My newest side collections

Before we begin, let me state that I am still first and foremost a Rockies collector.  That will more than likely never change.  However, I do occasionally like to dip my toe in the water of other things.  During my hiatus I felt comfortable enough to embark on a new player collection and a (partial) set collection.  Let me now introduce the new things you can send me if you are out of Rockies.

BEN REVERE

Up until mid-April, the only two things I knew Ben Revere for were his membership on the 2012 Topps Rookie Cup team and having, in my opinion, the best card in my 2013 Quarry Unlimited set.  However around mid-April, Jim from The Phillies Room had a post that showed Ben Revere as hailing from Richmond, KY.  Those of you that have traded with me might know that that is where I live.  There are very few pro athletes from Richmond and I can't believe that I missed this one.  He went to high school in another town, so I'll cut myself some slack on that one.  Either way, I am happy to add Mr. Revere to my card collection.  I am not going to be a "super-collector" tracking down 1/1 cards or small printing cards.  I am going to be a "mega-collector" of his by gathering any card with a print run of 25 or higher.  I will be collecting him as a Phillie (like the first card) and as a Twin (like the middle card) and as a rec league softball player (like the last card).  I hope to have a want list up in the near future, but as of now I only have 30/301 of his cards so I need quite a bit.  

2014 TOPPS ARCHIVES (1986s only)

2014 Topps Archives was pretty much met with a collective yawn about the card blog community.  Allow me to join in that yawn.  If it wasn't for the inclusion of my favorite set of all time, I would have not given this set a second glance after getting my Rockies.  However, the 1986 Topps set was included so I feel honor-bound to collect it.  I am not 100% happy with the set, but I will get into that more later when I have the set complete and do a review and comparison.  I really think my blog is the perfect place for that to happen, because I can not only compare and contrast with the original 1986 set, but I can also compare and contrast with my 2012 Quarry Unlimited set which used the same design.  I am going to have a lot of fun with that and I hope I will be able to give my readers some fun as well.  As with Revere, I hope to have a want list for this set up shortly, but as of this moment I have 0 cards. 

MY ONE OF COLLECTION

In my Mountains to Climb for both 2013 and 2014 I mentioned this new collection, but I haven't gone any further.  I'm still not going to here either because it will probably take too long, but I am going to say that a full explanation of this collection will take place before the end of this month.  I am going to try and make it well worth the wait, but after nearly two years I think my write up would have to be like a new Charles Dickens novel to achieve that goal.  That isn't going to happen, but I'll still try to entertain you a bit.

Thanx for reading.

Hot Stove Round Up - Week #5

AUTHOR'S NOTE - I wrote the majority of this post on Saturday prior to the Dodgers signing Zack Greinke and I didn't want to re-write the entire thing.  I will delve into that signing next week.

With the Winter Meetings taking place last week I figured I would be talking today about where Josh Hamilton and Zack Greinke will be playing in 2013.  Unfortunately, this year's edition of the Winter Meetings was possibly the most boring ever with neither big name choosing a destination nor any major trades going down.  I don't know why because that has historically been the reason for the Winter Meetings, but not this year.  It was just plain odd.  Even though the bigger names are still on the market, some things did occur last week and I will delve into a few of them right now.

RANGERS TRADE YOUNG TO PHILLIES

This trade is the most recent, but arguably contains the biggest name in longtime Ranger Michael Young.  After waiving his 10-5 no-trade rights, Young was traded to Philadelphia for reliever Josh Lindblom and pitching prospect Lisalverto Bonilla.

Young had spent 13 consecutive years with the Rangers and was the 6th longest serving "dean" as of the end of the 2012 season.  To say he had a bad 2012 would be a major understatement, because although he hit .277, he ranked in the bottom 10 of all players in WAR (whatever that's worth).  However in 2011, he was in the top 10 in AL MVP voting, so the verdict of this trade depend an awful lot on which version of Michael Young the Phillies get.

For their longest tenured player, the Rangers picked up reliever Josh Lindblom, who Philly acquired from the Dodgers in the Shane Victorino deadline deal.  On various sites, Bonilla was rated between the #12 and #17 prospect in the Phillies organization.  He had a really high strikeout rate and a really low ERA at AA in 2012, so he might turn into something in a year or two.

I think the Phillies win this deal especially if they get 2011 Michael Young.  Even if Young has lost a step, it only cost them two relievers to get a big bat and a starting third baseman.  So chalk one up for the Phils.

