Dodger Under The Radar

Card collectors are funny sometimes with young players.  I was looking at a Tim Beckham card earlier in the week, it was a 1/1, and was basically told that the card was going to be "a minimum of $100 cause he was the number one pick and all".  I like Tim Beckham.  He's a Rays prospect and was on the Durham Bulls for the past year and a half, but if the Rays could redraft he would not be the top pick in the draft.  Why do collectors hold on to silly notions about draft orders or think that the top prospect of certain teams (like the Brewers) hold any value? 

I take solace in the fact that for every $100 Tim Beckham card I run into I can always find a few equally underrated cards.  After passing on the Tim Beckham card I did manage to land a nice Joc Pederson card from the same collector.  It did not even cost me $10. 

The card comes from my favorite 2013 set Bowman Inception.  I am slowly working my way to owning all of the autographs from this set, slowly, but this was a big one in my book.  Sadly, it appears too few collectors know Joc Pederson.  Let me fill in some holes so you can buy one of his cards sooner, rather than later. 

Pederson one of the better power prospects in the game at the moment.  Baseball America rated him as the 50th best prospect in the game pre-2014.  Basically his power has increased every year he has played in the minors and last year he had a successful season playing at Double A.  In 2011, Joc split time between Rookie Ball and A Ball, but managed a .323/.407/.503 line with 33 extra base hits, 11 home runs, in roughly 80 games.  In 2012, Pederson played an entire year in the High A California League and posted a .313/.396/.516 line with 44 extra base hits and 18 home runs in 500 at-bats.  Last year was a slight fall playing in AA, but he was a 21 year old playing AA.  Not too shabby.  His line was .278/.381/.497 with 49 extra base hits and 22 home runs.  

The thing I like about Pederson is the fact that he hits for power, but also shows some patience and manages to draw walks and get on base.  His lowest OBP over the last three years was .381.  How many teams would take that with more than 20 home runs?  The only downfall for Joc Pederson appears to be the fact that the outfield is rather crowded right now for the Dodgers.  I cannot imagine that they will block a legit top prospect with Andre Either, but sometimes I do not get some of the moves the Dodgers make.  That's for a different post.  

For the moment, your assignment is to go out and find a few good Joc Pederson cards for your collection while they are still relatively cheap and inexpensive. 

Mail Day! Part 1

The amount of times I have used Mail Day during the past year is ridiculously low.  Plus, my alternative title for this post was "Smorgasbord of Cardboard".  Hands off that title by the way.  I will still use it at some point.  Anyway, I received a package of cards yesterday that was stuff full of five pretty nice cards.  Four autographs cards I targeted from a seller on Ebay and won.  Then there was another card that was just sitting there, so I bought it.  Cannot pass up certain cards which only cost $0.99.  So, here's my run down on my winnings.  Or Mail Day Part 1:

This was the original card that brought my attention to the seller I picked these cards off of on Ebay.  I have not added many Shelby Miller cards to the collection recently and have really been looking long and hard at some of his autographs from different Topps products last year.  I feel like I missed a bunch of them.  Anyway, I know that the green Finest cards are not necessarily the lowest print run in the set, but I really like the looks of the cards.  Further, the green copies of the Miller autograph consistently sell for more than $25 dollars.  There are several Buy It Now copies of this card still up on Ebay and they are all over $30.  I picked up my copy for a little bit less than $20.  Pretty hard to beat that price.  However, while I was picking up this card I managed to snag a few other autographs that were also missing from my collection.  Here's three more autographs:

If you are a regular reader you know that Archer is a personal favorite from the Durham Bulls and also a local talent from Clayton, North Carolina just outside of Raleigh.  Not his best autograph and there is a slight smudge on the A in Archer, but still a nice add to the collection for less than $5.  I will have to pick up a nicer copy of this card at some point, but happy to have this one for the price. 

Kyle Gibson is a former Mizzou standout and starred last season for the Rochester Red Wings in the International League.  While his Major League ERA was up over 6, his ERA in the minors was right around 3 with 7 wins.  Hopefully this year will be a little bit better for the former Tigers pitcher. 

I might be the only person without an autograph of Didi Gregorius.  He signs for everything and always seems to be the most frequent signer in every Topps product.  Not saying I love this card, but it's hard to say no to an autograph on this nice looking of a card limited to 125 copies.  $2 is a small price to pay for this card.  Although it was one dollar more than my cheapy throw-in card....

