Adventures in Ebay Packaging #2 (Toploader addition)

Another classic adventure in eBay packaging. Thankfully as was the case with my last adventure the card in question arrived just fine. I was a tad bit more angry about this one....

2014 Topps Finest Charles Sims Auto/Patch

Here is the card. Pretty nice looking card that cost me $2.99 + $3.25 shipping.  With a shipping charge of $3.25 as I buyer I have certain expectations. For one the card should be sent in a bubble envelope. Second the card should be in a toploader.

Well........

The envelope itself was more along the lines of something that would be sent interoffice mail at my job. It was folded in the middle and taped.  Very odd....but not as bad as this.

This is what was used in place of a toploader.  That is a napkin and two pieces of cardboard.  The card itself had the napkin wrapped around and was placed in the middle of the two pieces of cardboard. Blue painters tape was used to keep everything together. 

The seller has only 90 feedback, but it was all positive. My guess since the Sims card was so thick he didn't have a toploader that fit. I actually laughed when I pulled the card out. My first thought was that I was going to find a toploader that was too big, but quickly discovered no toploader at all. 

All that matters is that the card arrived safely, but for $3.25 shipping I think it is reasonable to expect a bubble envelope and a toploader. I probably deserve this for stating how lucky I've been with shipping lately.  

Let's Go Mountaineers!

Posing a Scenario

I've posed this question to a few my friends already, but figured it would be fun to ask the blogosphere since we all love baseball.

I'm using the Pirates as an example, but it is a question that could be posed for any team in a similar situation.

So the Pirates are in the wildcard game playing the Cubs. Both teams have their respective aces going (Cole and Arrieta). The Pirates find themselves down 1-0 in the bottom of the 4th. The bases are loaded with 1 out and Cole is coming up.  Cole has only thrown 60 pitches.  Do you let him hit?

Obviously their are a lot of variables at play, but the Pirates would have a complete bench so they could throw a left handed hitter out there to pinch hit. The other important note is that you are allowed a unique roster for the game. So the Pirates can have a slew of relievers at their disposal along with several guys capable of pitching multiple innings.

So does Cole bat?

It's Ok to Celebrate

The Pirates clinched their third consecutive playoff appearance last night when they defeated the Rockies. While the Pirates have an outside chance to still win the division, in all likelihood they are on a collision course to face the Cubs. Cue asshole fans and pundits....

The last couple of days their has been a lot of press on whether the Pirates should/how to celebrate clinching. So many people have been saying that they should "act like they've been there before", or keep it low key. What a bunch of shit.

Making the playoffs is hard. It would be one thing to keep it low key if you were likely to win the division. Since the division is unlikely for the Pirates I say celebrate like madmen. The same people who say keep celebrations low key are probably the same people who get bent out of shape when a guy stares down a homerun.

It should be a rule that you have to do a bat flip.  I would pretend the bat was a telescope after I launched one to get a good gauge of the distance.

Drink the champagne boys. You earned it! Who knows, you may have twenty straight years of losing in front of you.....

Thanks for reading.

Ice

I don't mess around much with Bowman parallels other than some refractor autos I have in my collection. While I'm not as much against parallel cards in general as some, I do think too many exist. Since so many exist I base my purchases on which parallels I find the most visually appealing. My favorites are the Topps acetates/clear cards that are numbered to 10 and the silver frames /20.

With that being said I will pull the trigger if the price is right. Such was the case with this AJ Burnett.

AJ Burnett 2013 Bowman Purple Ice /10

AJ still doesn't have a ton of Pirate cards. This makes finding some of his more limited releases tough as prices can be high. Thankfully I ended up spending more on shipping than the actual card itself ($2.25 + $2.99 shipping). Seemed like a reasonable price to pay for a card numbered to 10.

On a personal note I'm not the biggest AJ fan. He has been great for the Pirates, but something about him rubs me the wrong way. Must be his demonstrative style on the mound. He has an ultra competitive personality that sometimes can go a bit overboard when you can tell he is pissed at one of his teammates for not making a play. He is in the same mold as a John Lackey and Chris Carpenter. They just seem like miserable pricks on the mound.

I don't really let this personal bias effect my collection. The Pirates have had some well documented assholes over the years with the likes of Brian Giles and Jason Kendall coming to mind. Both are well represented in my collection.  For all I know Cutch and Gerrit Cole could be huge assholes. I don't know these guys personally all my opinions are based on what I see on the field.

MVP's (Harper vs Field)

An interesting article hit Fangraphs today discussing the NL MVP race. I find award voting in baseball equally fascinating and frustrating. This year will probably be more frustrating.

As you know MVP awards often become hot topics toward the end of the season. In years past voters would look more at counting stats rather than the overall body of work. The year Juan Gonzalez won the MVP is a great example as Griffey Jr was by far the best player.

In recent years voters have done a better job of avoiding the real egregious picks. Mike Trout could easily have 3 MVP's but it is not like it was some atrocity that Miguel Cabrera won the award. Cabrera was probably the better hitter, but Trout was hands down the best overall player. Personally I think Trout should have won, but that is a worn out argument. Overall the last handful of years has been much better.

The debate now is Bryce Harper. No statistical argument can be made which doesn't have Harper winning the award. He leads just about every offensive category you can think of by a considerable margin. What he doesn't have is narrative.

Voters love a good story. They want guys leading their team to the playoffs. Some voters will only vote for the best player that is on a playoff team.  If you Google 2015 NL MVP you will eventually run into articles making the case for guys like Anthony Rizzo, Kershaw/Grienke and Cutch.

