Not $400.

I am old enough to remember when boxes of Topps Finest Baseball cards were not $400.

Looks like I am also now old enough to remember when they were $400.

Greedflation at its finest.  

Luckily, for us collectors on a budget, there are people who buy $400 boxes and sell the single cards on Ebay. Finest comes with two autographs per $400 box, so I started out trying to find a nice pair of autographs for less than $400.  I ended up find 3 autographs rather than two. The total cost of the three cards was less than $20 after shipping. All three cards fit perfectly into my little collection of baseball cards.  

First, an autograph of Giants catcher Patrick Bailey. 

I have several other cards of Bailey in my collection from his time playing at NC State and USA Baseball, but this is my first autograph of him since he turned pro a few years back. Patrick has shortened his signature down considerable over the years.......

but I still love this Finest autograph. Beyond attending NC State, Patrick Bailey also was the Giants catcher for Blake Snell's no-hitter. I really need to post some more Patrick Bailey autographs. Maybe next Monday......

The Bailey autograph was the majority of the not-quite-$20 I spent on these three cards.  

Next up is a pair of Durham Bulls players, one current and one former.  

Curtis Mead is a consensus Top 100 prospect with Baseball Prospectus ranking him highest at 42. Mead actually spent several weeks up with the Rays, but struggled with his bat before being demoted back to Durham. I am a big fan of the Australian third baseman and think he has a bright future somewhere. 

Last card. 

Tristan Gray was on the Durham Bulls the past three seasons. He hit a ton of home runs for them, but never got much of a chance with the Rays. Gray is an older prospect at this point, late twenties, and was traded to the Marlins in the off-season.  I am kind of surprised that he is not on the Marlins on all of his 2024 cards, although I think it's a bit of a surprise that Topps included him in any of their products. 

Anywho, his cards are very inexpensive and I enjoyed watching him play for the Bulls. 

More Australians, Less Profanity

In my time watching the Durham Bulls, the team has had two Australian players. The first appeared in 2008 when the Rays sent newly acquired relief pitcher Grant Balfour down for a little fine tuning. If you are not familiar with Grant Balfour, he is an excellent pitcher, but might be the angriest player who ever stepped foot on a baseball field. 

The confines of a Major League stadiums could not hold his f bombs and Minor League parks were no different. I'd like to think Balfour's most notable angry moment came in the 2013 American League playoffs when he started yelling at Tigers catcher Victor Martinez for who knows what reason......

While Balfour turned many live broadcasts into NSFW territory, nobody could really complain about the results. During his stay in 2008, Balfour had an ERA of 0.38 for the Durham Bulls with an impressive 14.8 strikeouts per 9 innings and 8 saves, all while sharing the closer role.  

The Bulls second Australian joined the team towards the end of the 2021 season with the addition of third baseman Curtis Mead. He's a top 100 prospect, one of the Rays top prospects, and the third baseman of the future in Tampa. The Rays called him up and he made his Major League debut this season. Mead's numbers weren't great, but he also got less than 100 plate appearances. 

Mead also managed to hit his first Major League home run.  

I have posted other Curtis Mead cards on here previously under the heading of "Troppo prices", which means they are crazy in Australian. Luckily, it seems like the prospecting crowd gave up the Bulls third baseman this year, outside of his first Bowman Chrome. Thank you prospectors for quitting a player I enjoy watching. I can now afford some of his cards without taking out a second mortgage on my house.  

For my first round of new Curtis Mead cards, I tried to focus on his Durham Bulls cards. He's had several produced over the past two years. I got all four of the cards featured in this post for around $25. Between a box of cards at Target or a few Curtis Mead cards, I will take a few Curtis Mead cards.  

The first card, out of 2022 Topps Heritage Minor League, is the most expensive and cost me roughly half the $25 I spent on this lot of cards. This card has a nice on-card signature and shows Mead wearing a Durham Bulls jersey. A real Durham Bulls jersey, not one that is photoshopped onto the card, which leads me to the really odd thing about this card. 

The photograph on the front shows Mead in a Bulls home uniform, but the photo is not taken in the Durham Bulls Stadium. Notice the players sitting in the dugout are wearing home white uniforms too. That is typically the visitors dugout in Durham. However, the top of the dugout is not right, nor is the color of the wall at the top of the stands.  

