Sunday PWE Trade Bait #6

 

Greetings all.  I really enjoy collecting cards, but like the rest of you (more than likely) it is not my life.  I have many other hobbies both in the collecting world and in the world in general.  One of my hobbies that goes back even further than card collecting is classic TV.  Yeah it's corny and not very much of it is going to stand the test of time like great literature and plays of the past, but there is just something about classic TV that makes me feel good.  To this day, I usually have some channel on in the background showing a rerun.  Right now, there is an episode of the Love Boat featuring the Pointer Sisters singing on my TV.  I would estimate that 98% of my television viewing consists of reruns.  You may not believe this, but I do have a point for telling you that.

One event that classic TV channels do that I particularly enjoy is when they have theme weeks.  As most of you know that is a collection of episodes that revolve around a particular theme such as holidays like Halloween or Christmas shows or shows dedicated to a particular character or anything really.  It works as long as it is not overdone.  With that in mind, I have decided to have the first theme week here on Sunday PWE Trade Bait.  It's not something I intend to do often. In fact, I may never do it again, but I am doing it now.

This seems to be the perfect week to try my experiment since the holiday coming up this week is the only day that is REALLY associated with a color.  We all learn from our first year in school that St. Patrick's Day is green and vice versa.  I'm sure most of you have been pinched because your mom forgot that to dress you in green one year.  I assume in your young adulthood, some of you have partaken in drinking a green beer (or ten) on that day.  So this week at the Quarry is Green Week.

I made the decision to do this a few weeks back.  I usually set up trade bait posts 4 weeks in advance and stack the cards near the scanner for when their time is ready.  That way I can make necessary adjustments if I run low on teams or something.  I noticed green cards because they stand out.  Despite being the main color of baseball outfields, green has never been a big part of cards until the past decade when every color of the spectrum became fodder for the multiple parallels in each set.  So I decided to put them together just to see if I had one green of every team.  I didn't, but I had enough that it seemed possible to put something together.  I added a few of these cards to Sportlots orders just to get one for every team, but most have been sitting in my trade box for a while.

Up to now every single card shown on Sunday trade bait has been a serial numbered card.  That changes tonight.  I was unable to track down numbered green parallels at a cost I was willing to pay for three teams: Boston, Tampa Bay, and Kansas City.  But I did have non numbered green parallels for each of them.  I post the cards by division in whatever way I happen to scan them to ensure that I don't miss a team.  Coincidentally, this week all three of the non-numbered parallels are in the same row.  I think the entire group looks pretty cool together.

As always, I will trade for Rockies, Topps rookie cup cards, 86 Topps homages, the few remaining 2011 Topps Opening Day blues that I need for my master set, 2005 Topps Rookie Cup rainbows that I need, 2020 Donruss rainbows that I need, or the various insert sets I am currently putting together.  The links are working for 6 of those 7, and the other will be done shortly, but for now you can simply ask if I need it.

If you just simply don't have anything I need, don't worry about it.  We can still trade.  I will happily accept serial numbered cards from teams I am in short supply of at the moment.  All I ask is that you include an extra 1 or 2 just to take care of the stamp I will need to trade them later.  

 These are current teams I am comparatively low on trade stuff.

St. Louis, Cleveland, Boston, Texas, Washington/Montreal

Previous Sunday PWE Trade Baits

Week #1    Week #2   Week #3   Week #4   Week #5   W

 

Claim away. 

2016 Bowman/Platinum Green Adam Jones /99 - 2016 Topps/Triple Threads Emerald Jose Bautista /250 - 2008 Tristar/Prospects Plus Prominent Die Cut Green Mitch Delaney / Cory Arbiso / Mike Lyon /50

2019 Panini/Donruss Optic Lime Green Andrew Benintendi - 2018 Topps/Gypsy Queen Green Alex Gordon

2008 Upper Deck/Heroes Emerald Nick Swisher /499 - 2011 Topps/Triple Threads Emerald Shin-Soo Choo / 249

2020 Bowman/Platinum Top Prospects Green Jordan Balazovic /99 - 2017 Bowman/Prospects Chrome Mega Box Green Alex Speas /99 - 2016 Panini/Elite Extra Edition Status Die Cut Emerald Ronnie Dawson /49

