Baseball Obliteration

One of my favorite ways to accumulate trade bait is to find cheap lots.  A few years back I found a nice stack of 2010 Topps Chrome rookies.  Of course this didn't include the Strasburg rookie auto, but it had a good bit of established MLB players.  I remember Jason Heyward, Mike Leake and this guy....

I traded all the other Chrome rookies to various trade partners, but since Stanton was always a personal favorite I held onto him.  He is in the small group of players I occasionally add that aren't Pirates. It is going to be fun to watch Judge, Sanchez and Stanton obliterate baseballs.

A quick programming note.  I've just placed an order for a new computer.  Looking forward to getting back to my normal scanning routine.  While phone apps are helpful they just don't work well for the mass scanning that needs to be done on big trades. 

Glimmer of Hope

Albeit small, the Pirates do have a glimmer of hope for the division. According to Fangraphs the Pirates have about a 10% shot of winning the division. At the very least they control their own destiny since the margin is 3 games. The Pirates are entering a 3 games series with the Cardinals beginning tonight and finish with the Reds. If the Cards win the series it would mathematically eliminate the Pirates and we will be on a collision course with Jake Arrieta and the Cubs. Arrieta is very good at throwing baseballs that are hard to hit. I would much rather not face him.

2015 Immaculate Andrew McCutchen/Giancarlo Stanton Dual Patch /10

I've had a lot of success picking up cards from this years Immaculate. It had one of the better Pirate checklists of the year. I have a nice backlog of cards to showoff from this set, but I was really excited about this dual patch.

Obviously it is always a big deal to pick up a nice new Cutch, but being featured with Giancarlo Stanton made me want this card that much more. I'm a huge Stanton fan and could watch videos of him destroying baseball all day.

Here is a nice sample.

This card cost me around $20 which seemed reasonable considering Cutch cards are through the roof. At least being unlicensed allows me to find a deal every now and again.

Thanks for reading!