Jumbo World Series Hero

It seems like every Postseason there is some sort of player who unexpectedly comes out of nowhere and has a huge impact on the outcome of the World Series.  Last season Cubs fans watched Kyle Schwarber come back from what was supposed to be a season ending knee injury to bat .412 in the World Series.  His presence in the line-up seemed to give the Cubs a little extra.

Pretty good hitting there for a guy who was supposed to not even appear in the Series.  

As a Cardinals fan I have seen players make similar contributions to the team's postseason runs in recent years.  Matt Adams hitting a three run home run off of Clayton Kershaw, Matt Carpenter battling through long at at-bats, Michael Wacha pitching shut outs, the entire line-up in the 2012 NLDS against the Nationals including light hitting Pete Kozma getting the series clinching hit....

and every Cardinals fans favorite hometown hero from the 2011 World Championship winning team, third baseman, David Freese.  He actually had an incredible playoff run throughout that postseason including the series against the Phillies and the Brewers.  Everyone just remembers the 9th inning on in Game 6....

and what of the Cardinals playoff run in 2006?  Many remember the Tigers throwing the ball all over the field littering the box scores with tons of errors and cold bats after clinching the AL Pennant and sitting around for a week.  Many also remember the final out of the series being recorded by long-time Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright when the normal closer Jason Isringhausen went down with an injury.....

I often feel like the player from that 2006 squad who often flies under the radar is pitcher Jeff Weaver, who was picked up by the Cardinals in a trade with the Angels after he lost his job to his brother Jared.  Weaver's regular season with the Cardinals was not much to write home about, but he excelled on the postseason stage that fall for the Redbirds.  He saved his best performance for the World Series clincher in Game 5 when he pitched 8 innings with one run, 4 hits, and 9 strikeouts.  

One of the better single season turn arounds in the history of the franchise.  There aren't many baseball cards to remember Weaver's brief stint with the Cardinals by, but a few of them are really sweet cards.  My favorite up to this point has been his 2007 Topps World Series Relic card.  

This Weaver card was put out at a time when Topps did not make a Postseason relic card for every single team that made the playoffs.  They have done that the last few years and they have made them pretty common cards.  The older versions, starting with the White Sox in 2005, are really tough finds.  

Which brings me to my latest Jeff Weaver card.  I still like the World Series better, but this is a nice card too.....

This card is from the 2009 Topps Unique set, which had a terrible base set, but a great set of relic cards.  I picked up a Anthony Reyes jumbo relic card from this set early this year, but I did not have a Weaver card.  A very nice patch piece too which is the top of the L......

the top of the s and the tail feathers of the Cardinal sitting on the bat.  I am sure there are probably better patch pieces out there, but I am also sure that most of those have made there way into collections and they are not coming back out.  

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.  

Farewell Koz

I was wrapping up my day at work this afternoon when I saw the really difficult news on Facebook.  At first, I thought it was just an announcement about the Cardinals picking up the option for Jaime Garcia's 2016 option.  Jaime had a good year and the announcement on his option was expected today.  However, after reading a little bit further in the Cardinals Facebook post I saw the news........

I was honestly hoping that Peter Kozma would be gone long ago, but he managed to make it an entire season with the Cardinals.  In fact, he is now five years into his Cardinals career.  During his five seasons with the Cardinals he has posted a slash line of .222/.288/.293 with an OPS+ of 61.  This year alone Kozma managed to get into 76 games with a line of .152/.236/.152 with an OPS+ of 9.  The average player has an OPS+ of 100.  Kozma was a 9.  He had no extra base hits in 76 games.

Just for the sake of comparison, Michael Wacha, terrible hitting pitcher had a slash of .154/.214/.173 with an OPS+ of 7.  Wacha also hit a double.  Again, I am not sure how Kozma stuck around the Cardinals this long.  However, rather than dwelling on the fact that Kozma is just about the worst player in the Majors, let's focus in on a few positives.

First, there was the playoff game against the National in 2012.  You know, the game where the Cardinals used their #DevilMagic to beat the Nats after being down 6-1.  The Cardinals fought back to tie the game in the ninth inning when Kozma faced Drew Storen with two runners on base......

Second, Kozma was a former first round draft pick of the Cardinals.  As a baseball card collector we all know the routine.  Guy gets drafted, guy gets baseball cards, we dive in and get as many as we can.  In the long run card collectors always hope for the best, but there are always a few of those guys who end up... well, being released.  Here's a look back at my favorite Kozma card: 

I am not going to trade it, or sell it, but I will keep it my one of my boxes of autographs.  I will have loads of memories of Kozma striking out, or grounding out, or hitting fly balls to the warning track.  Maybe, as a fan of minor league baseball, I might see him around the International League one of these days and I can add a few better memories to the Kozma file....

2007 Bowman Chrome Peter Kozma Autograph

The Cardinals made Peter Kozma their first round draft pick during the first round of the 2007 amateur draft.  Kozma, or "The Wizard of Koz" was a high school shortstop from Oklahoma and was not thought of as first round talent.  Fans were upset at the pick and wanted the team to pick New Jersey prep star Rick Porcello instead of the shortstop.  Of course many thought the Cardinals, like other teams, avoided Porcello because he was represented by super agent Scott Boras.

Kozma spent several years toiling in the Cardinals minor league system often drawing the ire of the fan base.  He often struggled to hit and was seen as a glove first, no hit future utility man.  Finally last season the Cardinals brought Kozma up to the Majors after Rafael Furcal was injured and unable to play.  Again, fans groaned that the shortstop position was manned by a .250 hitter who was almost released by the Cardinals "five times" during the 2012 season.  Then Kozma actually did something  during the National League Divisional Series against the Nationals last October.

Kozma delivered two big hits against the Nationals helping the Cardinals move past the favored team in the best of five series.  He hit a big home run in the second game of the series and followed it up with the go-ahead two-run single in the ninth inning of the deciding fifth game.  This season, Kozma continues to hold down the shortstop position this season.  While he's nothing spectacular, he is certainly a steady player.

2007 Bowman Chrome Peter Kozma Autograph 

I will admit that I was skeptical of the Kozma draft pick over the past few years.  In the initial years after the Kozma draft pick, I watched players like Rick Porcello successfully advance his way through the minors and advance to the majors.  I also tracked players like Sean Doolittle and Andrew Brackmann, both drafted after Kozma, successfully start their minor league careers.  Of course, five years later all of these players have generally flamed out.  Sure, Sean Doolittle made the Majors, but only after the A's moved him from first base to the pitchers mound.

After watching the Koz for the past year and half, I am not sold that he is the shortstop of the future for the Cardinals, but he's what the team has at the moment.  I decided to set aside my displeasure with the Kozma draft pick and acknowledge the fact that he has helped the team during his time in St. Louis.  I am happy to add this Bowman Chrome autograph of the Cardinals shortstop to my collection.

I entered the Kozma card game late, but was surprised to see that almost all of his cards are still below $5 including the autographed cards.  Kozma has several different autographed cards floating around, but this card is one of the only on card autographs that he has signed.