2011 Bowman/Platinum Prospects Green Refractors Rashun Dixon /599 - 2017 Topps/Gallery Heritage Green Kyle Seager /250

2008 Upper Deck/Heroes Emerald Lastings Milledge /499 - 2011 Bowman Green Dan Uggla /450

2006 Upper Deck/Special FX Green Gavin Floyd /99 - 2016 Bowman Green Matt Reynolds /99

2002 Fleer/Triple Crown Green Batting Average Parallel Aaron Boone /294 - 2016 Bowman Scouts Top 100 Green Refractors Trent Clark /99 - 2017 Bowman Green Gregory Polanco /99

2019 Topps/Gallery Masterpiece Green Kris Bryant /250 - 2001 Fleer Focus Green Steve Finley /280

2008 Tristar/Prospects Plus Green James Darnell /50 - 2015 Panini/Prizm Green Camo Prizms Madison Bumgarner /199 - 2008 Tristar/Prospects Plus Prominent Die Cut Green Yonder Alonso / Jemile Weeks /50

2011 Bowman/Platinum Prospects Green Refractors Jordan Pacheco /599 - 2011 Topps/Triple Threads Emerald Shin-Soo Choo / 249 - 2003 Topps/Pristine Refractors Ryan Shealy /1599

Cards with new homes. 

2008 Upper Deck/Heroes Emerald Andruw Jones /499 - 2019 Topps/Gypsy Queen Green Mike Zunino - 2015 Bowman/Prospects Chrome Green Refractors Zac Reininger /99 - 2006 Upper Deck/Special FX Green Jose Molina /99 - 2006 Upper Deck/Future Stars Green Dontrelle Willis /499 - 2014 Panini/Prizm PDP Draft Class Prizms Green Luke Weaver /35 -

 

As always, place a claim on any card that you'd like in the comments section or you can email me directly at hiflew AT yahoo DOT com and we can talk trade.

 

Thanx for reading.

Rating the Rookie Cups 2.0 - 2004

 

Hey guys.  It's been a long day here at the Quarry.  My dog decided that today was the day to give birth and lucky for me she figured she would get an early start on my day off and begin at around 6AM.  So I have been playing a combination nursemaid and midwife for most of the day.  She gave birth to 6 healthy puppies between 6 and 10 this morning with no real complications other than the father wanting to break down the bedroom door to get in all day long.  He's a sweet dog, but he plays a little too rough for day 1 puppies.  He'd probably be fine near them, but it's not worth chancing it.  She has been a surprisingly great mother thus far.  I was worried, because she didn't seem like a motherly type, but am thrilled to have been wrong.  I'll show off the family in a couple days, but for now I am happy to get a break to talk about some Rookie Cups.

Last week we looked at the 1981 team which featured the left handed phenom, Fernando Valenzuela.  This week we are going to look at the closest lefty to Fernando, at least as far as being a spectacle, since then, Dontrelle Willis.  There were great LHPs after Fernando including Mark Langston, Tom Browning, and CC Sabathia, but none captured the attention like Willis and his oversized leg kick.  

Another significant piece of trivia about the 2003 Rookie All Star Team is the inclusion of a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks for the first time.  Arizona was the last of the four 1990s expansion teams to have a rookie selected to the team.  Much like the Rockies, Arizona set up their team as much more veteran than the two Florida teams.  However, unlike the Rockies, the Diamondbacks have never really strayed from that.  As of 2020, the Diamondbacks have only had 4 players ever selected to Rookie All Star Teams.  The next lowest team is the Rockies with 9.

As far as the 2004 set goes, I am actually a big fan.  I believe it is, along with 2009, one of the top 2 flagship sets of the 2000s decade.  There are three main features which stand out on the card fronts.  The most noticeable is the all caps team name at the top of the card.  That is nothing new as it had been done several times before, but this was the first time it was done in foil.  Some people might see that as a negative, but I'm okay with it.  

Second is the inclusion of a team colored border around the player photo.  The only earlier set that may have done that was 1991 and I am not 100% that EVERY team had proper colored borders.  Topps had team colored borders for some teams before 2004, but others were stuck with things like pink and lime green.  

The final feature that stands out is the small figure in the lower left corner.  It is reminiscent of the generic figures in 1976 Topps except they are actually outlines of the card photo.  It is a very cool concept that easy to overlook.  The addition of the uniform number in that outline is just gravy to me.  Although it is good gravy.