I will figure it out one day, but for the moment I am happy to own my second Curtis Mead autograph.  

These two cards are parallels of his 2022 Topps Pro Debut base card. The top card is the Chrome parallel, which is not serial numbered. Good looking card and I wish Topps had made a Chrome parallel for this set about a decade ago. 

The second card is the pink parallel, which is serial numbered to 199 copies. Another nice looking parallel. Imagine a pink Chrome card. I know, it's too much to ask.  

Last card.....

This is an insert card from the 2022 Heritage Minors set, which borrows its design from the 1973 Topps Pin-Up cards. Not the hardest insert to pull, but nice enough to add to the Curtis Mead collection.  

A few shiny Curtis Mead cards will be posted in the near future.  

Only $9.99, Part 2

 The second half of the 2023 Durham Bulls. 

This first group is soild. All of these players are 25 or younger and all of them will end up in the Majors at some point in the near future. Although, LaSorsa got traded to the Nationals. Manzardo and Mead will likely be starters with the Rays, Misner is a great defensive outfielder. McKendry is a middle of the rotation starter.  Lopez is a good left-handed reliever.  

Mead is the best prospect in this group and should be the Rays third baseman by the beginning of next year. He is consensus Top 100 prospect across the board. The Rays actually got Mead from the Phillies in a trade for a Minor League relief pitcher. Pretty good deal.  

In this group, I like Rene Pinto and Luis Patino. The Rays got Patino from the Padres for Blake Snell. Rene Pinto is a catcher who seems fairly talented, but he's on his third season in a row with the Bulls.  As good as the Rays are at making their own players, they are not good with catchers. Pinto is honestly one of the better homegrown catchers I have seen over the past decade.  

Card backs, a little crooked.  

Last few players along with the manager, pitching coach, hitting coach, and strength and conditioning coach. Brian Reith is the only coach on the Bulls who played in the Majors. He was a middle reliever and spot starter for the Reds in the early 2000s and ended his career with an ERA of almost 6.  

The bios of the coaching staff.  

Trainer, trainer, bench coach, mascot. 

 I like Wool E. Bull's giant Championship Ring. I have never seen him with that ring.  

That's all for the official 2023 Durham Bulls team set. Funny thing, I basically ran into a second Durham Bulls team set this week. I will have to post it in the next few days.  

New Season, New Players

We are 60 games into the Minor League Season.  

I have been to a few Durham Bulls games this year.  

There are a lot of new faces on the team this year and I have been working hard the last few weeks to pick up some cards from the new players. I am going to sort them out by quality of prospect, but some of these players are flying completely under the baseball card radar.  

First up, Taj Bradley.  

He's actually pitched a bunch of games with the Rays this year. As good as the Rays have been, they have had a ton of pitching injuries. Taj Bradley is a Top 100 Prospect across the board, throws hard, and looks like all the other pitchers the Rays crank out. Somehow he has a bunch of autographs that are between $10-$20. I have not seen Taj in person yet this year, but I imagine the Rays will send him back to Triple A once some other pitchers come back.  

Next up is Curtis Mead.  

He's going to be the third baseman for Rays at some point, but he's currently on the injured list for the Bulls. Mead is not a new face. He debuted with the Bulls back in 2021. I actually got to see his Triple A debut, which was a little odd. The Rays had to call someone up unexpectedly, the Bulls had a thin roster, so they promoted Mead from A Ball (Charleston, SC) because he could drive to Durham for the game. 

I went for Adley Rutschman, but also got Curtis Mead and Felix Bautista.  

Mead is another Top 100 Prospect. He's also Australian, that's a bonus. 

You do not get many MLB players from Idaho, but Kyle Manzardo is from the Potato State. He is also another Top 100 Prospect. Good looking first baseman/outfielder, nice looking left-handed swing.  Super cheap baseball cards too.  

This is actually a double. I picked it up in a trade, but still love Jonathan Aranda. He was on the Bulls last year, back this year. Aranda can hit, but does not really have a defensive position. Should I say it?

He's a Top 100 Prospect, but only on the Baseball America list.  

