Finest? Not This Year.

I am usually a big fan of the Finest product.  If you are willing to give the title of "classic" to a modern card product, this would be a long running brand that would be worthy of that honor in the opinion of many collectors.

In recent years, I feel like the brand has done a good job of returning to its roots.  It had sort of drifted off into the wilderness at some point in the mid 2000s, but Topps did a sort of reboot with the brand in 2013 for it's 20 anniversary/birthday.  The reboot included an insert set with 2013 players on the 1993 designed cards.

Some of the others years since have also been strong.  I have not done much with the base sets, but I have still tried to find the Cardinals and Durham Bulls autographs.  Always some nice cards to add to the collection.  I think my favorite of these autographs has to be a Carlos Martinez I picked up out of the 2016 Finest set.....

Which brings me back to this year's Finest set.  I feel like we are somehow back in the wilderness again with this year's design.  The difference between the Martinez autograph and the cards below are pretty stark.  The Martinez card has a simple colored bar on the right side with a team logo.  Add in a splash of color on my copy.  Simple designs are really easy to like.

Then we have this.....

What in the world is behind the players on this card?  It looks busy and complicated.  Apart of me thinks it looks like some random piece of graffiti which could be spray painted an overpass or sound wall.  You get the point.  

I ended up with five different autographs from this year's Finest set.  I used it as a chance to pick up a pair of autographs from players who are not in my collection and two players who are a focus of mine this year.  One is here just because....  Alcantara is the first, above.  He is no longer a Cardinal, traded for Marcell Ozuna, but Topps did not airbrush him into a Marlins uniform.  Gave me sort of a mulligan to find one of his cards.  

This Shaw card was for sale with the Alcantara card.  Saved a little on shipping, neither cost me much at all.  He is not an All-Star by any means, but a solid player with the Brewers after washing out with the Red Sox.  Saw him play for Pawtucket a few times a few years back too.  Always like getting cards of players I see in Triple A.  

Last three picked up in a trade off of a Facebook group.  

I like Matt Olson and I know that I have picked a few autographs of his last year when he caught fire with the A's.  He's likely to hit 30 home runs again this year, likely to strikeout more than 150 times.  I think he's the sort of player that the "modern baseball is horrible" crowd really hates.  He hits home runs.  This is also some sort of insert card, but it cannot be that hard to find based on the trade package I gave up for this card and the two below it.  

These are the two cards that I was really interested in when I started in on the Finest cards this year.  I have become a pretty big fan of Jack Flaherty this year.  Still not an ace by any means, but he's really young and I would at least go as far as saying he's one of the top two or three pitchers on the team at the moment.  Player collecting kind of stinks nowadays, but I am interested in getting my hands on some of his autographs this year.  

Last one.  I have been working on Banda cards this year too.  He was on the Durham Bulls for awhile this year, spent a bit of time with the Rays too, but was shut down with an elbow injury a few months back.  Banda ended up having Tommy John and is out for the remainder of this year, but I am still out trying to find some more of his cards.  A few more really good ones are coming soon.  

Matt Olson And His Chrome Friends

I had set my sights on adding a few Matt Olson cards late in the baseball season.  I was able to track down a few pre-2017 autographs before they took off in price, but I didn't think that I would get around to adding any of newer cards.

Welp.  I managed to pick up a Topps Chrome autograph, roughly two months ago, and paid the whopping price of $3.25.  It's been sitting on my desk for awhile, which is the price I pay for posting less often than I used to.

The card.....

is really nice.

I almost always pick up a few Chrome autographs every year.  Usually I target a card, win it in an auction, and then I can often find a few other Chrome cards that the seller has cheap that are ending close to the same time.

This year's winners are......

Mets fringy pitcher Seth Lugo.  I picked this card because it cost me $0.99 and I watched a game this spring where he pitched in the World Baseball Classic.  He did a pretty good job.  I can live with this card for $0.99.

Yes, Rob Zastryzny is a Cub, which would seem like a stretch for my collection as a random addition as a cheap Ebay card.  However, he is also a Mizzou alumni, so going to one of my preferred college rooting interests makes it a pretty good find for essentially a dollar.  

Brett Phillips is my last Chrome card.  He seems like a decent everyday player for the Brewers.  I was first introduced to Brett Phillips two years ago when he was apart of an on-field animal incident in the Minor Leagues.  All on-field animal incidents are usually pretty sweet......

Phillips running an opossum off the field is no different.  His card cost slightly more than the Zastryzny and Lugo cards, more like two dollars, but I am sure many other collectors also want this card for his ability to hit and run off animals.    

Like Rhys Hoskins, But Cheaper

There have been so many home run hits this year.  It seems that no matter what team's stat page you check out, there are tons of players who have crossed the 20 home run mark, or more.  Is it now common place that the majority of position players are going to end up hitting 20 home runs, give or take, assuming that they receive a decent number of plate appearances?

I decided to flip through my cards a few weekends ago to check out some of the cards that I had from the big home run hitters during this baseball season.

Of course there is Mike Stanton.....

who is nearing 60 home runs.  As a Cardinals fan, I remember the excitement around the McGwire/Sosa home run chase in 1998.  I got to see Big Mac's 70th home run in person.  It feels odd that there isn't a little more excitement surrounding Stanton's pursuit of number 60.  I will be watching this weekend, feels like more people should be too.

The American League has Aaron Judge.

He has crossed 50 home runs and broken Mark McGwire's rookie home run record, which was set with the A's in 1987.  Judge is not only leading the AL in home run, he also is leading the league in strikeouts and walks.  Pretty cool feat.  

As a Cardinals fan I have had fun watching Paul DeJong....

who has 25 home runs, 51 extra base hits, it just over 100 games this season.

Recently I decided that I was going to try and track down a few other players who have enjoyed break out season during this baseball season.  I made a list and went out looking for what was out there.  The most obvious choice, given I am going with the whole home run theme, would be to try to find a cool Rhys Hoskins card.  He was the International League MVP this year, so that's where I started my search.

However....

there are not many of them and they are all off brand, non-licensed, cards like Leaf and Panini.  Although someone tried to flip me one of these for my Judge autograph.  LOL.

So, I went to the second name on my list, which was Matt Olson from the Oakland A's.

and I was shocked.  It was the opposite of looking up Judge cards, or Hoskins cards.  I think Judge and Hoskins are fine players, but when you look up auctions for young players and think, "I could buy this card or a very nice Stan Musial card" it's time to just keep moving....

Olson's cards, when I bought this one, were under $10.  Has anyone actually look at his stat sheet?  They have doubled over the last week, or two, but I still ended up with two of his cards.  One for today, another for a different day.  Here is the first one......

I love the Bowman Inception cards and could not pass this one up.  The art/pictures always seems really well done and you always get an on-card autograph with this set.  No stickers stuck on cards.  The back of the card.......

What's not to like?

Some quick numbers on Olson and Hoskins, as a Cardinals fan I can tell you they are both better than DeJong.  Hoskins is at 48 games, Olson is at 59 games, so there is going to be a little disparity between some of the counting number stats.  Olson is at 24 home runs, Hoskins is at 18.  Olson's slash line is .259/.352/.651, while Hoskins is .265/.401/.642.  Olson is at 2.4 WAR and Hoskins is at 2.1 WAR.  Too me, the biggest difference is the fact that Hoskins takes walks, Olson is more of a free swinger.

In a normal world there probably wouldn't be a $100 difference between a Hoskins and Olson autograph, but here we are.....