TWINS DEAL REVERE FOR WORLEY

Philadelphia was involved in the second most notable trade of the week as well acquiring center fielder Ben Revere (who just looks so happy) from the Twins for starter Vance Worley and pitching prospect Trevor May.

Revere is the second center fielder traded by the Twins in a couple of weeks following Denard Span to the Nationals.  I have always liked Revere because he went to high school right up the road from me, so part of me hopes he does well in Philly.  The other part of me is pissed that the Rockies didn't get this return for Dexter Fowler.

Going to the Twins is starter Vance Worley.  Worley had a bit of a sophomore slump in 2012 after finishing 3rd in Rookie of the Year voting in 2011.  Trevor May was the top pitching prospect for the Phillies and the #69 prospect in the minor leagues.  He has awesome strikeout numbers in the minors, but also a high ERA so at this point he could go either way.

I gave the Phillies the win in the previous deal, but definitely not here.  Revere is an outstanding defensive outfielder and speedster, but has NO power with 0 home runs in his career thusfar.  I think the even deal was Worley OR May for Revere, with both the Twins win this trade in a landslide.

ROCKIES, ASTROS SWAP PITCHERS

The final notable trade of the Winter Meetings week involved my Rockies and the newest AL team, the Houston Astros.  The Astros traded their closer Wilton Lopez and a PTBNL to the Rockies for starter Alex White and low minor leaguer Alex Gillingham.

After the Astros traded everyone that fans had heard of in 2012, Wilton Lopez became their closer.  For the past three years his ERA has been below 3 with decent strikeout numbers.  I have not heard anything about the player to be named later other than it might end up becoming cash.

Alex White is best known as the #2 pitching prospect acquired in the Ubaldo Jimenez deal.  For the past two seasons, White had been shuttling between the majors and AAA and wasn't very successful in either place.  Alex Gillingham was an 11th round pick in 2011 that I had honestly never heard of.  He was a starter in low A in 2012 with decent stats, but at 23 years old he was bit old for the level.

Normally I am a bit skittish when it comes to trading a starter for a reliever because a starter usually gives you 3 times the workload of a reliever.  In this case I think the Rockies did well in trading White because of the glut of starters vying for the 4th and 5th spots in the rotation.  It could be a case of addition by subtraction.  For the Astros, White is still young enough to pull everything together as well.  This could be a win-win trade.

NOTABLE FREE AGENT SIGNINGS

Red Sox sign outfielder Shane Victorino  3yr/39mil

Red Sox sign catcher Mike Napoli  3yr/39mil

Nationals sign starter Dan Haren  1yr/13mil

Angels sign starter Joe Blanton   2yr/15mil

Diamondbacks sign starter Brandon McCarthy  2yr/15.5mil

Rays sign first baseman James Loney  1yr/2mil

Mariners sign outfielder Jason Bay  1yr/1mil

The Red Sox made arguably the biggest splash at the Winter Meetings by signing both Mike Napoli and Shane Victorino to identical multi-year deals.  Did the Red Sox wipe the slate clean in August just so they could overpay a new crop of free agents?  13 million a year seems a bit high for both Napoli and Victorino, but I have been wrong before.

The biggest winner so far in offseason seems to be starter Dan Haren.  He got his 15 million dollar option bought out by the Angels for 3 million dollars, then he signed with Washington for 13 million for a net gain of 1 million dollars to join a younger and better team.  Great signing for the Nats.

To replace Haren, the Angels signed Joe Blanton formerly of the Dodgers.  To say this is a step down in skill level is a bit of an understatement.  So far this offseason, the Angels rotation has lost Dan Haren, Ervin Santana, and potentially Zack Greinke and has brought in Blanton and Tommy Hanson.  I think we have a clear losing team of the off season so far.

The Diamondbacks added to their stacked rotation by signing former Athletic Brandon McCarthy.  McCarthy was involved in a scary incident in September when a comebacker hit him in the head and he suffered an epidural hemorrhage.  Arizona got him on the cheap and this has the potential be the best signing of the year.  It hurts me as a Rockies fan to think that Arizona got the bargain of the year, especially since I wanted McCarthy as a Rockie.

Finally, a pair of well-known names that have not been performing well at the major league level recently were signed to relatively small contracts.  The Rays got former Red Sox and Dodgers first baseman James Loney which could be a good fit for both him and the team.  Jason Bay was a very hot free agent three years ago...oh how the mighty have fallen.  I hope Bay turns it around in Seattle, because I always sort of liked him as a player and because it would the Mets look bad for releasing him. 


