NOW Trolls the Dodgers

The beauty about baseball is that even when your chosen team is bad for most of the year, memorable moments still have a way of popping up during the season.  Such was the case August 23rd for the Pirates/Dodgers game.

Rich Hill was straight dealing the entire game. The Pirates could not touch him. The only tense moment was a liner to second base that was robbed by Chase Utley.  Hill would lose his perfect game in the 9th on a Logan Forsythe error but the no no bid was still alive.

To tell you the truth I was kind of rooting for the perfect game. It had been several years since one had been thrown so I'm all for witnessing a cool moment.  The big problem was the Dodgers offense could not muster a run either. After the error I went back to rooting for the Buccos to break up the no no.......extra innings!

When the Dodgers were blanked in the 10th Dave Roberts decided to bring Hill back out.  His pitch count was low, but it was an odd decision since Hill could only lose the game at that point. Obviously if you looked at the card above you know that Josh Harrison would ruin Hill's  no hitter, shutout and win all on one swing.

Yeah, I know the Dodgers are going to the playoffs and the Pirates are limping into the offseason, but for this one day the Pirates got their unique moment of the year. 

Thanks for reading!

Triple Threat

I've been away from home most of the weekend, but I wanted to showoff this bad boy. It is one of the nicest cards I've added in a long time. 

2016 Triple Threads Marte/Polanco/Harrison Auto /27

You don't often see triple autos that feature three every day players, but such is the case with this awesome Triple Threads card sent to me by my good pal Kevin of Card Papoy fame. He had told me to expect a high end direct delivery from eBay, but you don't really prepare for an awesome triple auto. 

I have a bunch of cards from Kevin to showoff soon, but obviously you can see why this one needs a post all to its self.  Wow Kevin!!!!!!!!

A New Status

2008 Donruss Elite Extra Edition /75 Josh Harrison

Josh Harrison is one of those rare everyday players that doesn't have a ton of prospect oriented cards to chase. In today's collecting environment I find that refreshing. 2008 Donruss Elite was pretty much it for Harrison until his breakout 2014 season. I've accumulated several different versions over the years with this /75 being the most recent. 

It started to look like the deal the Pirates gave Harrison might go south, but he has rebounded nicely this season.  If the Buccos become sellers in the coming weeks it wouldn't surprise me if the Pirates look to shop Harrison to get out of a 10.5 million commitment next season.  The contract also has team options for 2019 and 2020 so it would give the acquiring team some flexibility. 

Hope everyone has a fun (almost) holiday weekend. 

Thanks for reading. 

Small Sample Sizes

I love baseball stats. I'm the nerd that will fool around with Fangraph leaderboards in my free time. So much in the game is quantifiable that you can paint a pretty good picture of the best players in baseball by just looking at certain numbers.

If you are a frequent reader of sites like Fangraphs one of the main points they try to get across is to not fall for the dreaded small sample size. Every year a player has a monster April and someone will crown them the next best thing and sure enough by seasons end the overall numbers are pedestrian. People will bombard the writers with questions about someone and most responses center around not trusting April stats.

All this popped in my head when I found this Josh Harrison Pro Debut parallel.

The blurb on the back of the card mentions that Josh got a promotion because of his excellent eye.  Here are Harrison's walk rates as a member of the Pirates.

2011  1.5%
2012  3.6%
2013  2.1%
2014  4%
2015  4.2%
2016  3.4%

Obviously enough data exists now to show that plate patience is a weak point in his game. This is not meant to be a knock on Harrison as he is still a very valuable player. It just shows where my mind goes when I read about stats on back of a card. Also, if you are reading Josh, it is ok to take a pitch :)

Thanks for reading.

A Better Now

The first ten or so Pirate Topps NOW releases were a little on the boring side. Nothing more than a pitcher in a windup or a hitter in a stance.  Thankfully Topps has really picked up the photo game lately.  Here are two great Pirate releases.

This was probably the coolest moment of the season. The Pirates were in the midst of a winning streak right before the All Star break and they decided to bring up an extra position player to lengthen the bench. Josh Bell delivered in a big way.