Let's take a look at the 2003 Topps Rookie All Star Team

Miguel Olivo - C - White Sox - Season Rank (41 of 61) - Career Rank (25 of 61)

Mark Teixeira - 1B - Rangers - Season Rank (14 of 61) - Career Rank (9 of 61)

Bo Hart - 2B - Cardinals - Season Rank (53 of 61) - Career Rank (59 of 61)

 

 

Ty Wigginton - 3B - Mets - Season Rank (16 of 61) - Career Rank (24 of 61)

 

Angel Berroa - SS - Royals - Season Rank (8 of 61) - Career Rank (39 of 60)

 

 

Jody Gerut - OF - Indians - Season Rank (62 of 184) - Career Rank (144 of 184)

Rocco Baldelli - OF - Devil Rays - Season Rank (23 of 184) - Career Rank (132 of 184)

Scott Podsednik - OF - Brewers - Season Rank (8 of 184) - Career Rank (99 of 184) 

 

Brandon Webb - RHP - Diamondbacks - Season Rank (14 of 50) - Career Rank (7 of 50)

Dontrelle Willis - LHP - Marlins - Season Rank (14 of 49) - Career Rank (21 of 49)

WOULDA, COULDA, SHOULDA

Here are the players I feel should have made the team.  This is based solely on rookie years stats and is a straight up "battle of the stats" with my opinion not factoring into the decision.  I give a chance to all rookies from that season that either played in 100 games, started 15 games, or had at least 10 saves.  If there happen to be less than 2 rookies that meet those qualifications at a position, then I will just compare the top two that don't meet parameters.  In this case, and all cases before 2011, I am retroactively adding a relief pitcher spot to the team. 

Catcher - Jason Phillips - Mets

There were only two candidates that met the 100 game criteria, but I lowered the bar to 90 games to pick up a third.  The three players were Topps choice Miguel Olivo of the White Sox, Jason Phillips of the Mets, and Josh Bard of the Indians.  What appeared on the surface to be a close race, ended up being a bit of a runaway with Phillips handily beating his two opponents. 

First Base - Mark Teixeira - Rangers

For first base there were three fairly strong contenders in Teixeira, Ken Harvey of the Royals, and Ben Broussard of the Indians.  With his 26 HRs, which led all rookies, Teixeira dispatched both challengers with relative ease. 

Second Base - Keith Ginter - Brewers

Second base was fairly weak in 2003.  There were three players with over 100 games played, but Topps choice Bo Hart was not one of them, having appeared in only 77 games his rookie year.  I included him anyway along with Keith Ginter of the Brewers, Brandon Phillips of the Indians, and Henry Mateo of the Expos.  Despite his fewer games played, Hart was able to defeat two of his three challengers, but not the third one as Keith Ginter proved to be the best choice.

Third Base - Ty Wigginton - Mets

This position, at first glance, seemed like it would be taken easily by Wigginton as he played in 156 games and the only other candidate meeting parameters, Jamey Carroll of the Expos, appeared in just 105 as a part time player.  However I lowered the bar to 85 games to pick up a third competitor, future HOFer Miguel Cabrera of the Marlins.  Wigginton managed to hang onto the spot, but not by as much as you would expect from someone playing twice as many games.

Shortstop - Angel Berroa - Royals

Shortstop is historically not a very competitive position since you usually didn't see multiple clubs throw rookies out there in arguably the most important defensive position on the diamond.  However, in 2003, there were three strong candidates in 2003 AL ROY Angel Berroa of the Royals, Alex Cintron of the Diamondbacks, and Adam Everett of the Astros.  Berroa held serve over a fairly strong runner up showing from Cintron.

Outfield - Scott Podsednik - White Sox, Rocco Baldelli - Rays, Hideki Matsui - Yankees

As usual the outfield in 2003 had many candidates including Reed Johnson of the Blue Jays, Craig Monroe of the Tigers, and Xavier Nady of the Padres.  However five players proved to stand out above the rest: the three Topps choices in Podsednik, Baldelli, and Gerut along with Hideki Matsui of the Yankees and Marlon Byrd of the Phillies.  Podsednik and Baldelli set themselves apart as the top two, so the only remaining question was who gets the third spot.  Matsui, who somehow played in 163 games in 2003, managed to squeak out a victory over Byrd and Gerut.

