2018 International League All-Star Set Part 2

Part 1 of the set can be found here. 

Back half of the set has a little more star power than the first half. 

Good first pair of cards to start out the second half.  Meadows actually finished the year with the Durham Bulls.  He was traded to the Rays as a part of the Chris Archer deal.  Seems like he's at least a good everyday Major League player.  Not counting on him being in Durham next year, it was fun watching him for the last few weeks of the season.  

Mejia is one of the best catching prospects in the game.  Consensus top 20 prospect, with Baseball Prospectus ranking him in their top 5.  He started the year with the Clippers, but the Indians included him in the Brad Hand trade, so he is now with the Padres.  They have called him up to the Majors to finished out 2018.  

Riley is a top 100 prospect.  He spent the majority of 2018 in Triple A with Gwinnett, but he is just 21.  He is a really good defensive player, had a good year with the bat, but could probably use a little bit more polish.  Riley will be back in Triple A next year, at least to start the year, but he is not far away.  

Rainey had a good year with Louisville.  Definitely deserves a place in this set, not sure where he fits on a Major League roster.  He's probably a middle reliever.  Lots of swings and misses in the Minors, not sure if he can replicate that in the Majors.  

Victor Robles is a top 10 prospect no matter what prospecting website you are reading.  He just turned 21 this year, I know he had been up twice with the Nationals and not done much, but be patient.  He gets a lot of extra base hits, doubles and triples, that are going to find there way over fences in a few years as he continues to work and fill out.  

Stolen bases are good too.  Victor steals bases.  

Romero has been up for awhile with the Twins.  Seems like he is going to be an end of the rotation starter.  Pitches to contact, not a lot of strikeouts, but he seems to keep his team in the game.

Tanner Scott only pitched 10 games with Norfolk this year.  Not sure how he got into this set.  The 10 games were really good, he had an ERA of 0.75.  Tanner Scott is now a reliever on the Orioles.  The Orioles have over 100 loses and there are two weeks left in the season.  Tanner's ERA is almost 6.  It's probably not entirely his fault.  

Which brings us to Nick Senzel.  Early this summer I got to see Nick Senzel.  I sat in front of a Reds fan who told me he's the second coming of Scott Rolen for six or seven innings.  I like Nick Senzel, he is a good player, he's not Scott Rolen.  Senzel gets on base, plays good defense, and has some pop.  Less pop than Scott Rolen, less defense than Scott Rolen too.   

Stephens is a nice pitcher.  He's a college pitcher out of Rice, given the White Sox current slate of pitchers, I am not sure why he isn't up already.  Stephens is not a Top 100 prospect, not even sure the White Sox sites rank him in their Top 10.  He eats up innings, he gets some strikeouts, avoids big innings, and keeps his team in games.  I like him better than 50% of the pitchers currently on the White Sox.  

Sheffield is a pretty big prospect.  He's a top 100 guy, Yankees fans will probably tell you he's better than that.  Could be.  He's got good stuff and he misses bats.  At worst he is probably a solid Major League starter.  Hopefully that is good enough for Yankees fans. 

Two players I saw in college.  

D.J. Stewart has a crazy batting stance. 

One of my student's parents once blamed D.J. Stewart for messing up their batting stance.  I think it's a bad left handed version of Jeff Bagwell.  I have my doubts about D.J..  

Christin Stewart does not have a crazy batting stance.  He was one of the better power hitters in the International League this year and think he will be a good Major League player for the Tigers.  Really good plate discipline for a younger player with power.  He is a starting outfielder for a long time. 

Last pair.  

I like Sam Travis.  He hustles, plays hard, and puts up some decent numbers.  That's all I have got.  

Gleyber Torres is really good.  He will be on the Yankees for a very long time and will be a good player.  All-Star games, the whole nine yards.  

That's the set.  Hopefully you are not reading this five years after I posted it because I was horribly wrong about something I said here. 

