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. 

Hello Old Friend.

Did you ever sell or trade a card, look back a few years later, and regret that it was missing out of your collection?  I have a few cards like that and always have my eyes and ears open.  Many little things.  A small card that completed a set, or something from a favorite player or set.  I could make a pretty nice list, but I am not sure that it would help very much in some cases.  For example, one of my favorite old Pacific sets was the 2000 Vanguard set.  It was a higher end product for Pacific which used thicker card stock.

The base set is only 100 cards and the insert cards are generally not too difficult to find, but the jersey cards were something else.  Pacific actually seeded their relic cards to be relatively difficult to pull.  More of a one per case, than one per box kind of deal.  This meant that there were a limited number and there is somewhat of a premium for the cards.  Imagine that.  

I used to own the whole set.  There are only five cards in the set, but as of last week I owned an ARod and a Chipper Jones.  I have seen a few copies of the Gwynn, Maddux, and Frank Thomas floating around, but the cards often fetch a pretty steep price for a relic card.  Often they drift north of $10 and are frequently Buy It Nows on Ebay with no offers available.  Little bit much for a simple jersey swatch.  

Last week, I finally spotted a copy of Thomas card up for auction and was able to win the card for less than $5.  Really happy to be a little bit closer to putting my Vanguard set back together.

2000 Pacific Vanguard Frank Thomas Jersey

Great looking card, but also excited that I was able to pick up another cool Frank Thomas card from the same seller from another cool early 2000's set:

2001 Topps Gold Label MLB Award Ceremony Frank Thomas Jersey

The Gold Label set is a pretty awesome line if you've never checked them out.  This Thomas jersey celebrating his AL MVPs in 1993 and 1994 cost me a few cents over a dollar.  Pretty nice card for that price.  

My Top 50 Players On Cardboard-#36 Manny Ramirez

My Top 50 Players On Cardboard
#36
Manny Ramirez

I know I follow a pattern on this series of posts, but I am going to break that pattern slightly on this post to actually talk about the rookie card, instead of just posting a picture.  I have owned a Manny Ramirez 1992 Bowman rookie card or two for a long time and it's always been a rather intriguing card to me.  In fact, the Foil card in the 1992 Bowman card is interesting too for the same reason.  Take a look.

 1992 Bowman Foil Manny Ramirez

1992 Bowman Manny Ramirez RC 

I am sure that many collectors have seen these two cards dozens of times.  Has anyone ever been curious where Manny is in the pictures?  It's a local place for me living in the Raleigh-Durham area, but it's surprising that Manny Ramirez would be there.  The top card, the Bowman Foil, is taken in front of a dorm on Duke University's campus.  They all kind of have that gothic castle look, so other than telling you it's on the West Campus (there is also an East Campus), I cannot tell you a specific building.  Odd spot.

The bottom Bowman rookie card was taken in front of the chapel on campus.  The chapel is easily the most recognizable building on campus and is featured on the logo of the school.  Not the basketball team.  The chapel looks something like this:

 
 Manny is actually standing on the side of the chapel leaning on a staircase that leads to the guest parking lot.  Curious location for a Manny card considering he never played college baseball or went to college.  There is a team in Durham, the Bulls, but they have their own stadium separate of Duke University.  While I have been curious for years, I have never actually tried to track down an actual answer behind the Manny Ramirez card at a university chapel.  Until now.

It took all of five minutes to find an old ESPN article on-line featuring Topps photographer Gregg Forwerk.  I've included an excerpt below explaining the card: 

 
Pretty interesting background on a unique rookie baseball card. 

Hobby Impact-
Manny has definitely been hurt by his involvement in steroids, but is still a pretty popular player around the hobby.  There are Red Sox fans who cannot stand Manny, there are Red Sox fans who love Manny.  There are Indians fans in the same boat.  Dodgers fans?  Maybe.  White Sox, Rays, A's, and Rangers are pretty indifferent.  No matter.  While the popularity and prices of his cards have fallen off over the years, he still remains a pretty popular player with collectors.

One of the biggest reasons in my opinion is the fact that he helped the Red Sox win two World Series.  Manny also had a long run of playoff success with the Cleveland Indians and helped the Dodgers make a pretty good dent into the playoffs in 2008 and 2009.  In my personal experience, playoff teams mean a little bit more to team collectors and they will often disregard the importance of the players role, or any ill fan base feelings, to add cards of those players to their collection.  Yes, Juan Encarnacion was on the 2006 Cardinals and I have some really cool cards of him.  Problem?  No.  Same with Mark Mulder.  Find me a Red Sox collector bitter at Manny and I will show you a good Manny card stashed somewhere in their collection.