RH Starter - Brandon Webb - Diamondbacks

As per usual, there were many qualifying candidates for the RH starter including Jae Weong Seo of the Mets, Jeremy Bonderman of the Tigers, Jason Davis of the Indians, Colby Lewis of the Rangers, and Jerome Williams of the Giants among others.  However, unlike most years, there was a clear winner in Brandon Webb.  It was really not even close as Webb had a great year and most of the others were mediocre at best.

LH Starter - Dontrelle Willis - Marlins

In most years, the LH starter usually only gets the spot because he was born left handed instead of clearly being one of the two best starters of the year.  This was not the case in 2003.  In all probability, there were more quality lefties than righties that year.  There were 5 solid pitchers that qualified: 2003 NL ROY Dontrelle Willis of the Marlins, 15 game winner Jeriome Robertson of the Astros, Horacio Ramirez of the Braves, Billy Traber of the Indians, and former NBA player Mark Hendrickson of the Blue Jays.  The four challengers were good, but there was nothing derailing the D-Train in 2003.

 

Relief Pitcher - Aquilino Lopez - Blue Jays

There was definitely not a shortage of rookie closers in 2003 to qualify for a theoretical relief pitcher spot.  There were four pitchers with at least 10 saves including Mike MacDougal of the Royals, Lance Carter of the Rays, Aquilino Lopez of the Blue Jays, and Jose Valverde of the Diamondbacks.  Lopez pulled out a very close victory over Valverde with the other two holding their own further back.  2003 was a good year for rookie relievers.

 

HOW'D TOPPS DO?

100% - Perfect, 80-90% - Great, 60-70% - Good, 40-50% - Poor, < 40% - Utter Failure

GOOD

This was a year of many standout rookie performances, so the choice was fairly easy in most cases.  Which is usually a good thing for Topps as it makes them looks better than they probably should.   Picking Bo Hart over Keith Ginter is classic Topps thinking of picking the rookie who was hottest at the end of the year over the guy who was solid, but unspectacular, over the whole season.  Strangely, they did not do the same thing with Miguel Cabrera over Ty Wigginton.  The other two choices they whiffed on were absolutely baffling, especially since both players left off were on New York teams.  Jason Phillips was better than Miguel Olivo, but choosing Jody Gerut of the Indians over the well hyped Hideki Matsui of Topps's favorite team, the Yankees, was very Twilight Zone-y.  The only thing I could figure is that since Cleveland had rookies starting at almost every position that year, that maybe Topps thought they deserved at least one spot on the team.  Who knows?

Final Thoughts on the Team

Strongest Team Members (rookie) - Scott Podsednik, Angel Berroa, Rocco Baldelli

 
Strongest Team Members (career) - Mark Teixeira, Brandon Webb, Dontrelle Willis

 
Weakest Team Members (rookie) - Bo Hart, Miguel Olivo, Jody Gerut

 
Weakest Team Members (career) - Bo Hart, Jody Gerut, Rocco Baldelli

 
Rockies on the team (Present and future) - 3 (Olivo, Wigginton, Podsednik) (technically 4 since Gerut was a Rockies draft pick)

 
Best Card (IMHO) - Ty Wigginton (That is one of the most intense stares this side of a serial killer.)

 
Worst Card (IMHO) - Jody Gerut (I don't like not seeing either the face or the name on the back of the jersey)

This team is clearly a rookie peak team.  Meaning most of the players did not accomplish as much in their careers as their rookie year would have led you to believe.  But this was a VERY strong team in 2003.  In fact, it felt weird putting Jody Gerut in the weakest season category because he is in the top third of all Rookie All Star outfielders.  But there is no denying that most of these players tailed off after their superb rookie seasons.  That being said, there were exceptions such as Mark Teixeira putting together a borderline HOF career and Brandon Webb having an extremely high career peak, including a Cy Young Award, that was cut dramatically short due to injury.  The same could be said for Rocco Baldelli, although his peak was not nearly as high as Webb's.  Several others had very solid, albeit unspectacular, careers as journeymen.  All told, I would probably put this team in the top 20 for rookie years, but probably in the bottom 20 for career totals.

 

 

NEXT WEEK'S PREVIEW

The 1975 team pictured on 1976 Topps cards.

Thanx for reading.