That's four Top 100 Prospects and none of them are the best player I have seen in a Bulls game this year. It's tough watching the Bulls some days. 

On to a pair of non-Top 100 Prospects.  

Picked up a pair of Kameron Misner cards. He's a Missouri native, from Poplar Bluff, and also played at Mizzou during college. Misner was drafted by the Marlins and traded to the Rays last summer for Joey Wendle. No Rays cards yet, so I went for a Marlins rookie card and a sparkly Mizzou card from Panini. 

Misner is a really good defender in the outfield, but not the best hitter. Although, he has a crazy walk rate. Misner has around 200 at-bats and has walked almost 40 times. He's doesn't quite lead the league, but close.  

Last one for tonight. 

Tanner Murray has only played a few games this year. Three of them were with the Bulls. Why did I get this card?  I am a sucker for combined shipping and this card was two dollars. That's a pretty good deal for a Bowman Chrome autograph.  

Murray was decent in the lower Minors the past two years, so why not?  

A few more Durham Bulls related cards next week.  

Troppo Prices Or Not?

Troppo is a term sometimes used by Australians to refer to someone who is behaving in a crazy manner.  

See video clip of Australian politician below for further context. 

I am using the slang term "Troppo" with this post, because I am talking about Rays third base prospect Curtis Mead, who is Australian. Mead spent a chunk of his 2022 season playing locally with the Durham Bulls. Obviously the reason I am interested in his baseball cards.  

Curtis Mead is a nice player who appears in many of the rankings produced by publication who keep track of such things. People who collect baseball cards have read these rankings and are currently paying some large amounts of money for Curtis Mead autographs.

I have seen Curtis Mead play a few times in person, but have no interest in paying $125 for his Bowman Chrome autograph. Zero.  

Curtis is good and all, but I could just go buy a Stan Musial autograph if I was going to sink $125 into baseball cards this afternoon. That price has gone done over the summer too. Considering this was the only Curtis Mead autograph floating around the majority of the summer, I was a little sad.

No Curtis Mead autograph for me.  

Recently, I was reading on Cardboard Connections (I infrequently write for them too), that Curtis Mead was included in the 2022 Pro Debut autograph checklist.  

I was counting on being able to afford a Curtis Mead autograph out of Pro Debut, but the prices have been something unexpected. In a good way though. This card cost me less than $10.  

Yes, it's a sticker autograph.

No, I do not care in this case.  

It's a Durham Bulls autograph.  

Back of the card and we can see that Curtis Mead actually started his professional career with the National League Champion (They are playing right now) Philadelphia Phillies.  Mead was traded to the Rays for Christopher Sanchez.  

Bowman. Peanut Butter Patties. Shortbread.

During Girl Scout Cookie season, all of your family and work friends with girls in the scouts spend weeks pushing overpriced, five dollars boxes of cookies in your face telling you their daughter needs a badge. When you go to the grocery store on Saturday afternoon, because your wife forgot buy Italian parsley when she was at the store earlier in the week, you will get hounded again with $5 boxes of cookies. 

No matter how many different types of cookies are on the order sheet, or how many boxes are stacked up on the table, we all know that there are only a few Girl Scout Cookies that are worthy of the $5 sticker price. Will I pay $5 for a box of Thin Mints, Peanut Butter Patties, or Caramel deLites? 

All day, every day. 

Stan Musial, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, and Peanut Butter Patties.  

All-time greats. 

We all know that there are some lesser Girl Scout cookie flavors. For starters, the Shortbread and Peanut Butter Sandwich cookies are dry, bland, and utterly unfit of their brand name. Why am I going to pay $5 for a peanut butter cookie that has the texture of a Triscuit cracker when I can spend the same amount of money to buy Nutter Butters, which taste better and are shaped like a peanut.  

Nobody is going to mistake Nutter Butters for Bob Gibson or Sandy Koufax, but they are solid long-term player in the cookie world. Adam Wainwright, David Price, Don Newcombe, Nutter Butters. 

Bowman baseball cards are very much like Girl Scout Cookies.  

They came out recently and my social media feeds are now loaded with collectors pushing cards of 18 year-olds few have seen in person, but they swear on their best-friend's, brother's, college roommate's, nephew's, mother-in-law's grave that they found a card of a guy who is going to be a Hall of Famer within the next two decades. 

