literally twenty different cards to choose from for my post.  They range greatly in price, but if you are looking for just a basic Posey rookie card you should have no difficulty pulling that off for anything more than $5.

Hobby Impact-
Posey definitely has a pretty large hobby presence.  His cards are popular and you will definitely pay a pretty price for anything that is low run or autographed, or a combination of the two.  I liken Posey's hobby presence in many ways to Cal Ripken.  He's one of those players who collectors seem to universally enjoy, maybe not in Dodger land, and collectors are happy to land a good Posey card whenever, or however they can get their hands on one.  I do not specifically collect Posey cards, but I have two Posey cards which I thoroughly enjoy owning and would not consider trading or selling unless my socks were knocked off.

I will share, but both cards have already been on my blog in the past.

2008 Donruss Elite Collegiate Patches Buster Posey

I was on the lookout for one of these cards for a few years and finally tracked one down last year.  My first introduction to Buster Posey happened while he was in college playing for Florida State.  Living in the middle of the conference, within an hour of the four North Carolina schools, I heard plenty about the play of Buster Posey a few years back.  I really enjoyed getting the chance to see him a few times over the course of his college career.  These are really great looking cards and a great add for fans of college baseball.  Probably my favorite Posey autograph in my collection.

2013 Topps World Series Champions Buster Posey Patch/Autograph 

My other really cool Posey autograph comes from this year's Topps base set after the Giants won the World Series.  The patch is spectacular, but I am not a fan of the sticker autograph on a high end card.  Either way, both cards are awesome and a little taste of what collectors can find floating around from the Giants All-Star catcher.

The bottom line is that Posey cards are fun to collect and a blast to find.  There are a lot of unique cards out there and they can fit into any budget if you are willing to be patient and look hard.  If you are in the small minority of people who dump your Posey cards when you land something good, you know where to find me.

On The Field-
This one is a little bit harder to do with a young player, but let's try it out.  It would be really easy for me to sit here and point to the fact that Posey has already won two World Series rings during his brief career, but lots of players win rings and they do not necessarily contribute much to the cause.  See Ryan Dempster this year.  Posey has won two rings and had plenty to do with helping the Giants reach the pinnacle of Major League Baseball twice.

This is usually the point in the post when I point out where a player ranks on the JAWS rating system, or who their comparable Hall of Fame caliber players are on Baseball Reference and you are probably thinking I might not do that with a really young player like Posey.  You are wrong, but with young players, they always need time.  Meaning if Posey plays at his current level over an extended period of time I think there is no reason why he will not reach a really good place in his career which will merit Hall of Fame consideration.

Cureently Posey is the 86th best catcher all-time in the history of Major League Baseball.  With a career WAR of 17.5 he just behind Paul LoDuca and Ramon Hernanez.  Sounds pretty missable until you realize that Posey has equaled two guys who have basically played in the Majors for a decade in what amounts to a three year career.  In fact, the average Hall of Fame catcher has a career WAR just above 50, so Posey is already nearing the mid-point for reaching that career total.

If you want to eliminate the longevity factor with Posey, which handicaps him, we can use average OPS+ to compare him to the rest of the catchers in MLB history.  The list of players ahead of Posey on that list is incredibly short: Mike Piazza.  That's it.  He's actually tied with Joe Mauer, but with his move to first base next season, Posey will have no trouble passing him as he enters the prime of his career.  Posey, at this point in his career, ranks about 16 to 17 points ahead of the highest Hall of Fame catchers in terms of OPS+ with the highest two notable being Johnny Bench and Bill Dickey.

As with all players, this all depends on them staying healthy and playing long enough to accumulate some numbers over time.  While Posey has suffered one bad injury, and missed a chunk of the season, I actually view him as a pretty durable player.

Favorite Card-
There are several direction I could here, but I am going to highlight another one of Posey's rookie cards.  Topps put out the National Chicle set for one year, in 2010, and based the set off of the 1935 football card set with the same name.  Posey was included in the set, along with several other significant rookies.  The Posey card looked like this:

2010 Topps National Chicle Buster Posey RC

Definitely a unique card for one of Topps vintage throwback sets.  I think that Turkey Red and Ginter sometimes have similar feels in terms of the pictures and artwork.  National Chicle was just completely different.  I love the painted backgrounds with the different shapes and colors the artists used for the cards.  This Posey card has always been amongst my favorites in the set.  The Madison Bumgarner is awesome.  This is a very affordable rookie of Posey too.  Again, $5 or less will put this card into your collection.

