Cards I Love Part 17 - 2016 Pro Debut Blake Snell Autograph

I collect Durham Bulls cards.  Old players, modern players, former players, or current players.  Really does not matter.  They have been a fun team to collect the past decade plus that I have been following the team.  I definitely have a favorite Durham Bulls player, and a favorite card of that Durham Bulls player. 

This is a pretty self-explanatory post.

There were 30 Blake Snell autographs post on here last year.  He's my favorite former Durham Bulls player.  My favorite Snell autograph is his Durham Bulls autograph from the 2016 Pro Debut set. 

There are not many recent cards on my list of 28 cards that I am posting this month, but this is one of a handful.  It is also the only card on my list that has a player in a Bulls uniform.  Kind of surprising. 

Some Minor Cards

It's been really hard to watch the Cardinals this season.  The pitching has been a bit of a disappointment.  The offense has been a bit of a disappointment.  Yes, they are 2 games out of first, but it is just simply because all the other teams in the N.L. Central are also bad.  All the badness makes it difficult to look at Cardinals cards.

I have not touched anything in Pro Debut, so I decided to work on finding a few Cardinals cards from the set.  These are not the Cardinals players that have been disappointing me on a seemingly nightly basis.  I am looking at you Kolten Wong.

I found three new cards.  

This is the best of the three cards.  Nolan Gorman was their first round pick last year (2018) and has hit throughout his first year in the Minors.  I am not sure if he is rated as the Cardinals best prospect, but if he is not he will be soon.  His autographs been a little pricy at times, but this one is reasonable.  I have been trying to slowly add a few of his cards, but price is a bit of a factor at this point.

Not sure about Elehuris.  People are crazy about him.  He's only 20.  He's hit everywhere he has played prior to this season.  Elehuris has been injured most of this season, but he's already on the Cardinals Double A team in Springfield.  His Bowman cards have been crazy expensive, but this one was less than $10.  Seems like a good risk.

Last one.

I saw Luken Baker play for the USA Baseball College National Team.  He has a lot of power, and also has a lot of injuries.  Really cheap card, if nothing else I picked up an autograph of a player I watched in person.  If he makes it to the Majors, I will be pleasantly surprised.  

Two Nice Sox

Not cards that necessarily fit my collection, but two players who both appeared locally for White Sox Minor League teams and impressed.  For whatever reason, there are three different White Sox Minor League teams in North Carolina.  In their current state, the White Sox are a bit of a disaster, but there is help on the way soon.  

First up.....

is a card of outfielder Luis Robert.  The Cardinals had actually tried to sign him a few years ago when he defected from Cuba, but they missed out on him to the White Sox.  I actually have other Robert cards, slowly building a little collection.  Sometimes it's nice to branch out from usual Cardinals and Durham Bulls cards.  I like his potential.  

As for the card, this is from Bowman Tek.  Second year Topps has put out this set, not sure that I love the idea of having a Topps Tek and a Bowman Tek, seems repetitive.  Still, a pretty big fan of this 1990s/early 2000s rehash.  

Next.  

The great Eloy Jimenez.  Originally started out in the Cubs farm system, but was traded over to the South Side for Jose Quintana.  Sure most Cubs front office people would love to have that one back.   He's a really impressive prospect that made it all the way to Triple A Charlotte this year.  Jimenez had a .996 OPS as a 21 year old.  He's going to be really really good.  Jimenez will be on the White Sox at some point next season.  

Jimenez has a few Bowman cards, but they are really expensive.  If I am going to spend that much money on an autograph, I will just buy a Mike Trout.  His Panini, Leaf, and Pro Debut autographs are a little nicer.  I went with the Pro Debut since it has him in a uniform where the logos are not airbrushed off.  Great looking card.  

Biscuits and Biscuits

Working on finding my favorite Durham Bulls players every summer inevitably leads to me having to buy or trade for a few Montgomery Biscuits baseball cards.  The Bulls, being the Triple A team of the Rays, and the Montgomery Biscuits playing in the Double A Southern League, I'm sure that most of the players like getting to make that move.  As a card collector,  I really don't mind anything having to do with the Biscuits.  It's easily one of the coolest logos in all of Minor League baseball.

Better than the Baby Cakes or Railriders or whatever other goofy names have popped up in the Minors over the last few summers.  I have never actually been to Montgomery, so I am not exactly sure why the team is named the Biscuits.  As a Midwest transplant living in a Southern state, or is North Carolina a mid-Atlantic, I can attest to the fact that Southerns love eating biscuits.  Non-southerners like them too.  

We've got places like.....

They've got okra on their menu.  That's only cool in the south.  More well known.......

Bojangles.  A must stop for biscuits and Bojangles also in a Raekwon song.  

Back to baseball cards.  

So, over the year's I have dabbled in the world of Biscuits cards.  They have less butter than a Biscuitville biscuit and less blueberries than a BoBerry Biscuit, but they are nice all the same.  All of my Biscuits cards feature that cool logo along with a player who almost certainly appeared for the Durham Bulls.  My all-time favorite Biscuits/Durham Bulls cards is a Hak Ju Lee logo card from the 2013 Pro Debut card....

There have been others along the way too, including one that came out earlier this summer in the latest Pro Debut release.  The player on the card is even on the Durham Bulls this year.  Here's the latest Biscuits card featuring Durham Bulls infielder Willy Adames.  

