Come Join Secret Santa!

It's year 2 of Secret Santa.  Things are guaranteed to be wild and crazy.  Join here!

I'll do a more formal rules/expectations post once everyone has a chance to join in.  Last year we ran into a problem with a few people not letting people know packages arrived and posting the contents of the package.  Half the fun is sharing what the other person put together for you. 

Secret Santa Time Again

CLOSED


It is that time a year again!

While we hit a few kinks last year I thought it went well enough to try it again.  At the very least it introduced some new blogs/trading partners.  The $10 limit worked well, but feel free to throw in extra trade bait where applicable.

I'll close this on Sunday and will throw out a few reminders throughout the week.  No need to pimp the post.  Once we have our participants I'll email everyone individually with the person they are shopping for in order to keep it a secret.  If we end up with an odd amount I'll join in to even things out.

Just leave a comment below to join in the fun this year.

Ebb and Flow

The Pirates broke the old compensation system in the 2011 draft when they picked Gerrit Cole in the first round and Josh Bell in the second. Altogether they spent 17 million in bonuses which destroyed the previous record set by the Nationals the year before. The system would change to the slot system shortly after.

Josh Bell was considered a top ten talent, but had a strong commitment to the University of Texas. He even went as far to instruct all teams not to waste a pick on him.  The Pirates disregarded Bell's request and offered him a 5 million dollar signing bonus which was astronomically high for a 2nd round pick.  Obviously it was an offer he couldn't refuse.

With that kind of background story you will have considerable hype in terms of cardboard.  Early on his cards were on fire and selling for big $ amounts. While I love collecting prospect cards, you can easily go broke if you don't set some ground rules.  I've often discussed that I assume every player will have some kind of lull in their minor league development that makes for a good time to go back and stock up.  You could have bought Aaron Judge cards for a couple of bucks two years back. Sure the Harper's and Trout's exist but they are definitely the minority.

Bell would go on and have several injury plagued minor league seasons that allowed me to go and find some nice cards. 

 The story has a happy ending though as Bell would regain his prospect form and make his debut in Pittsburgh in 2016 and capture the starting first base job in 2017.  Now his cards are much more in demand. I've only been able to secure a few "hit" based cards.

 

2017 Immaculate Collection Josh Bell Multi Jersey /25

As usual the non licensed stuff tends to stay in a price range I'm comfortable with. I picked this card up not long after Immaculate's release.  Normally this is not a good idea, but Bell started to really gain some secondary market steam soon after so it was good timing.  

2017 Diamond Kings Josh Bell Auto/Jersey /299

Brian pulled this DK auto for me in one of our box breaks earlier this year.  I was very thankful for that. 

In some ways I'm happy when a certain player becomes too expensive because that means he has had a successful transition to MLB. Hopefully Bell continues his success and becomes a true cardboard superstar like Cutch turned into. 

Thanks for reading! 

A Make or Break Point

My wife and I once again will be hosting a ton of out of town friends for the WVU/Iowa State football game.  She is hosting her Physical Therapy's 10 year class reunion so lots of old friends will be running around town.

As for the game itself it feels like one of those crossroads games.  WVU has three losses, but they were all to really good teams (TCU, Virginia Tech and Ok. State).  Iowa State comes to town as maybe the biggest surprise in college football.  They've already beat two top 5 teams and have the clearest path to the Big 12 championship game. I hope we can pull off a big win and cause mayhem in the conference.

Here is a new card....

2015 National Treasures Bruce Irvin Patch /15

Bruce only played two years for WVU, but went down as one of the best pass rushers in school history. He parlayed that success into a first round pick by the Seahawks.  Last year he signed a big free agent deal with the Raiders. He came from a really tough background so it is really cool to see have a ton of success.

Thanks for reading. 

A Look Back at my 2017 Predictions

Here is what I guessed in March....I copied and pasted my post for ease of reading.

AL East: Red Sox - The team has some depth issues, but on paper they are the most complete team in the division.  Injuries are already starting to pile up so its not hard to see it go to shit, but for now they are my pick. 

AL Central: Indians -  On paper this is probably the weakest division in baseball.  So the AL Champs look to be clear cut favorites. 

AL West: Astros - This one feels close, but I'll take the team with the best lineup. So many good young position players on that team. 

Wildcard 1: Mariners

Wildcard 2: Yankees

Best Record in AL:  Indians

ALCS: Astros over the Red Sox

NL East: Nats - They won a lot of games last year with Harper having a huge dropoff from his 2015 year. He will likely be better so they are still top of the heap this year. 

