The Wizard of Museum Collection

I have been putting up a few Topps Museum cards the past few days, but have mainly focused on the jumbo relics.  I did manage to land a nice Wil Myers autograph, but still had my eye on a couple of other autographs floating around in trade rooms, Twitter, and Ebay.  My favorite Cardinals autograph target was an obvious choice.  Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith is featured on an awesome card in this year's Topps Museum set.

This is a great looking card and features a nice signature from Ozzie Smith.  The bottom of the autograph on the zz is slightly cut off which netted me a nice discount from the person who was selling this card.  Add in two bat pieces and a print run of only 50 and you've got a winning card.  

Myers Graph

I have posted several Museum jumbo relics over the past few days, but I have also managed to pick up a few autographs from the Topps high product too.  Similar to the relics, the autographs have also trended a little bit lower than some of the other traditional high end Topps products.  I had this Myers autograph scouted out for a few days and was really surprised at how little the price moved leading up to the end of the auction.  I ended being able to pick up the card for less than the jumbo relics. 

The autograph is the usual Wil Myers scrawl which I really think hurts his card values sometimes.  Honestly, I really like Myers and enjoyed watching him play in Durham last year, but feel a little bit squeamish spending money for his end autographs when there does not appear to be much effort put into signing the cards.  It could be why his autographs in high end products, like Museum, have a hard time crossing $20. 

Collecting the Durham Bulls: CJ Riefenhauser

I am a really big fan of CJ and see some good things in the future for the talented Bulls relief pitcher.  Last season the left-handed pitcher made an appearance after posting an ERA of 0.51 and a WHIP of 0.73 during the first half of the season in Double A Montgomery.  Later in the summer Riefenhauser was promoted to Durham where he posted a solid 3.05 ERA with a WHIP 1.06.  I have seen CJ pitch several times in person and think he is going to at worst be an excellent left-handed specialist out of the pen.  Much the same way the Rays have used J.P Howell and Alex Torres to neutralize left-handed batters at the end of games.

If there is a flaw in CJ's game at this point, it is consistently getting out right-handed batters.  However, I have seen some real improvement in this area over his time in Durham.  Left-handed batters posted a .122/.181/.172 line against CJ, but right-handers did not fair much better with a .183/.240/.263 line.  It seems that Durham Bulls manager Charlie Montoyo has been allowing Riefenhauser to face a good mixture of batters in the early parts of the 2014 season.   Here's an interview with CJ after his successful outing in the 2013 Futures Game. 

Card wise CJ Reifenhauser has several good options out on the market for collectors to out and find.  Of course, CJ is in all the normal team issued sets from all of the different minor league he has pitched for during his time in the Tampa organization.  He also has a nice base card in the 2012 Topps Heritage Minors.  The base card, being a Topps product, has all of the usual parallels that can be found with a Topps cards. I have been looking for a copy of the black parallel, but I have not found one for a price I am happy with yet.  Soon. 

Riefenhauser also has a really relic card from his appearance in last year's Future's game.  Topps always throws a bunch of relics and patch pieces in their Bowman Draft set and Riefenhauser made the cut last year.  I have not seen any of his cards with the huge patch pieces, but the normal small relics are cool looking with the nice orange jersey piece.  

The Rays players are always really good signers at the Major League level, and since I see Riefenhauser as a Major Leaguer, I would guess we are not too far away from possibly seeing an autograph out of CJ.  Maybe in this year's Bowman set?  It would make me happy. 

#BauerOutage

A few years ago Diamondbacks prospect Trevor Bauer was all the rage in the sport.  The hard throwing pitcher had a great college career at UCLA, was a top draft pick (third overall), and rated as a top ten prospect by Baseball America.  His first couple of stops in minors yielded some high ERAs and plenty of hits, but Bauer fans loved the Ks.  In 2011, pitching half a season, Bauer's K/9 ended north of 15.  In 2012 in was just shy 11.  Then the Diamondbacks traded him to the Indians.

Not to say that the Indians are solely responsible for his slide, but his strikeouts are down, his walks are up, and Bauer looks average at times in the International League.  Last season in a full year at Columbus Bauer had a losing record with an ERA over 4 and had a K/9 rate under 8.  Pretty big shift over three years.  Card collectors have taken note of the BauerOutage.

After being drafted, his cards were pretty hot.  Collectors love big arm, high strikeout guys.  Especially college pitchers who can move through the minors fast and get the the Majors fast.  I could throw out dozens of examples here, but several different websites compared Bauer to Steven Strasburg.  His card today have become pretty cheap.  So, I picked up a Bauer autograph finally.