The best part of the card is Cutch just taking it all in on the right side.

Walk offs make great Topps Now cards. I like how Polanco can just carry Josh Harrison like a little baby.

I'm sure people that are completing the entire Topps NOW set are happy to see Topps giving bundle deals each day.  This doesn't really help the team collector, but at least Topps is trying.

Thanks for reading

Team Effort

Today is my fantasy draft.  In order to keep things interesting we do things a little different. We have an NL and AL only league. This came about because we were always having trouble finding enough people to join the league and once they joined, stay engaged.  This has worked out much better as you only need 5 people to make it work.

2016 Topps Series 1 Pirates Team Card Silver Frame /16

What looked to be a slow process has really picked up steam the last couple a weeks. I don't like the team card as much as last years version, but still pretty cool nonetheless.  It always helps when multiple listings of these type of cards hit at one time.  

I'm digging the cameos of Marte, Cervelli and Sean Rodriguez. Kind of a unique shot with Josh Harrison being right in the center. This Silver Frame ran me about $18 shipped.  Not to bad! 

Thanks for reading.  Let's hope I can Trout and Harper in the draft.  

Sunday Funday

Today is the first day I haven't worked in two weeks. It was nice to have a day of nothing whatsoever going on. So after vegetating on the couch for a few hours I have moved to messing around with my cards. I've been scanning like a madman to get trade posts ready for a bunch of you.  So many great cards came in this week!

In other news a buddy of mine and I booked a trip to San Diego to watch the Pirates/Padres series. We have been trying to book a road series for quite sometime, but finally this year the stars aligned and it worked out.  We will be going to all three games and should be able to hit several breweries. I'm pretty excited.

2016 Topps Silver Frame Josh Harrison /16

I've received a good bit of 2016 Topps via trade, but this Harrison is only the second card I've purchased myself. The first being a silver frame of Neil Walker. Of course my two favorite Topps parallels are two of the hardest to secure in the silver frames and clear acetate.  For some reason Topps lowered the print run on the silvers 20 to 16 which has been noticeable in the final price. 

Now even the role players and bullpen guys will go off for more than $20. As usual with eBay though, persistence/patience pays off. I was able to purchase this Harrison for around $14.  The last card I would really love to have out of Series 1 is the Cervelli silver.  I let two out of my grasps because I forgot to put bids on and of course both sold for less than $15. With cards numbered this low sometimes you can go several months without seeing another one hit. Hopefully I'll be more on the ball.  

Thanks again for all those who have sent cards this past week.  I think I'm holding stuff from GCRL, Play at the Plate and Too Many Verlandrs. They arrived safe and sound and will be posted this week.  

Thanks for reading. 

Old MacDonald

I was prepared to make this post live around 6:30, but instead I got caught in a marathon session of Old MacDonald with my daughter.  It was quite the rendition complete with realistic animal sounds and multiple encore performances. We stopped as soon as my wife started recording.

2014 Topps Josh Harrison Auto/Jersey /25

Frequently I talk about finding the perfect time to start pouncing on autographs on eBay. Sometimes it is better to strike early while other times patience is key. Buying Cutch early was a smart move, Brian Bixler not so much. The prospect game is a tough one to play.

Where things get easy are on late bloomers. Josh Harrison was a feel good story back in 2014 and was arguably the Pirates most valuable player not named McCutchen. Since Harrison wasn't much of a prospect, card choices were thin up until the breakout. So when the first autos hit the market prices were through the roof. Harrison autos were selling higher than the likes of Gerrit Cole and Starling Marte.  Yikes! 

So the obvious move was to wait.  Every so often this can bite you in the ass, but for players with Harrison's skillset and pedigree they rarely take that next step into cardboard stardom. Sure enough with him being featured in more sets the prices came down drastically. The above card which would have easily fetch $40-60 at release time was secured for about $13.  Even that price is on the high end for a Harrison auto, but the All Star relic/autos carry a premium. Over the last few months I've been adding autos in the $5-8 range. 