NL Central:  Cubs - I really don't see how they lose the division. They have so much positional depth. The only area you can be nit picky is the rotation, but then they have the means to go get a big time starter if they need one.  The scary thing is they could easily survive a bad injury to the likes of Rizzo and Bryant because they have Baez and Zobrist. 

NL West: Dodgers - Kershaw is liking have two aces.  They have 75 starting pitchers so depth should be ok as well.  They just don't have many holes. 

Wildcard 1: Mets 

Wildcard 2: Giants

Best record in NL: Cubs

NLCS Dodgers over the Cubs

World Series: Dodgers over the Astros

AL MVP: Mike Trout

NL MVP: Corey Seager

AL Cy Young: Masahiro Tanaka

NL Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw

AL ROY: Andrew Benintendi

NL ROY: Dansby Swanson

AL HR champ: Manny Machado

NL HR champ: Giancarlo Stanton

Normally I would pat myself in the back, but this was probably the easiest year in recent memory to predict division winners. The only race that really came into question was the NL East .  The only change I would make for next season as we speak would be to put the Yankees ahead of the Red Sox. 

I almost got the World Series right!  

I went ahead and posted my award predictions too because with the exception of predicting the Stanton HR crown I know I missed everything else. 

The AL MVP is going to Altuve or Judge.  The NL MVP odds on favorite is likely Stanton. AL Cy Young should either be Kluber or Sale while the NL seems to be Scherzer's. I don't think I remember a year where both rookies of the year ran away with the award like Judge and Stanton. 

I'm really pulling for Stanton to win the award this year.  I hate the stupid narrative that the player should be on a winning team.  

Thanks for reading! 

Lightning Strikes Twice

A few weeks back I purchased a Gerrit Cole 1/1 on eBay via the buy it now function.  It was notable because I could count on one hand the amount of times I've made such a purchase. Rarely do eBay sellers have items priced appropriately.  The more common occurrence is the seller having the card listed for $500, but adds the ability to submit offers. 

Sure enough another card popped up for a reasonable amount. 

2013 Panini Prizm Garrett Jones 1/1

This one popped up for $14.99 with free shipping.  While not a steal, it was a more than reasonable asking price for a non printing plate 1/1.  You just never know where an auction would take the price.  I could easily see less than $10 or as much as $25.  Garrett was a fan favorite during his short Pirate tenure so I think demand would have been there for a rare card. 

On a side note.....

Congrats to the Astros.  Always cool to see a franchise get their first championship.  Tough loss for all my Dodger buddies, but that team is stacked in both the MLB and MILB rosters so they should be contenders for the foreseeable future.  

Thanks for reading. 

Hawaiian Punch

No need to prove me wrong.  I now can say without a doubt that I own two of the best cards ever produced.  The first one was shown here....

And now thanks to my pal Brian......

BOOM!!!!! A million times better than any sick hit. I'm thinking about buying a replica of this jacket. The ladies would be all over me. 

This one might even be a shade better than the previous one I showed off last month.  The jacket really puts it over the top.  The living legend often talks about his time playing minor league ball in Hawaii fondly during Pirate broadcasts.  One can only imagine the fun he had.

Brian of course did not stop with the greatest card of all time.

Cole Tucker is a former first round pick out of high school. His first couple of seasons were injury plagued, but the seemed to recapture some of his prospect status this year.  The Pirates haven't been great lately at producing high end middle infielders so it would be nice to see one actually pan out.

I love these old "silk" cards.

ERROR CARD!!! Give me all the money.  It is spelled Gorzelanny....

I feel like every old time hockey player looked 20 years older than his real age.

I'm pro manager card.  This is an all time great one.

Dread Cutch.

You have to love a 55 Topps of two sport star Dick Groat.

The new Platinum cards kind of remind of the newer Finest sets.  That is not a bad thing. I'm pro wild/colorful design.

I'm excited to get a copy of the National Baseball Card Day Cutch. It still pains me to see so many "normal" posed Cutch cards.  Please card copies make more unique Cutch cards.

I've actually received a good bit of Optic this year as it seemed more of the blogging world gave it a try. The Marte backswing pose is a nice way to get around the licensing.

Brian was even nice enough to throw a couple Stanton cards my way.  I've mentioned a few times that I have a few cards of the Marlins slugger as I've been a fan for a long time.  I love watching him destroy baseballs.

I was pretty excited when I read that Topps was producing this card.  Neverauskas is the first Lithuanian born player and Ngoepe was the first African born player.

Nice to see obscure rookies get cards.  Osuna saw a decent amount of playing time while Marte served his suspension.

Love receiving Joey Bats in the Pirate uniform.  

Thanks for the trade Brian!