Monday's Mailbag #4

No need to check your calendar, I know today is not Monday.  I was planning on posting this yesterday, but the Donruss checklist was released and I wanted to write about the fresh new thing.  The fresh, new thing is pretty much what this hobby has evolved (or devolved) into, isn't it?  The hot rookies are great today and forgotten tomorrow.  The newest set release is extremely popular until the next week's set comes out that is.  Like it or not, that is just the state of the hobby for most people.  Luckily for me, the blogger community not so much in that vein.  I am a bit of a man without a country, because part of me is thrilled to be in the more laid back side of the hobby, but another part of me is still entrenched in the "let's make some money" part of the hobby.  The big difference with me is that I didn't start selling cards to make money, I started selling cards I didn't want in order to get money to buy card I did want.  In effect I was trading with a middleman.  So I do have a little of the downside of both worlds, but I also believe I have the best of both worlds as well.  With that little nugget of my life out of the way, let's look at some cards for me that might not qualify as the newest thing.

 

 

 

First up, we have another PWE from The Lost Collector.  AJ has been one of my welcome regulars on Sunday PWE Trade Bait posts.  The Kyle Lewis will take his place in the Rookie Cup binder and leave me needing 3 more to complete Series 1 this year.  The 2011 Topps/Update Target Red is especially welcome because the retail exclusives for that set have dried up completely.  Any remaining unopened product will likely remain unopened just so anyone holding an unopened pack can pretend there is a red parallel of the Mike Trout rookie within.  Since red works best with the Angels, the Target parallels are especially hard to find. I am thrilled to get another version of what I believe is the lone Mark Ellis Rockies card.  

 

 

Here we have a group of cards that arrived from a trio of Sportlots sellers.  I ordered from each of them because they had one cheap 86 insert that I was missing and I ended up ordering what I consider a small order from each.  The way Sportlots is set up, there are different ranges where shipping remains a fixed cost.  There is the single card, the 2-4 range (small), the 5-10 range (medium), 11-16 (large), and 17-25 (X-large duh).  With a lot of sellers, there is a bump in shipping costs once you go from the small to the medium presumably because they want to use bubble mailers to mitigate damage and have tracking.  Me, I am a gambler.  Most of the time, I like getting the small lots shipped directly instead of doing the box shipments, which I save for single cards or larger orders.  I have to say that I am having far more difficulty tracking down Series 1 parallels for a price I am willing to pay than other years.  The Gray is only my 3rd of 9 rainbow foils and I have only one other parallel (a royal blue).  It's either hoarding, overpricing, or overproducing or more likely a combination of the three.

 

Up next is an eBay gamble lot.  This one is a lot of 2020 Topps Fire colored parallels and insert parallels.  Topps Fire is usually a set that I don't see a lot of since it is a Target exclusive and the nearest Target to me is about 50-60 miles away.  Needless to say, I rarely go to Target.  In fact I don't believe I ever opened a single pack of Fire ever.  But that's okay because I still usually end up with my Rockies through the usual outlets.  This particular lot ended up being nice for me.  I scored three different needed parallels including the serial numbered green Kyle Freeland and the two different unnumbered parallel from Arms Ablaze, which showcases infielders with strong arms, a good idea.  It's always weird to get parallels before you get the base version of a card, but that is the case for both inserts. 

The next eBay gamble lot is another of my Colorado Rockies lots.  These can be both really good and really frustrating.  This particular lot had 20 cards, but the only ones I needed were the two teal wave Charlie Blackmon parallels from 2020 Panini Prizm.  The card on the right is his base which fell in the much easier to obtain first 100 numbers of Prizm.  In case you didn't know, both Panini Prizm and Panini Select employ the three tiered base set where cards 1-100 are easy to get, 101-200 are slightly more difficult, and 201-300 are very hard to get (especially Select).  Personally I hate this practice especially when there are two practically identical sets doing the same thing.  Prizm and Select not only had the exact same 8 card team checklist for the Rockies in 2020, but every card was in the same tier in both sets.  Quick someone get me the Department of Redundancy Dept. 

The final eBay gamble lot of the week worked out really well for me, but not necessarily in the way you might think.  This lot was what I thought was a 25 card lot mix of rainbow foil and gold foil parallels.  I popped at $15 and change shipped and thought I really hoped to hit several Rockies to be worth the price.  I did end up hitting the Daza and Dahl shown above, which was great, since I mentioned above how difficult it has been finding Rockie parallels this year.  What was even better is that the lot that I purchased was not for a mix of 25 rainbow and gold foils, it was for 25 of EACH of them.  This made the price per card much more palatable for me at around a quarter per card. 