New Project: 1999 Skybox Molten Metal Xplosion Set

It's been awhile since I have started a new collection project on here.  I think I completed one with the 1998 Topps Tek set earlier this year, but also recall letting one go in the way of the 2001 Topps Archives set.  Time to try another and stick with it to the end.  I made a post last week about the 1999 Skybox Molten Metal set and really enjoyed looking at the cards.  I especially liked the Xplosion parallel set which is made up of metal cards.  Collectors received a few per box.

1999 Skybox Molten Metal Xplosion Cal Ripken 

The set is a total of 150 cards.  Currently I have the following cards:

2. Canseco 4. Palmeiro 5. Renteria 10. O'Neill 17. Higginson 27. Schilling 38. Colon 43. Alou 45. Floyd 49. Alomar Jr. 54. Cirillo 56. Cruz Jr. 60. Milton 63. Thompson 64. Fullmer 65. Grissom 70. Hidalgo 74. Clement 75. Karros 76. Pavano 80. Martinez 83. Ventura 86. Olerud 89. McGriff 90. Boggs 92. Sheffield 101. Sheffield 106. Salmon 107. Belle 109. Lee 112. Rodriguez 118. Lofton 119. Barrett 127. Kida 128. Helton 131. Drew 132. Ripken 142. Jeter 148. Bagwell

If you're counting at home that's a total of 39 and I have a few more that I have tracked down and have en route.  Any help on the set would be much appreciated since I have 111 more cards to track down.  

and for no reason, here's Jason Kipnis....

I am usually all over the Triple Threads release and am quick to pick up cards of all my favorites.  Last year the product seemed to get a little bit repetitive.  For example, I rushed out to find a Matt Kemp card and found that the majority of his cards had the "Bison" nickname spelled out in jersey pieces.  Kemp does have a cool nickname, but Topps has issued that same card at least four years in row.  There are only so many "Bison" cards I can have in my collection, as cool of a player as Matt Kemp is.

I searched my favorite two target teams too and found the same problems with the Cards and Rays Triple Threads cards with the exception of Matt Holliday.  Longoria is still Longo or Long Beach, David Freese is still Mr Freese or the 2011 WSMVP, and David Price is still the first pick in the 2007 draft.  All of these cards have been made multiple times.

Further, the same problems with player selection, in regards to the autograph checklist, still plague the Triple Threads set.  The Cardinals have Jon Jay, Matt Holliday (exchange), Matt Adams, Trevor Rosenthal (with weird green jersey pieces), Shelby Miller, Lance Lynn, and Carlos Beltran (relics only).  The Rays have Wil Myers, Chris Archer, Longoria, Alex Cobb, Odorizzi, Matt Moore, and Zobrist and Jennings as relic only cards.  Where's the variety?

Why not throw in a Tim Beckham on the Rays or maybe another prospect besides Odorizzi.  Enny Romero?  Pretty good choice right there.  Topps could have added Wacha, Joe Kelly, or for a prospect, Kolten Wong to it's Cardinals checklist.  The Cardinals could also have a deeper checklist if Topps got Ozzie Smith or Red Scheondienst to sign a few cards.  While the Rays are a newer franchise I am sure Topps could make a cool Fred McGriff Triple Threads card.

So, after searching long and hard and debating about where to put my Triple Threads money I made this decision: I will buy a few choice Triple Threads cards and target some of the Matt Holliday cards with different sayings on them to add to my collection.  The rest of my money and trade bait cards will roll over towards another project.  So, without further adieu here's my first Triple Threads card of 2013.

2013 Topps Triple Threads Jason Kipnis Autograph 

While this card is one of the more common Triple Threads cards, it is a great looking card.  I actually do not own a Jason Kipnis autograph at the moment and have always thought pretty highly of him.  If memory serves correctly he was on a completely loaded Arizona State team, but somehow slid past a bunch of his teammates to the Indians in the second round of the draft.  The Sun Devils draftees that year included Jordan Swagerty, Mike Leake, and Seth Blair.  The year before the Sun Devils also had Ike Davis and Brett "The Walrus" Wallace.