Thanx for reading.

Rating the Rookie Cups 2.0 - 2012

 

This week has been pretty busy for me which is why I have posted more sporadically.  I guess when you spend eleven days trapped indoors the errands you need to run your day to day life really pile up on you.  Nevertheless, I do not intend to ever skip my Friday posts because I like writing these Rating the Rookie Cups posts more than anything.  I hope you enjoy reading them as much.

Today's team is the most modern team that I have ever reviewed, the 2011 Topps Rookie All Star team as shown on the 2012 Topps set.  There are several interesting notations about this particular team.  The biggest is that this is the only time in history that Topps did not choose both a right handed and a left handed pitcher to the team.  They switched things up and chose a starting pitcher and a relief pitcher only.  I believe it was a way to wedge Craig Kimbrel onto the team.  This was not as blatant as the previous year's wedging in of Stephen Strasburg, but it was still fairly obvious. 

Another point of interest with this team is that it included a second generation rookie cup winner in Dee Gordon (I'm not using his new hyphenated name).  Tom Gordon, Dee's father, was the RHP on the 1989 Topps Rookie All Star Team shown on 1990 Topps.  I have not researched the total number of father/son combos on RASTs, but I know for a fact there is at least one more along with at least one set of siblings.  I'll do the research and let you all know next week.

The third interesting aspect of this team is the inclusion of so many rookies that did not play full seasons.  Four of the eight position players played less than 90 games in 2011.  I can't remember another instance of that many short term rookies taking a place on an All Star team.  We'll have to see if Topps made the right call on those choices.

The cards are on the 2012 Topps design, which is not one of their better ones.  It's not horrible, but the rookie cup cards suffer the same fate as a lot of the other cards in the set, photos that are zoomed in way too much.  It gives you good detail on faces, but it removes the context of the photo in most cases.  Background imagery is almost as important to me as the main focus of the photos.  The "surfboard" name plate is not horrible, but not one of my favorites either.  Some of the RAST players also suffer from Topps using the rookie cups as short prints, including one where Josh Reddick is photoshopped into an Oakland uniform.  I do not count those SP cards as part of a rookie cup collection, so I am using the regular base card sans cup for a couple of players.  Overall, this set is by far my least favorite of the 2011-2015 era. 

Let's take a look at the 2011 Topps Rookie All Star Team.

 

J.P Arencibia - C - Blue Jays - Season Rank (23 of 61) - Career Rank (45 of 61)

Mark Trumbo - 1B - Angels - Season Rank (15 of 61) - Career Rank (35 of 61)

Danny Espinosa - 2B - Nationals - Season Rank (12 of 61) - Career Rank (35 of 61)

 

Brett Lawrie - 3B - Blue Jays - Season Rank (41 of 61) - Career Rank (43 of 61)

 

Dee Gordon - SS - Dodgers - Season Rank (51 of 61) - Career Rank (27 of 60)

 

 

Desmond Jennings - OF - Rays - Season Rank (157 of 184) - Career Rank (141 of 184)

Ben Revere - OF - Twins - Season Rank (158 of 184) - Career Rank (123 of 184)

Josh Reddick - OF - Red Sox - Season Rank (169 of 184) - Career Rank (91 of 184)

 

Jeremy Hellickson - RHP - Rays - Season Rank (31 of 50) - Career Rank (27 of 50)

Craig Kimbrel - RP - Braves - Season Rank (3 of 34) - Career Rank (2 of 34)

 

 

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 - Wilson Ramos - Nationals

Here we had a simple one on one battle between the only two players to meet the qualifications in 2012, Topps' choice Arencibia and Wilson Ramos of the Nationals.  It was close, but according to my data, Ramos should have been the choice. 

First Base - Freddie Freeman - Braves

First base was one of the two most competitive positions in 2012.  There were four strong candidates for this spot in original pick Trumbo, Freddie Freeman of the Braves, Eric Hosmer of the Royals, and Lucas Duda of the Mets.  When was all was said and done, Freeman should have been the winner over second best Trumbo.  The only thing Trumbo really had over Freeman were the power numbers, Freeman was better in every other facet.

Second Base - Danny Espinosa - Nationals

Of all the 2011 battles, second base was probably the easiest to decide.  There were 2 challengers for Danny Espinosa's spot in Darwin Barney of the Cubs and Justin Turner of the Mets.  Turner eventually shifted to third for the Dodgers, but in his rookie year he was exclusively at second.  Regardless, Espinosa's strong rookie year easily dispatched his two competitors.