So I got twice the cards I was expecting.  The only downside is that there were no Rockies in the 25 hobby-exclusive gold foil cards.  I did get a nice mix of veteran names and a good mix of teams, so it wasn't all just some unknown Rays rookie or A's reliever that I will be stuck with forever.  So if you happen upon a Rockies parallel from 2021 Topps, hit me up because I now likely have at least one from your team to swap for it.

But wait, that's not all.  In addition to the 25 card bonus that I received from a combination of not reading closely enough and the seller having a confusing title, the seller threw in seven cards from the 2021 Topps insert set Stars in Service.  It showcase the various charities that baseball players and their wives have created.  It's a fine humanitarian effort and I applaud each of the players for the work.  That being said, it's not exactly what I am looking for in an insert set.  Of the seven cards I got, only one showed a player in uniform (although Verlander was wearing a team hoodie on the field, so I'll give them two).  The rest were a combination of guys in suits and the weird photo choice that makes it look like Yadier Molina is wiping his nose with the Puerto Rico flag.  I'm sure that isn't the case, but someone actually approved that photo.  Unbelievable. 

I appreciate every package that comes my way, but let's be honest some are more appreciated than others.  That is the case with this trade with fellow blog All Cardinals All the Time.  A trade which began with Ray claiming a single 2020 Bowman Platinum Cardinals prospect on a Sunday PWE post turned into one of my favorite card packages of all time.  And for sure one of my favorites that included only 10 cards.  But what a 10 cards they were.

 

First up is a 2020 Stadium Club/Chrome Gold Refractor Sam Hilliard #'d to 50.  2020 Stadium Club/Chrome was one of those sets that were released too close together due to the pandemic.  Although it is currently the last retail pack of cards that I have opened.  Hilliard was the UTROY (ubiquitous team rookie of the year) for the Rockies in 2020 and hopefully he can get some solid outfield time now that David Dahl is gone and Ian Desmond has become a crusader for social justice.  The Clint Barmes auto is from 2004 Donruss/Playoff Honors.  I don't mind the silver sticker as much as most people, although I will readily admit that I am happy that the stickers used now are clear.  I especially like the inscription, which if you can't see says "Indiana State."  Until now, the only things I knew about Indiana State was that Larry Bird went there and they had cool nickname, the Sycamores.  Now I have a third fun fact at my disposal.

But let's get back to the cards because this package deserves full attention.  Ray explained to me through email that he used to be a big Clint Barmes collector because before Barmes went to Indiana State he had attended a junior college in Ray's hometown.  He doesn't collect Barmes anymore, but still had a pretty healthy number of Barmes cards for me to choose from.  The first card is the 2004 Donruss Press Proofs Gold #'d out of just 25.  That card is great but would have been much better with the classic blue Rated Rookie logo.  The middle card  is a Spectrum parallel from 2004 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia #'d to 100.  Not my favorite design ever, but that is another low serial number I can check off.  The third card is a 2005 Studio Proofs Silver also #'d to 100.  Studio has always been a hit or miss set for me.  I either loved it or hated it.  2005 was one of the few that kind of fell in the middle.  It has good points and bad points.

But the PIECE DE RESISTANCE is next.

Here we have a complete rainbow of Barmes' 2006 Topps/Turkey Red Autograph.  Look at that.  It is just a joy to behold.  The gray is the base and is not numbered.  The red is numbered to 475.  The white is numbered to 200.  The black is numbered to 99.  The gold is numbered to 25.  And now I have them all.  I had not been able to track down any of these five for a reasonable price before, although I do have the red, white, and gold versions of the other Rockie in the set, Garrett Atkins.  Now I am on a quest for the base and black Atkins autos so I can have a full team rainbow.  How cool is that?  I sent Ray a BIG package of Cardinals relics, inserts, and parallels for this lot and I still feel like I made out great.  Thank you Ray for our first trade together, but you do realize that my expectations for the second trade package are now through the roof.  😁

As an aside, I absolutely love my new scanner.  It does a great job scanning, but it did an even better job of picking up the "texture bumps" on those Turkey Red autos.  

Thanx for reading.