2007 Donruss Signature Millennium Marks Manny Ramirez Autograph

Manny signed throughout his career.  At least up to his time on the Dodgers.  He has a pretty good supply of autographs and cool relics floating around on the secondary market, but collectors should be prepared to pay for Manny cards.  I find his early short-printed cards especially competitive.  Several times I have tried to add insert cards of him to finish out old Pacific or Donruss sets and been shocked at the level of bidding on his cards and the final price.  I have had to rethink my approach and willingness to spend on Manny items several times over the years in order to complete old sets.  The Pacific cards are the hardest. 

On The Field Impact-
Pretty simple here.  I do not have much of a problem with steroid users being put into the Hall of Fame.  Pitchers used, hitters used, everyone used.  Level playing field.  Using the JAWS system, Manny Ramirez is the tenth best left fielder of all-time behind Pete Rose, Tim Raines, and seven other guys in the Hall of Fame.  His career OPS+ of 154 is actually third highest all-time among left fielders behind Ted Williams and Barry Bonds

Some of my other favorites Manny highlights include:

+A career OPS of .996

+An OBP of .411

+555 career home runs and over 1,800 RBIs

+Had 165 RBIs in 1999 which is the highest total for a single season post WW2

+In 111 postseason games posted 29 home runs, 78 RBIs, and a .285/.394/.555 line

Here's a quick video of him taking a young Chris Carpenter into the fifth deck of the SkyDome.

 



Favorite Card-
I'd obviously like to say his 1992 Bowman card, but I will throw something different out from his early cards.  Really, this is my third favorite Manny with the two cards at the top of the post really being one and two.

1992 Topps Manny Ramirez RC

This card is cool in so many ways.  I know you are only seeing the Youth Service League jersey.  That's my main focus too.  I wish I had one of those in my closet to wear on Casual Friday at work.

To counter balance the Duke stuff at the top of the blog post, here's a quick video of Rodney Purvis (now with UConn) dunking on the Dukies last year.  Go Pack!

A Quick Lankford Card

1998 Bowman Chrome Gold Ray Lankford

Really tired this morning after staying up to watch the Cardinals and Dodgers play last night and I have got a pumpkin farm to go to this morning.  Or else.  So, what to say about my latest card pick-up?  This is one of the harder low print run parallel cards out there of Ray Lankford.  I have missed out on this card twice and was really surprised when a third copy of the card popped up on Ebay.  More than happy to buy.  The gold parallel is in both the regular and Chrome versions of the Bowman sets, but the difference is in the numbering.  Speaking of which, I never show a scan of the back of the card....

The Chrome Gold Parallel, as you can see from the scan, is numbered to just 50 copies.  The Gold parallel of the regular Bowman card is numbered to just 99 copies.  More baseball card goodness later tonight, until then I'll be at the pumpkin patch

My Top 50 Players on Cardboard-#37 Joe Mauer

My Top 50 Players On Cardboard
#37
Joe Mauer


2002 Bowman Heritage Joe Mauer RC

Hobby Impact-
Mauer started off in the baseball card hobby as a very desirable and highly sought after player.  The statement is somewhat true today, but Mauer has definitely lost a little bit of his steam around the hobby.  I am sure that a big chunk of the reason for the drop in Mauer's popularity has to do with the fact that he plays for Twins.  In my opinion, while I view Mauer as a very good player, I think he's someone that people in the hobby overestimated and have therefore cooled on.  I am sure that many collectors were think Mike Piazza when they first laid eyes on Mauer, but instead they got something different.  Different is not always a bad thing, which some collectors have failed to realize in this case.

Mauer still has a very strong hobby following, and while prices on his cards have tailed off during the past decade,  you are still going to pay a pretty good price when you run across a nice Mauer card.  One of my first decent Mauer pulls, outside of his rookie cards, was a 2004 Upper Deck Etchings autograph.  I do not even remember what it was numbered out of, but everyone who signed for that set signed a ton of cards.  Which is a good thing with Mauer's hobby presence.  He does have a ton of cards including a wide selection of autographs, relics, and low print runs.  My favorite autograph of Mauer in my collection:

2004 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Joe Mauer Autograph 

Generally, premium Mauer cards are going to sell and sell high.  I nice autograph of the Twins catcher can easily approach $50 with a low print run.  Most common autographs settle somewhere in between $25 and $40 based on brand quality, sticker, non-sticker, etc.  Again, Mauer has a healthy stock of autographs floating around on the secondary market with many being on-card.  If you want a cheap sticker autograph, those are out there too.  Pretty good price for a Hall of Fame autograph.

