Old friends on TCDB

In addition to all the new trading partners I've found on TCDB, nothing beats it when a blogger friend sends a friend request or a trade offer. I have made some swaps with a few bloggers on there, the latest from Paul of Scribbled Ink.

Paul is a TCDB veteran, and even gave me a bunch of tips when I first started (including a few traders to avoid). I saw Paul had a couple cards I had wanted, and we were able to work out a small deal.

The card that caught my eye was Trevor Hauver, the Yankees 2020 3rd rounder. I only have a card or two of his, but Paul had some of the college Prizes for trade, so I focused on this:

And I also requested this. I have no desire to collect this guy, but his girlfriend is Haley Cruse. So yes, I was basic and figured I'd snag a card of this lucky guy.

Paul also threw in a really nice looking Jonathan Loaisga Chrome RC X-Fractor. It's awesome looking.

I appreciated catching up with Paul to make this simple swap!

In the mood for some lasagna

Johnny Lasagna, aka Jonathan Loaisiga, is a young Yankees pitcher with a pretty badass name. He's also got a pretty badass arm. Scouts have longed raved about his talent. His real problem is actually staying healthy, as he's been plagued a few times with various arm injuries.

It'll be interesting to see if the Yankees new pitching and training staffs can keep him on mound, and can help him consistently tap into his talent. He might be better suited for the bullpen in the long term to help keep him healthy. Plus with Dellin Betances moving on, there's an opportunity for him to stake a more prominent role in the pen, should the Yankees go that way.

Time will tell, but it's easy to overlook him when looking at the stable of Yankees arms.

When he first came up, his autographs were hard to find and not overly plentiful. There's still not a ton out there, but he's been part of Topps Chrome and Bowman, so they are a bit easier to find. And it also means unlicensed ones like this are a lot easier to snag for a minimum bid:

I wasn't hellbent on a signed card of his, but this was hard to pass up for the price. Hopefully he takes the leap this year and I end up looking like a genius.

Nothing random about this box

A while back, I got an email from Roy, better known as Bulldog, from Nothing if Not Random. Roy said he had been accumulating some Yankees he needed to get rid of. I was, as always, happy to take them off his hands.

What I didn't expect was an extremely generous, very LARGE box of Yankees from all years. It was really a blast to go through, and such a great sampling of cards. So great, that I feel like if I needed to condense my collection into one box, this would be a great sampling of cards to keep. I'm honestly thinking of just taking the cards from this box and put them in a binder and calling it my "Yankees Sampling Binder" or something a lot more catchy.

Here's the box:

That is a lot of Yankees! The first card I pulled out was this:

Gleyber Torres is awesome. I keep saying it, I know. He has 37 homers and is a 22-year-old middle infielder who, at his peak, was said to project as a 15-20 HR guy. This man has the ability to win an MVP award one day.

Anyhow, I did use the code when the Yankees were playing the Orioles...and of course, Gleyber didn't homer that day. I haven't won a single one of these this year!

Torres popped up a few more times. I really need to take inventory on my collection of his. I wonder if it's approaching 100? It's probably closer to 50.

There were several more 2019 cards, and here were a few favorites:

There were also a bunch of great Yankees rookie cards:

Topps Fire continues to be one of my favorite sets, despite never opening a pack. I liked this Tanaka a really lot.

This card made me chuckle a bit. I remember Classic 4-Sport well, and A-Rod was the key baseball player in these sets. This card is a SUPER RARE 1 of 80,000 ever made!

Jeter was well-represented throughout the box, and I really enjoyed this Upper Deck ESPN card, as well as the Topps 35th Anniversary:

Oh, and did a I mentioned JETER ROOKIE CARDS?! There were actually two from 1993 Topps! And I definitely didn't have this 1993 Score Select. Jeter RCs don't pop up in packages often at all!

Roy, this was a blast to go through and I'm still very appreciative of the cards. Thanks again!

Mmmm, lasagna

No, this is not a post about Garfield the Cat.

I do love lasagna though. In fact, one of my favorite New York City restaurants is actually called "Lasagna." Guess what they serve?

They have a ton of different types of lasagna, such as ground sirloin lasagna, short rib lasagna, lobster lasagna, spinach lasagna, and so on.

The Yankees recently promoted a pitcher named Jonathan Loaisiga. He's become affectionately known as Johnny Lasagna due to his last name. He has a decorated injury history with the Giants organization, but the Yankees took a flyer on him and he rewarded them by shooting through the system.

On June 15, he made his ML debut despite never throwing a pitch above AA. He promptly beat the Rays, throwing 5 shutout innings and earning a Topps NOW card, which I scooped up:

He started three other games before being sent down, and unfortunately experienced shoulder discomfort. He received a cortisone shot, and will trying pitching again in a few weeks. Perhaps the Yankees will still get something out of him down the stretch, but even if not, he pitched in four effective games for the Yankees, throwing 18 innings with a 3.00 ERA and 21 Ks.

I'll be curious to see if he makes it into Topps Update. I assume he will since this card featured the RC logo versus the RC logo-less call up cards, but we shall see!