Third Base - Brent Morel - White Sox

Here we come to the first original winner that would not even meet qualifications by my standards as Lawrie only played 43 games.  In this instance I did include Lawrie in the competition with the other two players that met qualifications, Brent Morel of the White Sox and Daniel Descalso of the Cardinals.  Despite his limited games, Lawrie did hold his own.  But in the end, the career year of Brent Morel proved to just a little better than the other two.

Shortstop - Eduardo Nunez - Yankees

This would be the second spot where the original winner did not meet parameters as Gordon only played 56 games.  Unlike third base, only one player had over 100 games so I lowered the bar to 80 games and still included Gordon.  I ended up with 4 players in Eduardo Nunez of the Yankees, Mike McCoy of the Blue Jays, Dee Gordon of the Dodgers, and Trevor Plouffe of the Twins.  Nunez ended up winning the battle over Plouffe and Gordon came in third.

Outfield - John Mayberry Jr. - Phillies, Eric Thames - Blue Jays, Ben Revere - Twins

Two outfield spots were also awarded by Topps to players appearing in fewer than 100 games in Desmond Jennings and Josh Reddick.  In this unusually weak year for outfielders, only three players met the 100 game criteria so I lowered the bar to 75 games and still included Jennings and his 63 games.  The two that stood out above the rest were not chosen by Topps in John Mayberry Jr of the Phillies and Eric Thames of the Blue Jays.  That left the final spot to be decided between the original three choices by Topps along with 4 others including Jason Pridie of the Mets and Allen Craig of the Cardinals.  Ben Revere rose to the top and justified his selection.

RH Starter - Alexi Ogando - Rangers

This was the second of the two most competitive positions in 2011.  There were a ton of qualifying starters among rookies, so I upper the bar to 21 starts and was still left with 10 guys.  Best among the bottom 6 that weren't in contention were Josh Collmenter of the Diamondbacks and Ivan Nova of the Yankees.  There was a very close race between the top 4 in Alexi Ogando of the Rangers, 2011 AL ROY Jeremy Hellickson of the Rays, Michael Pineda of the Mariners, and Vance Worley of the Phillies, The underrated Ogando, who didn't even receive a ROY vote, surprisingly beat out Hellickson with walks being the major difference between the two. 

LH Starter - Cory Luebke - Padres

For some stupid reason, Topps decided to eliminate the LHP in 2011.  This was not a strong class of LHPs, but there have been weaker ones in the past.  But I will right the wrong now.  There are only three candidates in Zack Britton of the Orioles, Danny Duffy of the Royals, and hybrid starter/reliever Cory Luebke of the Padres.  Going into this I figured Britton, who began as a starter, with 11 wins would be the easy winner.  But it was Luebke with his high strikeout, low ERA season that pulled ahead.

Relief Pitcher - Craig Kimbrel - Braves

The easiest battle of the year was relief pitcher.  2011 NL ROY Craig Kimbrel had one of the better seasons of all time for a rookie reliever.  Even so, there was some tough competition among Jordan Walden of the Angels, Fernando Salas of the Cardinals, Javy Guerra of the Dodgers, and Mark Melancon of the Astros.  The real strength of this rookie class was in the non-qualifying relievers.  Future formidable closers Aroldis Chapman of the Reds, Kenley Jansen of the Dodgers, Greg Holland of the Royals, along with future ace starter Chris Sale of the White Sox each began their careers as middle relievers in 2011.

 

HOW'D TOPPS DO?

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

UTTER FAILURE

Well, I guess Topps's streak of perfection had to end at 1.  I didn't choose this team because they were poorly selected, it really was just coincidental.  But it ended up being a pretty cool coincidence.  That being said, there is really no putting a good face on only getting 3 out of 10 correct, and if they chose a LHP it likely would have been Zack Britton and made this 3 out of 11.  But I can't really fault them for a decision they didn't make.  Besides, there is plenty of fault for the decisions they did make.

 

Some of the choices were close, but in most cases Topps ignored full season players over flashy shorter term rookies and it just didn't work out.  In my opinion, it is almost always preferable to go with the full season guy over the half season guy because the full guy had to deal with the rookie wall.  A player that has a season ending injury at the end of May is never in contention for awards, but for some reason rookie that don't come up until August are.  Two months is two months and these awards are for the best of the year. 

