2018 Durham Bulls Team Set Part 2

Part 1 of the Durham Bulls team set for 2018 can be found here.  Here's the second half of the set....

Feels like there were a whole bunch of former Mariners players on this year's squad.  Andrew Moore was one of them.  He spent some time up with the Mariners last year, but was not very good with them.  He did pitch really well with Tacoma though and they are in a really hard part of the Pacific Coast League for pitchers.  Pitched decently with the Bulls this year.  I think there is some hope with him.  

Russell is a North Carolina native and a graduate of the light blue ACC school.  Seems like 

Russell is a North Carolina native and a graduate of the light blue ACC school.  Seems like a solid defender, but I am not sure he is ever going to hit in professional baseball.  The Rays have a ton of versatile infielder types too.  Maybe somewhere else.  

Schultz went to High Point University which is not far from Durham.  He misses a lot of bats, but he has been in the Minors for a long time, a few in Durham.  Not sure why a guy with as many strikeouts as Schultz keeps ending up in the Minors.  The Rays used him as a relief pitcher this year, started last season, still misses a lot of bats.  

Forrest Snow is another former Mariner.  He's 29 and in Triple A.  Solid starter this year in Triple A, but I am not sure what sort of future he has in the Majors. 

Velazquez spent a chunk of the year in Durham.  Seems like a solid player, in that mix of really versatile infielders that the Rays have on their 40 man roster.  Velazquez ended up in the Majors for awhile the Rays.  Definitely a future in the Majors.  

Snyder has been around for awhile.  Good older player to have around.  He has been in the Majors a few times and has been a very good player in Triple A.  Seems like a good guy.  

Justin Williams ended the season with the Cardinals Triple A team after being traded away for Tommy Pham.  He actually won a Triple A National Championship ring after the Memphis Redbirds defeated the Bulls.  It was the third time the two teams have played in the Triple A National Championship Game.  The Bulls had won the last two.  

Did I mention there were a lot of former Mariners players on the Bulls this year?  Meet Ryan Weber.  

Hunter wood became one of the "Openers" for the Rays.  Good pitcher.  Does not make all of those prospect lists, but seems to have a Major League arm and a good idea of what he is trying to do.  I very much enjoy watching him pitch.  He has a few other cards out there, might pick up a few of them this offseason.  

Kean is Kolten's brother.  Similar player, but the Rays have a ton of middle infielders and Kean is not better than most of them.  I think he's trade bait.  Definitely a Major League player, just not in Tampa.  

Rick Knapp has been around a long time as a coach.  Read the biography on the back of the card.  Sandberg has been the Bulls' manager for a few years now, really grown as a manager.  He's only 40, so he should get a shot at coaching or managing at that level at some point.  

Dement is a career Minor League guy.  Played for awhile, has coached for awhile.  There are tons of coaches like this, invaluable to the organization for the sake of consistency.  

Ben Johnson was actually a Cardinals draft pick, even has some Bowman autographs in a Cardinals uniform, as well as a long time Padres farm hand.  I am not sure how long he has been coaching, but he seemed to do a good job this year.  

Last card.  Best card?  

Everyone loves the Bull.  

Finally Something From The Jeremy Hellickson Trade....

I started writing in this space at some point during the Spring of 2012. One of the better young players I collected at that time was Rays pitcher Jeremy Hellickson. He had been through Durham just a few years earlier and had also won the American League Rookie of The Year in 2011.  It was a good time to collect his cards, he was in everything.  No shortage of Hellickson cards to chase down and post.

I should do a "Where Are They" post about players I wrote about five years ago.  I am going to file that idea away for later.  Back to Hellickson.  I collected his stuff.

This is a ticket from his first win.  

At some point Hellickson's shoulder fell off, he ended up back in Durham for awhile on injury rehab, and eventually the Rays traded him to the Diamondbacks for a couple of young players.  When the trade first happened, I ventured out and found a token autograph of outfielder Justin Williams, one of the players the Rays got back in the trade. 

Pretty nice autograph from Bowman Sterling.  There are some horrendous sticker autographs in this set, but this Williams autograph has a nice on card signature.  Very nice card, but that was three and half years ago.  What has happened since then?  Jeremy Hellickson has been on the Diamondbacks, Phillies, Orioles, and Nationals, while Justin Williams has gone from A Ball all the way up to Triple A.  I have not really written anything about him, nor have I done much with his cards.  

I had the chance to get a good look at Williams a few weeks ago.  Pretty impressive outfielder.  

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He's still only 22, and this is his first experience in Triple A, so I would guess he's with the Bulls the entire 2018 season.  Given how the Rays run things, I would guess he's in Durham for some time in 2019 too.  Which gives me a little bit of time to work on some Justin Williams baseball cards.  

Surprisingly, he does not have a lot of cards.  Topps made a few of him when he was first drafted by the Diamondbacks in 2013 and 2014, and his first full season with the Rays in 2015.  After a two year lull, Topps did put him in 2018 Bowman, but I am a sane person and have not touched that craziness.  

Low quantity of cards, so I started all the way back with his first Bowman card from 2013.....  

his Bowman Draft Chrome autograph.  Yes, I have been really hard on the Bowman Draft sets in the past, especially the 2013 set.  I believe that I did a post, it's somewhere around here, about how this is one of the worst airbrushed sets ever.  The airbrushing on this Williams card is not great by any means, the D-Backs script on his jersey is pretty suspect.  So small and really straight.  The batting helmet is the same style worn by the high school kids in the Perfect Game All-American program and the stripe on his pants clearly does not match with the Diamondbacks uniform.  

So, now that all of that is out of the way, I really think this is likely the toughest autograph of Williams to find, and I love that it has an on-card signature.  Interestingly, the Sterling and Draft cards were put out roughly within the same time period, late 2013, and Williams signature seems to have changed during that time.  Not markedly different, but outside of the letter "J" there are a lot of little changes.  

Back of the card. 

Always some interesting facts on the backs of the Bowman Draft cards.  Some are standard fare, like his choice of college if he had gone that route, while others are always a little bit more interesting.  Really thought it was cool that he used a wood bat during his senior year of school.  

The Things You'll Find While Shuffling Through Your Boxes, Want Lists, Bowl Games, and Other Minutiae

I spent a little bit of time yesterday watching the NC State football game and sorting and filing some cards.  The Wolfpack was stuck at five wins on the season and needed one more to get to a bowl game this year.  Enter Wake Forest.  Last year State did not win a conference game and did not make a bowl game for the first time in a long time.  Yesterday was a big step forward:

I got a lot done with my cards too.  I started to compile a wish list of cards that I would like to add to my collection and was also able to extract a huge stack of nice duplicates and other items to use as trade bait.  As quickly as the list was made a few cards were quickly eliminated.  It's amazing what you will find when you do a little bit of cleaning.  I think my mom told me that all the time back in the day.  Probably should have listened a little better.....

Here's my first card checked off the list.  It was sitting right here in a box......

If you have not kept track of all the off season happenings the Rays traded Snorting Bull favorite, and former Durham Bull, Jeremy Hellickson to the Diamondbacks for a pair of highly regarded minor league prospects.  One of them is former second round draft pick Justin Williams.  The outfielder has hit for a high average and shown great ability to get on-base.  We just need a little power.  Williams will likely be in Durham at some point, so I might as well get a start on finding his cards.  Right?  

I have no idea how I got this card.  It's not a very old card and I never posted on this blog.  I am going to guess it was a throw in at some point, but I am really glad it is here.  I will have to publish my list somehow when I finish it off.  Maybe over Thanksgiving Break.  How many collectors have want lists?  How many collectors publish their want lists?