A Trip To The Co-Op

Everyone has written up something about their 2017 cards.  I am slowing down a bit this year, so I am doing a little more picking and choosing of sets to collect.  I set out recently to my local card, The Trading Card Co-Op to check out two different products.  In past years I have really enjoyed opening boxes of Heritage and Gypsy Queen, so they seemed like something good to work on.  I'd like to think of them as kind of staple products, or sets that are long running that I have been opening since whenever they started..... Beyond Gypsy Queen and Heritage, I also picked up a single card which fit nicely into my card collection.

New single card.

Love the black card with the gold signature and gold foil.  I am a little depressed about the Cardinals at the moment, so I am just going to leave this card here and move on to my Heritage box.  

The 1968 set is not my favorite, but it's not terrible.  I have always heard it described as the "burlap sack" set.  Good description, but I have always felt that was kind of a negative and I don't really see this set as one that I would run away from.  Besides, my box was pretty sweet.  The card above is a mini and the card below is a mini.

I think mini cards are supposed to be one per box, but mine had two.  Beating the odds is always good.  I also got a chrome Rizzo card.  Another good name to go along with the Posey and Machado.

I had one of cool parallel card which I did not scan because I did not find it until I started sorting out my cards into making my set.  One of those things you miss the first time around because it just doesn't stand out.  The other card was a grey back card which I believe are limited to just 10 copies.  All sounds good, but the card is the Rockies team card.  Not the best, but I am sure I can trade somewhere, or something like that.

On to the autograph.  I cannot complain about this one at all either.....

I actually spent the last few days watching the Cardinals play the Yankees, don't mention the outcomes, but Judge seems to be a really impressive player.  I am going to file this card away in a box and revisit it in the future.  Hopefully Aaron Judge has a nice career, if not I will look back and remember when I could have sold this card for more than $50, but now it's under $5 on COMC.....I like my chances of it staying pretty high.

Shall we Gypsy Queen?  I am going to do this one quickly.  My two autographs....

two pretty good young players.  The Severino is serial numbered to 150.  The Piscotty is not numbered, but it is always nice to pull an autograph that fits into my collection out of a box of cards.  A few other hits, not showing them all.  

My best non-autographed card, might be even better than my autographs, is a Manny Machado throwback variation.  The card is also missing the his position above his name, so this is a short print within a short print.  Way too over complicate things Topps.  Still a cool card.  

I pulled three other color variations out of the Gypsy Queen box.  The Car-Go card is a black and white variation and serial numbered out 50, Dozier and Judge are both purple and serial numbered out of 250.  

I also pulled a couple of cards with no name on the front and a few others with out the player's position above their name.  It seems like you get a couple of these per box based on what I have seen out of other people's pictures around Twitter and Instagram.  

Overall, I am happy to have finally picked up boxes of these two products.  I pulled some really cool cards out of the boxes and also am enjoying the new Matt Carpenter autograph.  Overall, a good day at the local card shop.  

A Bowman Cardinal With A Yankee. Twice.

I kind of skipped over the whole Bowman thing this year which is really unusual for me since I really like following along with the Minor Leagues.  I ended up not completely skipping the set outright, I did end up with a copy of the set, I just didn't bust open any packs to put together.  Just helped out by the generosity of a case breaker.  It's a little late to the party, but I have put together a few autographs from Bowman over the past few weeks.

My first Bowman autograph is a Cardinals prospect.  I bought the card and the seller threw in a Yankees autograph really cheap, so I couldn't pass it up....

This Piscotty autograph was one of the first cards I wanted to find out of Bowman.  I have been looking for a new Cardinals player to collect and have enjoyed picking up some Piscotty cards the last few months.  The right fielder is also having a great season with a .299/.374/.497 slash line, 13 home runs, 23 doubles, and 53 RBIs.  Looks a lot better than whatever Jason Heyward is batting at the moment.

My cheap Yankees autograph.....

Luis Severino was a really highly touted prospect back in 2015, but has not really done well in the Majors.  This year he is winless and has an ERA of 7.46.  At the same time he has pitched really well for Scranton in the International League.  I guess if he does not pan out this can go in my good Minor Leaguers box, but hopefully he can put it together for the Yankees.

So, my next two Bowman cards are similar to the first two autographs: One Cardinals autograph that I wanted and a Yankees card that was sort of put into the trade.  Cardinals autograph first:

Little bit of a gamble here, but DeJong has been one of the Cardinals better power prospects.  The team is not really great at developing power hitters, but this former Illinois State star might break the mold.  Last year DeJong hit 9 home runs in just 66 games in Rookie and A Ball.  This year he's on the Cardinals Double A affiliate in Springfield, Missouri where he has 17 home runs, 17 doubles, and 59 doubles.  Sounds good until you look at the 104 strikeouts and .314 OBP.  The Cardinals already have Randal Grichuk.....

My Yankees more or less throw in.....

Feel like Refsnyder is somewhat similar to Severino in some regards.  He's been good in the Minors, played better in the Majors than Severino, but not sure if the Yankees are going to give him much of a chance with Starlin Castro playing second.  I keep waiting for him to be traded......either of them.

Friday Five: Top 5 Rookie Pitchers from 2015

Yesterday I looked at the top position players, so it's the pitchers today.  Tomorrow I will take on the Topps All-Rookie Team and see how they did assembling a team of rookies.  Like I said earlier, it was a tough task this year.  Here are my top 5 pitchers......

5.  Roberto Osuna RP Toronto Blue Jays

The 20 year old Osuna helped the Blue Jays at the back end of their bullpen this year.  He was pretty impressive at times, but I still think he could use a little bit more polish.  He ended the 2015 season with 20 saves, a 0.91 WHIP, and an ERA+ of 153.  Not many 20 year olds get to step into the closers role, especially for a playoff team.  Best rookie relief pitcher this season, so he makes the list at 5....

4.  Aaron Nola P Philadelphia Phillies 

Nola pitched about a quarter of the season for a really bad Phillies team and managed to post a 6-2 record with a respectable ERA, WHIP, and strikeout rate.  I am a little hesitant about his long term upside as far as being a top of the line starter, but he is at least a very good middle of the rotation pitcher.  I like him better than pitchers like Andrew Heaney and Taylor Jungmann, but not sure he's really in the same class as players like Syndergaard.  Still a good start to his career and worthy of making my list of rookie pitchers....

3.  Noah Syndergaard P New York Mets 

Snydergaard is a very high potential pitching prospect.  If I were making this list based on potential, it would be pretty ridiculous to put him this low.  However, every player has to start somewhere and this is where I am going to slot him.  He pitched 2/3 of the season with the Mets, won 9 games, and had an excellent strikeout ratio.  There is still some room for improvement in Sydergaard's game though.  Like keeping the ball in the stadium

2.  Lance McCullers P Houston Astros 

I think Syndergaard will be better than McCullers in the long run, but for 2015 Lance did a nice job of helping the Astros to the American League West pennant.  McCullers had a decent ERA, WHIP, and struck out more than a batter per inning.  His won-loss record wasn't great, but he did a nice job of helping to stabilize the rotation.  At the end of the year McCullers had an ERA+ of 125 and a WAR of 2.4.  Good enough for second on my list.....

1.  Luis Severino P New York Yankees 

Severino only made 11 starts this year and managed to win five of those starts.  His innings were held down by the Yankees, but his metrics were very good.  Let's start out with  the fact that his WAR was 2.0, almost higher than Syndergaard, in half of the starts.  His strikeout rate was pretty good too along with a nice ERA+ of 137.  Severino is only 21 and should be a very good starter for the Yankees for a long time to come...