Patience is key sometimes.  

Now back to it.. EIEIO

Card Shaming

I've been good lately about not getting trapped into buying a card I really didn't want. I'm sure many of you have had that moment when you put in a bid and instantly regret it. Well a couple months back I had one of those.  In the grand scheme of things it wasn't a ton of money, but just enough to get mad at myself.

One of my favorite cards of 2015 was the Series 1 Pirates team card. I wasn't chasing a rainbow, but I made a conscience effort to accumulate the parallels that I enjoy like the silver frame and clear acetate. Well in early December this card popped up.

2015 Topps Mini Pirates Team Card /10

Obviously I like this card, but I've made it kind of an unwritten rule to not go crazy on parallels that aren't the silver and acetate variety. Obviously if I'm showing the card you know how the story ends. I ended up paying over $25 for this card. The price was really not too far out of whack, but it was the lack of discipline that pissed me off. For the most part when a card gets over the price of a blaster I usually stop and ask myself "do I really want this card." Instead of waiting I got sucked into the moment and overpaid for a card in which I could have done without.

This use to be a lot more common occurrence when I was younger and single. Now the goal is to make sure money is going to a card I actually enjoy and not blindly accumulating cards for the hell of it. Lesson Learned.....

Thanks for reading. 

A French Harrison

2015 Topps Five Star Josh Harrison Auto

During Harrison's breakout two years back he didn't have much in the way of cardboard. His only auto was a Donruss Elite card that went through the roof price wise. Towards the end of the 2014 season a few autos began to show up on eBay. I was shocked to see some of the prices. Any attempt to purchase a Harrison auto was put on hold until the 2015 sets started to hit eBay.

While it took some time, the combination of Harrison missing a big chunk of time and him being featured more in 2015 caused prices to get back to what I consider more reasonable amounts. I've picked up a few cards here and there, but my good buddy Kevin surprised me with my nicest version to date. 

Holy smokes is this card thick. For those who haven't held a Five Star auto in person words can't really do it justice. We are talking a solid 180pt card. The thickness adds to the fanciness. I'm very happy to have this Harrison to go along with the Marte from the set.

You may be wondering why would Kevin only send one card from France.  Well this package was extra special because not only did it contain the Harrison card, it also had a box of wonderful French chocolates! 

Thanks so much for the surprise Kevin!  

Hey Hey JHay!

2015 Immaculate Josh Harrison Auto /99

It took me forever to secure a Josh Harrison auto. Harrison wasn't much of a prospect so he had only one certified auto before his big breakout season last year. This created a perfect cardboard storm and sent prices skyrocketing. Finally, a couple weeks back I secured an auto for a shade under $10.

I wouldn't consider Harrison one of my favorite Pirates, but he is a very useful player. His 2014 breakout season will likely not be replicated, but the Pirates still signed him to an extension last offseason. The good thing is Harrison doesn't have to be an All Star caliber player for the deal to be good for both player and team. A lot of Harrison's value is in versatility. He can play 2nd, 3rd and the corner outfield positions. Every team needs a high end player like this, but this is especially true in the NL and the Pirates recognized it and signed him. Even if he doesn't have a defined player we should be able to find him 500 at bats if he is healthy.

Thanks for reading!

A Weird Result

I've mentioned several times that my favorite card from Series 1 is the Pirates team card. While I have no desire to chase the rainbow I was looking to add a few parallels.

Part of me wishes Starling Marte was in this shot, but Harrison makes for a unique combination with Cutch and Polanco. This picture must be from when Marte was on the DL before the All Star break. Either way it is a cool end of game celebration.

My initial search was to find the silver framed parallel /20, but the price was just too high. So I browsed eBay aimlessly to see if something else would pop up that caught my eye.

2015 Topps Series 1 Yellow Printing Plate

This card popped up on eBay a couple weeks back and when it was all said and done I won it for about $22. Go figure, cheaper than the silver framed. A very welcomed addition to the collection. I'll still keep my eye out for the silver framed, but I'm content having the plate.