Things I Am Sorting...Part 2

I might have to do two of these posts this week.  During Spring Break I began the process of remodeling my baseball card room.  My card room has always been my little corner of the house complete with a television I bought in 2004 and refused to throwout and some old furniture.  Same as the television, not parting with any of it.  New furniture and television along with a little calmer paint job means that a lot of cards that were sitting out got put away.

Here's a look at the paint job.  The room was red, now two different colors of grey...

The cards that got put away were kind of put places.  Anywhere.  

Before the remodel I had set out a lot of doubles from different sets that I had sorted out onto a desk.  I not only put the cards away to avoid the risk of paint splatter and drips, but also because I got rid of the desk.  The cards on the desk were put into about a dozen 800 count boxes, four 3,200 count boxes, and the rest were stacked up in a closet.  The top view of the desk is on the right, closet on the left.  More on these cards later in the week.

There are plenty of cards to sort at the moment, so I am focusing my time and energy today working on sorting out my cards from Topps Series 2 and Pro Debut.  I opened a box of Series 2 awhile ago, I just haven't made a post about them.

There are all sorts of photo variations and the whatnot in there, so here are my hit cards....

This Pham autograph is obviously my favorite.  He had an autograph in Topps Update last year, but for some reason it is crazy expensive.  I understand that Cardinals collectors can be rather enthusiastic at times, but come guys...he's a fourth outfielder.  I like picture on the card and Pham has a nice signature.  Here are my other two cards.....

I am really burned out on the manufactured cards this year and probably plain pieces of relic too.  Yawn.  The base set is what you would expect out of a base Topps set, same with the parallels.  I have not pulled an acetate yet this year, haven't bought one either, think that's going to change soon though.  

Which brings me to my last thing I am sorting this week.  I ended up with a box of Topps Pro Debut about two weeks ago.  I am not going to recount the whole story about how the box came to be in my house, but I made a trade and ended up with the box.  It's not what I traded for.  Reminded me a little bit of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry gets a van and Kramer tries to trade for it, but instead of a van it was baseball cards.....

I actually really like the cards, not quite sure why I did not pull the trigger with my local card on buying a box of this product.  Minor League cards are way up my alley.  I could do a post with just the base cards, and will at some point, but for the moment I will share my hits out of the box.

First up, my two autographs.  

Justus Sheffield was a first round draft pick of the Indians in 2014 and is playing this year in the Carolina League with Lynchburg.  I have seen the Hillcats this year, but I missed out on seeing him pitch while they were in town.  Currently he is striking out about a batter per inning, has a 3 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio, and has an ERA just below 4.  Not bad.  Baseball America has him ranked as the fourth best prospect in the Indians system at the moment.  

Next up is Brewers outfield prospect Omar Garcia.  Well, I am not sure that this guy is much of a prospect actually.  Garcia is in his fourth year in the Brewers system, is unranked on every top prospect list out there, and has played just 11 games at Double A.  He's a speed guy, but the problem is that he does not always get on base.  Last year he stole 53 bases for Brevard County, but had a .318 OBP.  That's not going to hack it.  

Next.  The manufactured stuff.  

Franklin Barreto is a really good pull out of a prospect set.  He's one of the better prospects in the minors at the moment, most major publications place him in the Top 50 and at the top of the list for the A's.  He was originally a Blue Jays international signing, but was traded for Josh Donaldson.  There are different levels of the pennant cards, with this being the gold, and numbered to 50 copies.  

Two more.  

Umm.  I have seen this card before, but you can never have too many Wool E. Bull cards.  Last one, promise.  

I also landed a printing plate of Mariners pitcher Edwin Diaz.  There are always a few guys in the Pro Debut set who have cracked the Majors and Diaz is one of them.  He's appeared in 17 games this year for the Mariners and has some really good numbers like: 17.3 K/9, 2.89 FIP, and a 164 ERA+.  This card pictures Diaz on the Jackson Generals, Double A, where he started the season and skipped over Triple A.  He was a starter in the Minors, but still had good numbers with high strikeout totals.