"Buy this card of the Angels A-Ball catcher! He's 18, but I know he's going to be a star! Just $200 shipped!" 

It's essentially the same sales pitch as the really mediocre Girl Scout Cookie flavors.  

As sure as there are Peanut Butter Patties, I am sure that some current Minor League baseball player will eventually go on to be a Hall of Famer. I am also certain, as a person who ate one of those Lemon Girl Scout Cookies last year because my daughter (not a girl scout) wanted to try them, that many current Minor Leaguers will amount to little as a professional baseball player.  

I recently ran into a box of Bowman baseball cards. The $30 blaster boxes at Wal-Mart, not the $400 jumbo boxes at baseball card shops. Nobody needs to read a "What I Learned Sleeping In The Wooded Lot Behind My House" post on this blog.  

I thought it would be fun to look at some of the cards I pulled. I am not making any predictions outside of saying that I typically put together a Bowman set every year.  Afterwards, I put it in a box. I put the box in a closet. I ignore the box for five or six years.    

Let me start by saying, as a person who watches and follows Minor League baseball, I am slightly disappointed that Curtis Mead is not flying under the radar this year. After quietly following him from a far last year, I think he's for sure a Peanut Butter Patty, Caramel deLite, or Thin Mint. Curtis has more pop than Wander, naturally more strikeouts, but he hits for a high average and is on-base all the time. I hate how much his cards cost and I don't want to be your friend if you have bought one of these cards off of Ebay for more than $300.  

Go away.  

Back to baseball cards. 

Cookies too.  

Bowman is geared for young players, but I am still going to mention some old guys. 

Albert and Yadi are definitely Peanut Butter Patty kind of players.  

I love that Bowman has a set of 100 veteran players taking up space in their packs. Who buys Bowman cards for the veterans? Even if they are high-end Girl Scout Cookie worthy, they are just pack filler.  

Next up, not a peanut butter patty player. If you are reading this blog and it's after 2037, feel free to make fun of me or giving me a high-five for calling any of these prospect cards correctly.  

Last year's first overall draft selection, Henry Davis. He's been very good playing down the road in Greensboro. It's not the Majors, but it is one of the best low-Minor League parks around. Henry is going to be a solid Major League player. I am going to guess he's a Caramel DeLight.  

I also pulled a rookie card of former Durham Bulls shortstop, Wander Franco.  

A lot of people think Wander is a Peanut Butter Patty kind of player.  I hope they're right. Personally, I agree with the take, but I will add that I think he's a Thin Mint or Caramel deLight at worst.  

Wander is a high basement, high ceiling player.  

Here is the back of the card.  

There is no mention of the Durham Bulls, but Wander does love Instagram.  

Although, Wander does not drive a sports car. He has a Mercedes SUV. It's in every picture on his account that features a car. He parked it in the wrong parking spot last year and the Rays players moved it onto one of the practice fields at Spring Training.  

Hazing people at work is such a Shortbread cookie sort of move.  

Next up, Juan Yepez.  

I am excited to see Juan get a new baseball card. It's been a few years since he got a Braves prospect card, so a Cardinals rookie card is a welcome site. For the love of the Cardinals offense, I hope he's at least a Thin Mint. The team's offense is on a bigger struggle bus than a table full of Boy Scout Popcorn.  

Gross.  

Spencer Torkelson.  Definitely a thin mint, maybe even a Caramel deLite.  

Former NC State catcher, Luca Tresh. He's off to a surprising start in the Minors. I would love to say that Luca Tresh would be some prime grade Girl Scout Cookie, but I am not sure. Seems like the type of player who might be destined for a role as a utility player. Maybe one of those Keebler knock-offs.  I will go with Coconut Dreams.  

Next up, Vidal Brujan.  

What is the flashiest Girl Scout Cookie that may or may not disappoint?  

Maybe one of those gluten Girl School Cookies?  

Those are hip and trendy. Some gluten-free food is good, some gluten-free food is bad. 

Is Vidal Brujan a good player? 

Maybe.  

Are the Toffee-Tastic cookies good cookies?  

Maybe.