Two Roads Diverged In A Yellow Wood

I have had two Pro Debut autographs sitting on my desk now for the better part of three weeks.  I have actually been waiting for the short season to start so that I can write a little bit about one of the players.  I probably should have just gone ahead and done some sort of write up instead of this one with a Robert Frost quote as its title.

The two prospects have kind of gone in two different directions this year.  Two roads if you will.  Numbers say they are diverging, not converging.

High road first which belongs to one of the greatest Wake Forest Demon Deacon baseball players ever.  Here is the card....

For years Will Craig was in Winston-Salem and all he did was hit the baseball.  He's now playing for the Pirates in A-Ball, after being their first round draft pick in the 2016 amateur draft, and all he is doing is hitting the ball.  In 70 games with Bradenton in the Florida State League the 1B prospect has a .291/.392/.423 line with 5 home runs, 18 doubles, and 37 RBIs.  I know a lot of people, myself included, thought he was going to hit for a ton of power in professional ball, but I am thinking something more along the lines of Sean Casey.  

This is my second Will Craig autograph.  Cool to see him in a Minor League uni on a card, especially because I think this might be my first West Virginia Black Bears card.  I am not sure at what point they changed their name to the Black Bears from the Power, but I like it.  Cool little logo too.  

Nothing to sneeze at.  Now the player I wrongly stalled for, or the low road.  Card....

Delvin Perez was drafted by the Cardinals last year in the first round because he failed a drug test and slipped all the way down the bottom of the first round.  His cards have still been expensive and there is still plenty of hype around the young shortstop.  I was hoping the season would start off well for Delvin and I could make a cool post.

Not really happening.

Like all else that has gone terrible for the Cardinals this year Delvin Perez is off to a rather slow start.  I mean like a bad six games, but I am impatient.  So far he has a .130/.230/.130 slash line with just three singles.  Seems like a drastic flip out over a small size.  True, but I am also going on vacation and trying to clear off my desk.

I am managing my expectations for the Cardinals the rest of the summer.  The bar is pretty low at this point.

Risky Cards

Bowman rolled out this week.  It's always one of my staple baseball card products that I work on every year and at some point this year I will stick my toe in the water.  It might be another week or two around here before I get around to getting to a card shop to find a box or two.  In the meantime, I have been scoping out a few single cards out of this year's set that I have run across on different trade groups or on Ebay.

While I was working on putting together a trade for one the Cardinals cards I actually ended up with a cool Cardinals Bowman card from last year.  One of those cards that was a little bit more than what I would spend on a prospect card, but I felt good with the price of the card in terms of trade.  If I going to trade for a more expensive prospect card I'd rather give up other prospect cards and not older  established players.....

This card cost me a small stack of prospect cards.  I can live without them for the most part.  One of them made me a little a sad, but it was something that I can find again.

The card that came my way belongs to last year's Cardinals first round pick Delvin Perez......

Perez was actually supposed to be taken at the top of the first round, but ended up failing a PED test which dropped him down to the Cardinals.  It seems like the Cardinals always take a college pitcher in the first round, but they veered a bit last year by taking the high school infielder.

This card has always been pretty pricy during the past year, and with Perez being in the low Minors, it seemed like a risky proposing to me.  Depending on the version of the autograph that you buy, this Perez card can be send anywhere from $35 cards and up.  In terms of a Cardinals rookie card, Perez is not in the neighborhood of Pujols in 2001, or J.D. Drew in 1998, but he is certainly more than other recent high draft picks like Michael Wacha and Stephen Piscotty.

More importantly, I actually like the start that Perez got off to last year in his first at-bats in professional baseball.  He had a total of 180 plate appearances and posted a slash line of .294/.352/.393 with eight doubles and four triples.  No home runs, but I like that he got on base and he was also able to steal 12 bases.  I'd love to see more power, but Delvin Perez is just 18 and is 6'3.  I'm sure he will fill out a bit, the Cardinals will put him in a weight room, and he will continue to grow as a hitter.

Beyond the Delvin Perez card I also did manage to pick up a few 2017 Bowman autographs.  I also landed a freebie of "The Koz" who is sort of a cult classic in many Cardinals fans collection.  If you do not know "The Koz" he was the team's shortstop for a few seasons, hit about .200 in his best year. He also let a fly ball fall in between himself and Matt Holliday in a playoff game, but was bailed out by an infield fly call......

in better news he also once had a series clinching hit against the Nationals back in 2012.

I don't have many cards of "The Koz", but I always enjoy them when I run across one.  I didn't have this card, so it was a really cool throw-in from my trading partner.  

I will have a post up on my new Bowman autographs sometime in the near future.