Kipnis has become the best of the bunch and is one of the better offensive middle infielders in the American League.  He's not Robinson Cano or anything, but he posted an OPS+ of 133 and a WAR of almost 6 last season.  This autograph cost me less than $10.  A solid investment considering the potential Kipnis has shown during his two plus seasons in the Majors.  More Triple Threads later this week.

Buy Local #5: Roger Craig

I do not do a lot of vintage cards on my blog, nor do I bring in a lot of players who played before the 80s, but it's really hard to do a series of posts on local North Carolina players and not mention the legendary Roger Craig.  Craig is best known for his role in helping the 1950s Dodgers teams to a pair of World Series titles in 1955 and 1959, and also for leading the San Francisco Giants as their manager in the late 80s and early 90s.

Roger Craig grew up in Durham, North Carolina and had a job as the bat boy for Durham Bulls at the time.  The Bulls have never listed Roger Craig as an official alumni, but there is a sidewalk square outside of the Durham Bulls Athletic Park which recognizes the Durham native.  

After graduating from high school, Roger Craig took a basketball scholarship to play at NC State and also ended up playing on the baseball team while he was there.  The Dodgers signed Craig as an amateur free agent in 1950.  His career was delayed when he was drafted for the Korean War, but by the summer of 1955 he was up in the Majors playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. 

1956 Topps Roger Craig 

Craig first appeared on cardboard during the summer of 1956, a year after he helped the 1955 Dodgers win the World Series by winning the pivotal game 5 against the Yankees.  One of the first vintage cards I ever bought when I moved to North Carolina was this copy of Craig's rookie card.  There used to be a card shop on Duke Street north of I-85 when I moved to Durham in the fall of 2005.  One of my first trips into the store,  the owner told me that I could not officially be a baseball fan in North Carolina without a copy of a Craig rookie.  He gave me a bargain and sold me this excellent copy for $10.  I have a few extra copies now, but it's definitely a really cool card to own.  

1963 Topps Roger Craig 

Roger Craig was also pretty famous for being one of the original New York Mets.  He spent the 1962 and 1963 seasons with the Mets and posted a record of 15-46 during his two season stay in Queens.  Despite leading the National League in loses both seasons with 22 and 24 loses, Craig was really not that bad of a pitcher.  In fact, between the two seasons he posted a WAR north of 5 with 3.0 number in 1962.  Just to give that a modern comparison, Shelby Miller won 15 games last season with the Cardinals and had a WAR of 3.  

Craig did make an appearance with the 1964 Cardinals and pitched two games in relief during the World Series.  The ring with the Cardinals was his third and final as a player.  Craig made a few minor league appearances in the late sixties, but was basically retired from baseball.  He went into coaching and ended up have several pitching coach gigs with the Padres, Astros, and Tigers.  The Tigers job gave Craig his fourth ring during the 1984 season.

Of course, many modern collectors probably best know Roger Craig as the manager of the Giants during the late 1980s and early 1990s.  He led the Giants to the playoffs in 1987, where the team missed out on the World Series by one game, and again in 1989, when the Giants won the National League and appeared in the World Series against the A's.

Craig retired from baseball in 1992, but has still been pretty active around baseball.  IBaseball recently posted a cool interview with Craig on their YouTube channel and he still shows up on baseball cards from time to time.  He even signs a few from time to time.

2001 Fleer Greats of the Game Roger Craig Autograph 

The Worst Card(s) of 2013

I have registered several posts so far this fall about my dislike for the Topps Update set and have had a variety of reasons for my negative opinion.  The most annoying thing about the Update set this year is the fact that there are almost too many varitation cards to count, but I suppose if you are going to go bad why not go for it with some gusto.

I liken the 2013 Topps Update set to the 2013 Houston Astros.  Sure, the Astros could have gone out and filled their roster with older free agents and players on one year deal, but they would have had a record of 70-92 instead of 51-111.  Topps could have just rolled out the usual Topps Update set with a few season highlights cards, thrown in a few All-Stars, and some players who were traded or free agent signings along the way.  BAM! You've got a Topps Update set.  If I had a piece of paper, an IPhone, and a Yuengling I could figure the set checklist out in twenty minutes.