On The Field Impact-
Mauer is one of the best hitting catchers of all-time.  Before I get into the numbers with Mauer, let's not forget that Mauer is only 30 and still has plenty of time to add to the numbers that he's posted during the first part of career.  Whether or not he remains a catcher or not almost does not matter at this point.  Given where Mauer ranks among catchers currently, and his company on those lists, point me in the direction of him being a shoe-in for Cooperstown.

I have really been digging the JAWS ratings on the baseball-reference site.  If you have not clicked the link on the bottom of a player's page you should check it out for sure.  The JAWS rating for catchers places Mauer as the thirteenth best catcher of all-time at the mid-point of his career.  The players in front of him include Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Pudge, Bill Dickey, and Yogi Berra.  There are a few non-Hall of Famers on that list like Ted Simmons, but a lot of those are errors the Hall of Fame writers should correct.  Translation: Tell me again why Ted Simmons isn't in the Hall?  Mauer is a better average hitter than anyone on the list, but lacks some of the pop that players like Bench, Berra, and Piazza possessed.

How good of a hitter is Mauer?  One of my favorite, non-numbers, factoids about Mauer is the fact that he has broken up three different no-hit bids in the ninth inning.  I am not sure if anyone else has every accomplished such a feat in MLB history, but it's a cool enough factoid that Major League Baseball has put the three hits into a video montage on YouTube.



Mauer is also an above average defender behind the plate and has captured a total of three Gold Gloves.  Some of his defensive work has taken a hit recently with injuries and knee issues, but he still shows off every once in awhile.  One of the coolest meaningless catches I've ever seen in a game:



Pretty good grab there.

Favorite Card-
It was a toss up, for me, between the 2011 Topps base set card and his 2002 Topps T206 variation card.  I am actually going to side with the 2011 Topps base card here, but the 206 card is pretty sweet if you are a Mauer or Twins collector looking for a good card to track down.

2011 Topps Joe Mauer

I love this card, because it shows Joe Mauer doing what Joe Mauer does best: Hitting.  This action shot shows a good picture of Mauer's great looking left-handed swing and I like the background too.  You get a little glimpse of the limestone in Target field just above Mauer's bat too.  Great card by Topps.

Sweet Rays!

The season came to a close for Rays a few days ago when they lost in Game 4 of the ALDS against the Boston Red Sox.  Much of the focus after the loss focused on long-time Rays ace, and former Durham Bull, David Price.  It's clear to many that the Rays will likely trade Price this off-season and will go into rebuilding mode next year without their ace.  However, I strongly disagree with this take on the Rays.

Yes, the Rays will likely trade their ace, but if the James Shields and Matt Garz trades taught us anything, its that the Rays will make a good trade for the Rays and will use Price to restock their minor league.  Not that it really needs to be restocked.  So, if James Shields was worth Wil Myers, Jake Odorizzi, Mike Montgomery, and Patrick Leonard I think it's safe to say that the Rays will make out just fine in trading Price.  I will still collect my David Price cards, but will have a few more good young players to track down.

Until then, I am still working on finding some cards of Rays current minor leaguers and ran into a pair of really cheap relics this past week.  Both cards come from the recently released Topps Heritage Minor League set.  The first is most likely the initial replacement in the Rays rotation for David Price.

2013 Topps Heritage Minor League Enny Romero Clubhouse Collection Relic 

Romero pitched at three levels in the Rays organization this year making appearances for the Montgomery Biscuits (Double-A), the Durham Bulls (Triple-A), and finally for the Rays at the Major League level.  Romero is a hard thrower with a very bright future.  I've featured a few of his cards on my blog during the past month.  Really inexpensive cards and well worth the risk.

2013 Topps Heritage Minor League Black Hak Ju Lee Clubhouse Collection Relic /50

I was really happy to pick up this card.  Numbered to just 50 copies, this is the only Durham Bulls relic or autograph in the Topps Heritage Minor League set this year.  It probably means they could have put Mike Fontent on the card and I would have bought it, but luckily they went with my favorite Korean shortstop prospect.  I actually really like the black background with the purple stripe.  Pretty catchy.