Bauer has always had a really cool autograph and I love the look of this card.  It's purple, but I kind of like it.  Not sure I can place a finger on what's so cool with this card.  Anyway, the card cost me slightly more than $5 and is a good gamble considering that Bauer is still just 23 and actually looked good in his first Triple A outing this year.  In his first game Bauer pitched six innings, struck out nine, and only allowed two hits.  Good start to the season.  Hopefully he will earn a trip up to Cleveland at some point during the year. 

Collecting the Durham Bulls: Jeremy Moore

The Rays signed long time Minor League veteran Jeremy Moore to a contract in January and he ended up being assigned to Durham at some point during Spring Training.  I missed the exact date, but I think many Rays fans had expected that Moore would provide the team with good depth at the AAA level.  Moore does have some playing time at the Major League level with the Angels.  Card wise there are three areas where collectors can look to find some quality Moore cardboard.  First, his rookie card in 2012 Topps. 

I have always liked this card a lot.  When I started think about putting together a thread of posts on the Durham Bulls players and their baseball cards this was one of the first ones that I went and pulled out of a box.  Love the throwback jersey.  Love the action shot.  This is one of the cool cards in this set.  Of course there are all sorts of different color variations with this card.  The sparkle cards are really cool in the 2012 Topps set if you are looking for something a little nicer than the ordinary base card.

Moore also had a card in the 2013 Bowman set.  Moore played for the Dodgers organization last year, so the card features him in a Dodgers uni, but not a cool picture like his rookie card.

 

Again, it's a card in a Bowman product so there are lots of different parallels and serial numbered versions of these cards.  Some of the parallels can be a bit pricy, but Moore is generally a pretty cheap find.  I own a copy of his red wave card and got it from a Dodgers fan to balance out a trade.  They sell on Ebay for less than $10, but there are only 25 copies of this card.  Good challenge to track some of these parallels down if you like the player.  

Moore also has done a few signings for Leaf.  Nothing that is outrageous in price or difficult to find.  In fact, the plate for this card is currently up on Ebay (it's autographed) and listed for $39.99.  It appears to be the absolute pinnacle of the Jeremy Moore card market.  I really like this Leaf Valiant card which reminds me a lot of the old Donruss Crusade cards. 

Moore is currently on the DL, but I am excited to see what he brings the team this season.  He has had some pretty decent seasons in the Minors and come close to posting a 20 homer/20 steal season several times.  We shall see....

Jumbo Longo

I have already posted one Jumbo Museum card, and just fair warning, there are several more coming this week.  This was the card I was originally look for when I stumbled upon several other cool Cardinals and Rays also with cool Jumbo Museum cards.   I'd do a theme week of only Jumbo Museum cards, but I also have an autograph or two to show off and I still want to throw out some Durham Bulls cards this week too.  So, here's the jumbo Longo. 

This card is numbered out of just 10.  Is this the Gold Version?  I am not sure, but it is pretty sweet and I was shocked that it cost me a little more than $10.  Really cool card for the price.  In fact, several collectors I have worked with on putting together a few pieces from Museum have noted that the set is trending a little bit lower this year.  I really like the Museum cards, but I think some of the case breakers and high end collectors are starting to feel like there is a lot of duplication from this set in other products.  The autographs are similar to Museum and the Jumbo relics are similar to some of the cards Topps has put out in other high releases like Five Star. 

Collecting the Durham Bulls: Matt Andriese

Matt Andriese is a newcomer to the Rays organization after being sent over by the Padres as part of the Alex Torres trade this off season.  Last year Andriese spent a chunk of the season is Double A and also dabbled a little bit in Triple A in the Pacific Coast League.  He's not highly rated in any of the major prospect publications despite being a third round pick of the Padres.  Honestly, after watching him last night I kind of think that much of the return on the Torres trade was Logan Forthyse and minor league depth.  Andriese has a low 90s fastball and a decent breaking ball, but I do not see him having an impact at the next level. 

Matt Andriese does have a few baseball cards.  In fact I made fun of his Topps Heritage Minor Leaguers card last year because the San Antonio Missions have some terrifically terrible uniforms.  Nothing against Andriese.  His two primary baseball cards are a Donruss Elite autograph which features him as a Padres draft pick out of UC-Riverside and the card in last year's Topps Heritage Minor League set.  He does have an autograph in the Heritage Minor League set. 

 

There is that Missions logo again.  I picked this card up shortly after the trade with the Padres and I think it might have cost me $2.  Maybe.  There are also all the different refractors and color variations that come with a Heritage set and all of these can easily be found on both Ebay and COMC.  Andriese seems like the type of player who always does well with the Rays, so $2 for an autograph is a small price to pay for a player that the Rays might be able to do something with.  Maybe.