Final Thoughts on the Team

Strongest Team Members (rookie) - Craig Kimbrel, Danny Espinosa, Mark Trumbo

 
Strongest Team Members (career) - Craig Kimbrel, Jeremy Hellickson, Dee Gordon

 
Weakest Team Members (rookie) - Josh Reddick, Ben Revere, Desmond Jennings

 
Weakest Team Members (career) - Desmond Jennings, J.P. Arencibia, Brett Lawrie

 
Rockies on the team (Present and future) - 0 (although Kimbrel seems like he could be an end of the career Rockie)

 
Best Card (IMHO) - J.P. Arencibia (no cup, but the best of a bland lot of photos)

 
Worst Card (IMHO) - Josh Reddick (no cup + he isn't the player in focus)

 

This team is likely to go down as one of the weakest Rookie All Star Teams of all time.  Seven of the ten members of the team were out of the league as of right now.  Gordon is on a minor league deal and Reddick remains a free agent.  Only Kimbrel is currently on a big league deal and his past two years have been awful, so who knows how much longer he will last.  If Kimbrel has a comeback and another 4-5 years as a solid closer, he might have an argument for the Hall of Fame.  But no one else on this team is getting into the Cooperstown museum without a ticket.  That being said, Trumbo and Hellickson did have decent, albeit shortened, careers.  As have Gordon and Reddick.  Regardless, right now I would rate this team as a bottom 5 team of all time. 

 

. 

NEXT WEEK'S PREVIEW

The 1981 team pictured on 1982 Topps cards.

Thanx for reading.

2012 Quarry Unlimited - #7 Minnesota Twins Part 2

The answer to yesterday's trivia question is the Detroit Tigers.  1985 Tigers teammates Kirk Gibson and Bob Melvin were the managers of the Diamondbacks and A's, respectively, in 2012.  Now here is the second half of the Minnesota Twins.

My Top 5 Twins Cards
1. Pedro Florimon
2. Chris Parmalee
3. Ben Revere
4. Jeff Gray
5. Drew Butera

The Pedro Florimon is a nice over the shoulder infield grab.  I'm normally not a fan of a card in which you can't see the player's face, but every now and then the photo is just too good to complain.  The Parmalee photo was taken during a throwback game in which the Twins wore the uniform of the Minneapolis Millers, the minor league team that preceded the Twins in Minnesota.  Ben Revere just looks happy, how can you not like that?  Jeff Gray has nice scoreboard background.  I like it when a background accentuates an otherwise mundane photo.  Finally, the Drew Butera is just a great closeup involving catcher's gear.

I'll be back tomorrow with the #8 team.  See ya then.

Thanx for reading.

2013 Quarry Unlimited - #19 Philadelphia Phillies Part 2

In just about every set there is a certain team that seems to have the best cards from top to bottom.  In the 2012 Quarry Unlimited set, I anointed the A's as the team with the best cards top to bottom with the Royals a close second.  In this year's Quarry Unlimited set it was a toss up between these Phillies and once again the Royals.  After much consideration, I am going to have award the best team cards to the Phillies this year.  The Phillies have probably 10 cards that could be #1 on a team like the Orioles or the A's from this year.  They may not get the overall "card of the set," but I guarantee that AT LEAST two Phillies will make the top 10.  But that will be in a few weeks, for now let's just check out the second half of the 2013 Philadelphia Phillies.

My Top 5 Phillies Cards
1. Ben Revere
2. Ryan Howard
3. Erik Kratz
4. Michael Stutes
5. Carlos Ruiz


The Ben Revere card is not a card...it is art.  The perfect timing and perfect shadowing, you just can't get much better than that one in my opinion.  Even if the shadow is faked, it still looks cool.  The Ryan Howard would be #1 on probably 95% of the other teams and I almost made it #1 here.  The ground perspective combined with the beautiful stadium backdrop and the pose which just emits strength is a thing of beauty.  I really like the Erik Kratz card because of what it reminds me of.  I am reminded of the fact that a turkey will look up in the rain until it drowns for some reason.  That's one of those odd but true facts that sometimes just stick with you.  I like the Stutes card because usually you don't see that type of play at the plate card with a pitcher.  The pitcher play at the plate cards are usually not as head on as this one.  It works.  There were six other cards that could have easily been #5 including the Michael Young kissing the bat and the Freddy Galvis hugging second base among other.  I finally settled on the Carlos Ruiz because it's not often you get a photo of what looks like a double play starting at home.



Coming tomorrow - #20 New York Mets

Thanx for reading.