Large Biscuit Combo, Please?

One of the coolest things about collecting cards of minor league players and teams is the fact that you can get some really cool cards at the fraction of the cost of Major League players.  Imagine if you found a jumbo patch of a Major League player in your favorite set and the card was numbered to just 5?  Imagine that the patch piece was a cool letter patch from an All-Star game.  Most collectors love adding cards like this to their collection, but the price of adding a relic card costing upwards of $100 causes most of them to pause.  My newest jumbo patch of a minor leaguer?  Just north of $20.

This piece of patch is from Rays prospect C.J. Riefenhauser who is currently pitching out of the bullpen in Triple A Durham.  Last season he split the year between Durham and the Rays Double A affiliate in Montgomery, the Biscuits.  Riefenhauser was one of the best relief pitchers in the Minors last season.  In 70 innings last year the left-handed deliver posted an ERA of 1.22, a WHIP of 0.82, and 70 strikeouts with just 19 walks.  The performance earned Riefenhauser a trip to the Futures Game at CitiField in NewYork.  Here's a picture from batting practice before the game:

The Futures Game format places all of the International All-Stars on a team and the American All-Stars on another team.  The patch piece from my card is the S from the USA logo in the middle of Riefenhauser's Future Game jersey.  A really sweet addition from a specific event.  The card is also limited to just five copies.....

 
To make this card a little bit sweeter, I also added a cool Tim Beckham card the same day as I added this cool Riefenhauser patch.  The Beckham card is serial numbered to 60 and is a die-cut from this year's Panini Prizm set.

Beckham is actually sitting out this season after suffering a season ending knee injury while training for the season before a single game was played.  He is also a former number one overall draft pick.  Sitting out the year, or not, I am still a fan of the Rays infielder.  Here's his first major league hit from last year.....

Collecting the Durham Bulls: CJ Riefenhauser

I am a really big fan of CJ and see some good things in the future for the talented Bulls relief pitcher.  Last season the left-handed pitcher made an appearance after posting an ERA of 0.51 and a WHIP of 0.73 during the first half of the season in Double A Montgomery.  Later in the summer Riefenhauser was promoted to Durham where he posted a solid 3.05 ERA with a WHIP 1.06.  I have seen CJ pitch several times in person and think he is going to at worst be an excellent left-handed specialist out of the pen.  Much the same way the Rays have used J.P Howell and Alex Torres to neutralize left-handed batters at the end of games.

If there is a flaw in CJ's game at this point, it is consistently getting out right-handed batters.  However, I have seen some real improvement in this area over his time in Durham.  Left-handed batters posted a .122/.181/.172 line against CJ, but right-handers did not fair much better with a .183/.240/.263 line.  It seems that Durham Bulls manager Charlie Montoyo has been allowing Riefenhauser to face a good mixture of batters in the early parts of the 2014 season.   Here's an interview with CJ after his successful outing in the 2013 Futures Game. 

Card wise CJ Reifenhauser has several good options out on the market for collectors to out and find.  Of course, CJ is in all the normal team issued sets from all of the different minor league he has pitched for during his time in the Tampa organization.  He also has a nice base card in the 2012 Topps Heritage Minors.  The base card, being a Topps product, has all of the usual parallels that can be found with a Topps cards. I have been looking for a copy of the black parallel, but I have not found one for a price I am happy with yet.  Soon. 

Riefenhauser also has a really relic card from his appearance in last year's Future's game.  Topps always throws a bunch of relics and patch pieces in their Bowman Draft set and Riefenhauser made the cut last year.  I have not seen any of his cards with the huge patch pieces, but the normal small relics are cool looking with the nice orange jersey piece.  

The Rays players are always really good signers at the Major League level, and since I see Riefenhauser as a Major Leaguer, I would guess we are not too far away from possibly seeing an autograph out of CJ.  Maybe in this year's Bowman set?  It would make me happy.