Really, I have harped and bashed the set enough.  Let's get down to bashing two cards which have zero businesses being in the set.  ZERO.  Both of these cards are really bad, but one is slightly worse than the other.  It could really be a 1 and 1a scenario.  So, let's look at card number 1.

2013 Topps Update Daniel Bard 

 This card has so much going against it.  Let's just start with this: Daniel Bard is not on the Red Sox anymore, he's on the Chicago Cubs.  I understand that he was not released and claimed by the Cubs until early September, but that was almost 90 days before the set hit the shelves.  I understand that to some degree Topps probably had Bard on the original checklist and could not pull him before the cards were printed.  Fair enough, right?

Well, actually Bard had not been on the Red Sox since a relief appearance in late April.  That appearance was his second, and last, of the season with the Red Sox.  Was Bard hurt?  No.  He just completely lost what ever it was that he had and spent the season wandering around the Red Sox minor league system.  Nothing higher than Double A.

So why is Daniel Bard in the Topps Update Set?  I have absolutely no idea, but for a guy to appear for two games in April, disappear for an entire summer to the low minors, and end up in an Update set is a complete head scratcher.  Baffling.    It's not like Topps didn't have some other options to put into Bard's place in the set.  David Ross and Brandon Workman were two Red Sox players who had zero Topps cards during the 2013 season, but were key contributors to the team.  Why not include them instead of Bard?

2013 Topps Update Ty Wigginton

Wigginton is much the same as Bard.  If Wigginton had appeared on a baseball card earlier in the summer he would not be on this post.  The fact that he was a terrible player who was released in the middle of the summer and appeared on his first baseball card of the year six months after he was released makes this card terrible.  Wigginton made 63 plate appearance for the Cardinals after signing a two year contract with the team last winter.  In his 63 plate appearances he posted a .158 batting average and struck out 19 times.  The Cardinals sent him packing on July 9th.  On October 16th Topps released the Update set complete with Wigginton card.  Disastrous. 

Just like the Bard card, again, Topps has other options to put in place of Wigginton.  Shane Robinson appeared in almost 100 games for the team and has no Topps card this year.  Tony Cruz appeared in 54 games and has been on the team for three years.  No Topps cards ever.  Seth Maness appeared in 66 games and Kevin Siegrist appeared in 45 games as relief pitchers.  No cards.

Really the two worst cards for Topps this year were completely preventable with better planning and research on the part of the company.  I understand that both Wigginton and Bard have been apart of past Topps sets and have deserved have their moment on cardboard, but it's hard to argue for their inclusion in an end of the year set when both were basically out of the Majors after July.  Bard is clearly the worse of the two evils here, but Wigginton is not far away, especially given that Topps had more replacement options with if they just wanted a Cardinals player.  Quality control always seems to be their downfall.

Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Lose, Sometimes It Rains....

I enjoy watching Sergio Romo pitch and recently found out that he had an autograph in the 2013 Panini Prizm set which was quite reasonable and affordable.  Romo does not have a certified autograph beyond this card, and being a pretty popular figure with Giants fans right now, was shocked to find that the card regularly sold for less than ten dollars.  A copy of the card was going off Monday.  I decided to take a run at the card and document my triumph in Vine form to show off my winnings. 

About ten minutes out from the end of the auction I set aside the cards I was working on and settled in at my computer with a bowl of nachos and a big cup of water to watch my card. 

With about three minutes left I was clearly focused on my target.  The Romo autograph was stuck at $3.25, my nachos were gone, and my water was going fast.  I decided to try for the Romo card at $10 flat with shipping.  Meaning a bid of $7.00 bid with the $3.00 shipping fee.  It seemed like a winner...

I watched the time countdown on the Romo autograph and with just nine seconds left I submitted my bid of $7 and witnessed the awesome green Congratulations High Bidder Screen, but 

I lost.  I do not lose auctions often and was disappointed to lose the Romo autograph.  However, I remembered the words of Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh who once said:

After being down for a short time about my loss I managed to find a case breaker who had cracked some Prizm and had a Romo card that he was willing to send my way.  So, this afternoon I went and checked my mailbox and found this gem in one of the padded envelopes inside:

2013 Panini Prizm Sergio Romo Autograph