As much as I love Cutch, he doesn't deserve the MVP. It just feels like everyone is over thinking it this year. It is not Bryce Harper's fault that the Nats underachieved. People put way too much stock into things the actual player can't control.  One of the years Miggy won the AL MVP a voter referenced the Tigers made the playoffs. Mike Trout's Angels actually had the better record.

The Fangraphs article I referenced plays devils advocate and trying to say Harper is more good than great when his team needs him the most. In low to medium leverage situations Harper is by far the best hitter in baseball, but in high leverage situations he is 70th. Guys like Rizzo and Cutch rated much higher. At the end of the article the writer said he would still vote for Harper. His point was basically saying context can and should play a small part in voting.

When it was all said and done you can keep drilling and find flaws in someones game. Basically it comes down to voting for someone who is having a historically great season, but on an underachieving team. To me MVP means best player. Bryce Harper is the best player this year. I find it odd that we can pick CY Young winners on bad teams (Kluber and King Felix), but the hitter gets docked for being on a bad team.

I think Harper will win, but it won't be the landslide victory that it should be.

I've blogged about this card before, but it is pretty much the only Harper I have and it features a Pirate!

Vote Harper!

Who's Your Favorite Little Rascal?

My wife was nice enough to give me a couple hours to sort some cards last night. Mainly this consists of me going through 5000ct boxes looking for cards to trade and separating out Pirates/WVU. As usual this process unveils some hidden gems.

2006 Fleer Greats of the Game Mike Spanky Lavalliere Auto

SPANKY!!!!!

Mike Lavalliere played before the relic/auto boom so as far as I know this is the only certified hit of the former Bucco backstop. While it is a tad bit disappointing that he is featured as a White Sox, the card is still awesome.

Maybe I should start a petition to make sure he gets featured as a Pirate in the Fan Favorites auto set. He played for four teams during his career, but by far his best years were in Pittsburgh. He proved to be a very valuable piece during the Pirates three playoff years in the early 90's platooning with Don Slaught.

This card has been in my collection for a long time so I can't quite remember how I acquired it. My guess would be COMC since it was boxed with a bunch of other cards that I know for sure were ordered from there.

Thanks for reading!

I'm in Deep

Last summer I opened the most boxes I had since the mid 2000's.  This was mostly due to the fact that I was recovering from surgery and it helped with the boredom. One set that went on super sell during that time was 2014 Donruss. Around the time of the 2014 National I believe Dave and Adams had a sale in which boxes were marked all the way down to the $40 mark. I opened a ton.

Since I opened a ton, I obviously accumulated a ton of cards.While a tough set to complete, the shear volume that I opened pretty much gave me a master set. A few eBay lots here and there helped cap off the base short prints and the majority of the remaining insert sets.

In terms of autos I decided I would give that set a run as well. The checklist was void of guys like Trout and Harper so I figured it was worth a shot. Each box yielded at least 2 autos so I was able to get a bulk out of the way quickly. Here is the checklist....

1 Billy Hamilton
2 Dave Parker
3 Wil Myers
4 Jason Kipnis
5 Mike Zunino
6 Manny Machado
7 Bucky Dent
8 Kris Medlen
9 Chris Sale
10 Dusty Baker
11 Oscar Gamble
12 Willie Horton
13 Brandon Barnes
14 Martin Prado
15 Brandon Maurer
16 Alex Wilson
17 Andrew Brown
18 Starling Marte
19 Chris Rusin
20 Jordan Zimmermann
21 Evan Gattis
22 Mitch Moreland
23 Josh Donaldson
24 Bruce Rondon
25 Asdrubal Cabrera

26 Troy Glaus
27 James Shields
28 Jeurys Familia
29 Wilmer Flores
30 Didi Gregorius
31 Reymond Fuentes
32 Ivan Nova
33 Kevin Gausman
34 Jay Bruce
35 Michael Choice
36 Daniel Nava
37 Nick Castellanos
38 Lance Lynn
39 Taijuan Walker
40 Xander Bogaerts
41 Kolten Wong
42 Jurickson Profar
43 Mike Napoli
44 Zack Wheeler
45 Vinnie Pestano
46 Michael Morse
47 Jay Buhner
48 Oscar Taveras
49 Adam LaRoche
50 Miguel Sano

When I first decided I was going to go for all of them I knew some would be tough. The Hamilton, Marte and Gattis were redemptions and at the time of release Bogaerts and Taveres were sought after rookies.

I got lucky by pulling Boagerts, Taveras and Marte. Gattis and Hamilton were purchased off of eBay. Thankfully all three redemptions were executed by the player. I thought the rest would be smooth sailing......I was wrong.

Donruss didn't announce any official short prints, but you could see some shaping up over time. After some investigation it seems that at least 4 players were sp's (Glaus, LaRoche, Castellanos and Familia). This set has been saved in my eBay searches for over a year and I had never seen the LaRoche and Familia and only 1 a piece of Glaus and Castellanos.

Thankfully patience paid off last week when the Troy Glaus hit eBay. A few other people must have known this card was an sp as my winning bid was $15. Glaus autos usually sell for much cheaper. I probably would have went much higher so $15 was a small price to pay for a years long wait.

So as of now I'm only 3 cards short from completing the set, but who knows when they may show up again.

While these cards are not numbered my assumption is that they are rare. To not see something for over a year in a set in which a lot of people opened makes me think less than 20 were produced. 

This will be the last time I try completing something like this. I don't consider myself a set builder so this pursuit is way out of my comfort zone. Obviously I'm in too deep with this set now to scrap it, but it just isn't as fun as finding a random Pirate I need.

Thanks for reading!