2021 Donruss Checklist reviewed

 

 

Finally we have the second checklist of the year released.  It always seems like there is too big of a gap between the release of Topps Series 1 and the usual combo of Donruss and Topps Heritage.  The gap seems especially large when you consider weekly release dates that happen in late summer and early fall.  The release of the series 1 checklist is always a welcome sight, but it seems to come too early.  I have felt the past few years that the release of the Donruss checklist is really the start of the card season.  I'm not going to post the entire checklist here, there are plenty of places for that, but I will look at the Rockies along with a few other opinions here and there.  There are inserts and autos in the set as well, but heer I am just focusing on the base set.

 

Here is the Rockies base set

29 Nolan Arenado DK

77 Trevor Story

103 Charlie Blackmon

146 Nolan Arenado

203 German Marquez

208 Antonio Senzatela

227 Larry Walker

First just the opinions on the Rockies

The Good

It's nice to see Antonio Senzatela included because he did have a good 2020.  

Larry Walker being included in the "legends" section is a nice surprise as well.

The Bad

I HATE that Nolan Arenado is a Diamond King two years in a row.

No Rated Rookie for Colorado.  The Rockies had no position player rookies in 2020, but I figured at least starter Ryan Castellani was worthy of inclusion.  

Bard being out was disappointing, but Raimel Tapia had a pretty good year for the Rox and probably deserved a spot as well.

As for the overall checklist, let's go back to that Diamond King talk.  The best thing about DKs in the 80s/90s is that you could pretty much guarantee that if you look at any three consecutive years of Diamond Kings, you'd find three different players.  I am just so disgusted that the new Donruss DKs are not following that rule.  Aside from Arenado, FOURTEEN other teams have the same representative in 2021 as in 2020.  Not only is that extremely lazy, but in most cases it doesn't even make sense.  Wasn't Vladimir Guerrero Jr. a disappointment?  Why was Ronald Acuna picked for a second year over MVP Freddie Freeman?  Why was Aaron Judge picked over DJ LeMahieu?  Even the Angels could have had Anthony Rendon instead of a repeating Mike Trout.  Sure, sometimes in the 80s it led to guys like Ed Whitson or Scott Fletcher being chosen over superior teammates, but that's not a bad thing in my mind.  Card companies need to start spotlighting more current players to make them stars too.  

With that thought in mind it brings me to the worst part of the Donruss checklist.  In past years, the end of the base set has always been a mix of legends and lesser known players shown on a classic Donruss design.  This year is slightly different.  The classic design is going in the same order with this year highlighting the 1987 Donruss set.  The problem is that Panini has completely eliminated all current players from this subset.  Cards # 213-262 are ALL retired players.  50 retired players in basically your company's flagship set, and 13 of them were repeated players from last year's set.  Did we really need a second straight Keith Hernandez card in the base set?  Or Dale Murphy?  Or Dwight Gooden?  Of the remaining 37 "legends" there are such luminaries as Troy Glaus, Lance Berkman, Jonathan Papelbon, Miguel Tejada, and Bartolo Colon.  Seriously?  These guys might (emphasize MIGHT) deserve inclusion when we get closer to honoring their rookie years, but what do they have to do with 1987?  I don't mind the inclusion of non-HOFers, like with Darryl Strawberry in last year's set, but at least have them make sense for the set you are honoring.  

The worst part is cutting the lesser known players.  As bad as it was for Tapia or Bard to be left off the "main" set, I was really hoping to get a rookie card for Antonio Santos or Tommy Doyle in the 1987 design.  I know most collectors don't care about them, but Rockies fans do.  And to be honest, I don't really know about the lesser rookies of other teams, but that's why I WANT them included.  I'd much rather have them than a Paul Konerko or Orel Hershiser or even a Larry Walker in a 2021 set. Cutting all the repeated guys and the lesser "legends" could have easily added 25 current players to this set.

I have always liked the Donruss set, even without the logos.  Sure sometimes the design is lacking, or in the case of 2017 downright ugly, but it still feels nice to have a second MAJOR flagship set.  The lack of logos is an afterthought for me to be honest.  But this checklist just makes this set feel more like a throwaway third rate set like Topps Archives.  It definitely does not feel like a major release.  I am in the midst of collecting the 2020 Donruss rainbow set, but aside from the Rockies, I will probably avoid this set altogether.

Thanx for reading.