I am not sure the ARod card market has hit rock bottom, but it cannot be too far away when his relic cards have skated down to the equivalent of a dollar bin pickup.  I mean a Yankees relic with a pinstripe is always worth something?  Right?  Maybe Arod is going to prove me wrong. 

A New Stan the Man

It's opening day and I am home early today from a day of parent-teacher conferences just in time to catch the first Cardinals game of the season.  I am flipping over to the Rays too and checking out all of my favorite Durham Bulls too.  It's early in both games, but I have high hopes this year for both teams.  Maybe they will meet in the World Series?  Could be.  In the meantime, I picked up a really cool Stan Musial card last week that seemed like a good Opening Day share:

It's an older Donruss Elite die-cut card with a print run of just 6 cards.  Pretty cool considering that was the uniform number of the Cardinals most legendary player.  This is copy number 4 of this card which features some cool die cuts and a great black and white picture of "The Man".  More cards later tonight. 

On A Major Skybox Molten Metal Kick

I have had a strong bounce back on my Molten Metal set project.  After leaving the project alone for a month or two I have been able to add a couple of different lots to my growing collection during the past week.  I managed to pick up three cards in a trade last week and picked them up out of my mailbox yesterday.  I am now at 84 cards out of 150.  My goal is to get to 100 before the end of April.  Go Team!

Heritage Jerseys

I picked up two boxes of Heritage the other week when the product first dropped.  I have picked up an autograph or two and also pulled a relic card out of my box.  I set out to find a few Cardinals relics for my set and found a whole whopping one available on Ebay:

The Cardinals have always had several different relics in the Heritage set, but Wainwright is the sole Redbird in this year's set.  There is actually a Freese autograph/jersey that is apart of the Clubhouse Collection set, but Freese in now on the Angels.  In my opinion, Freese is also a player who has value in the hobby based solely on the 2011 Postseason.  His cards have been creeping down for the past two years.  I will pick it up at some point. 

 

I also picked up a copy of the Matt Joyce jersey card from the same seller along with a Jean Segura card.  Joyce is the only Ray in the set, so this completes my Rays set for the Heritage set.  The Rays do have several autographs in the Heritage set, so I will have to track down them down.  Here's a look at the Segura autograph:

 

More Molten Metal

I picked up my pursuit of the 1999 Skybox Molten Metal Xplosion set after a brief hiatus.  Earlier this week I managed to pick up six new cards to my set.  I managed to find another nine cards through a trade with another collector.  All nine cards were needed to help complete my set.  Here's a look at the new additions to the set:

It had been awhile since I had added a card from this set, so I was not quite sure where I was with the set.  I went back through my cards this week, accounting for these 9, and found that I am now at a total of 81 cards.  That brings me up to 54% of the set.  There are more cards in the mail too, so I will be adding more cards onto this project soon. 

Drumroll Please....

About a week and half ago I was driving home from work and I glanced down at my phone.  I had a bunch of push notifications from Twitter which went along the lines of:

Th winners of the free @HeroesofSport hits were @jar2408 and @TheSnortingBull ! DM heroes with you details!
— Cardsmiths Breaks (@cardsmithsbreak) March 17, 2014

The Tweet was followed by a few congratulations from some collectors on Twitter.  I knew nothing about Heroes of Sport before this tweet, but it actually looks like a pretty cool product.  If you do not want to click the link they are a high-end memorabilia multi-sport company which sells boxes filled with various goodies ranging from cool autographs and cards to actual game used memorabilia.  There are a few videos of their box breaks floating around on the internet which are awesome to watch.  

I could not quite figure out what I won from the tweet, but I was patient and figured that I would just have a really good mail day at some point in the near future....

After braving the final day of school before Spring Break I walked my students to their buses, picked up my classroom, and whisked the little man home for a restful three week break.  We stopped for Chinese food too.  Waiting in my mail box was a package from Heroes of Sport.  The envelope was padded and stamped: Do Not Bend.  Inside.....

 

This is easily the best football autograph I own.  I do not own many, but it's still a really cool item to win in a free giveaway.  The 8x10 autographed photo of Football Hall of Famer Joe Montana comes with a PSA/DNA certification.  Again, awesome prize and a huge thank you to Cardsmiths Breaks and Heroes of Sport for the great prize!