I really like Adames as a player, he's fun to watch, and I was excited that this card was on the checklist this year.  However, I wish the Biscuits logo were a little but clearer.  The past two years Topps has used the pennant shape on these logo cards in Pro Debut.  The problem, in my eyes, is that it shrinks down the size of the logo, blurs what is there, and minimizes the minor league aspect on the card.

Net Gain For The Collection

I do a lot with Minor League cards and have always been a big fan of the Pro Debut sets.  It's cool to see some of the players that I see in the local Minor League parks in their Minor League uniforms.  The product has always had a design that followed the Topps base set, a few autographs, and some different types of relic cards.

For today's post I am going to stick with the relics that have appeared in Pro Debut including my latest card from this product.  I first got hooked on the Pro Debut relics back in 2010 when Topps put out some large game used relics from the 2009 Futures Game which was held in my hometown of St. Louis.  So many cool patches and the ordinary/common relics were generous in size.

This Brett Wallace card has always been a favorite......

Topps has moved away from these nice looking relics, while I really like them, they did a good job of replacing these with other cool cards.  The best part about the change is that the relic cards have become more focused on the Minor League teams and not Minor Leaguers in Major League teams.  Too similar to Bowman, so I am glad in someways that the Futures Game relics have migrated back to those products.

The best part of the Minor League specific relic cards is that the Durham Bulls have been regularly featured in the set.  While they are not game worn relics, definitely in line with the whole manufactured relic cards, it's one of the only chances during the year to find actual Durham Bulls cards.

Some of the previous entries in Pro Debut with the Bulls have included manufactured patches of the players.....

and also the mascot....

The original checklist of 2017 Pro Debut offered a few Durham Bulls cards.  One of the cards was a base card of Rays prospect Casey Gillaspie with two other cards being relics that were apart of the Fragments of the Farm set.  Initially when I saw that there were Bulls cards in Fragments of the Farm I was a little bit scared.  I pulled one of these cards awhile ago, just a weird card.....

I still am not sure what the heck is going on here with the green fur.  What is the Lake County Captains mascot exactly?  Probably for another blog post on a completely different blog.  Anyway, the Bulls cards were supposed to be a piece of the original Snorting Bull sign from the old Durham Athletic Park.....

which, as far as I can tell, was never made.  I have looked high and low for this card for obvious reasons and have not been able to find a single copy of it anywhere.  Guessing it does not exist.  

The other Durham Bulls relic card was a piece of the backstop netting which was replaced and extended two years ago.  I have looked through tons of pictures of Durham Bulls games I have attended over the years, this might be the best picture I have of the net on the Pro Debut card...

Justin Christian is in the background behind the net.  Here is a better comparison of how the netting changed in the stadium....

The old net, which is on the card.....

ends before the dugouts on both sides of the field.  The new net extends past the dugouts on both sides of the field....

There is a small cut out next to each dugout which is a gate leading onto the field.  It's primarily used by Wool E. Bull and kids getting onto the field to run the bases after Sunday afternoon games.  I am sure that it has some other function.  I just can't think of it at the moment.

Now that we have had a breakdown on the Pro Debut relic cards and the backstop net in the Durham Bulls Athletic Park how about we finally look at the card that is supposed to be the topic of the post...

What is else is left to say about this card?  Just a great looking card featuring a cool piece of the Durham Bulls Athletic Park.  Obviously very happy to add this card to the collection.  

Red Bull

I have generally never really been much of a fan of energy drinks.  I have been through college twice, plus a whole bunch of other classes, and had the joy of waking up and taking my turn changing diapers and feeding two children in the middle of the night.  Throw in the fact that my job can sometimes require the occasional all-nighter to finish up paperwork, or whatever, and it's probably pretty surprising that I have not downed dozens upon dozens of Red Bulls, Monsters, or whatever your energy drink of choice happens to be.....

I have always been more of a Dr. Pepper, tea, and coffee type of person when it comes getting a jolt of energy.  Both types of drinks are loaded with all sorts of sugar, caffeine, and artificial sweeteners, but my category of sugar caffeinated drinks have a little bit easier let down at the end of the day.

Ultimately it really doesn't matter what my energy drink of choice is when I see a nice Durham Bulls card.  When spirits are naturally lifted and I feel energetic without any help from our good friend caffeine.  This past week I ran into such a card which was owned by one of my favorite Facebook trading partners.

The card....

Yes, this is one of those low numbered parallel cards.  I own the base version of this card and featured it awhile back on the blog at some point this summer when Topps first put out their Pro Debut product.  Looked a little bit like this.......

The difference of course being what is on the back of the baseball card.

since there is a really limited number of Durham Bulls cards put out by major manufacturers every year I was more than happy to add this card to my collection.  I have actually seen the plate for this card floating around.  If I had know I was going to land copy of the red parallel I would have gone for putting together the rainbow of this card.  

Beyond the Snell pennant I also picked up a few other autographed cards of some prospects.  They are a mix of Cardinals and Rays prospects.  I liked that these cards feature players in college uniforms.  

Hudson and Carlson are both Cardinals prospects.  Hudson was a top notch pitcher at Mississippi State and was a first round draft pick of the Cardinals last summer.  He had a good debut last summer with the Gulf Coast League Cardinals and A-Ball team in Palm Beach.  All of the games he pitched last summer were as a relief pitcher.  Not sure if that's his long term track with the team or if they were just limiting his innings after playing a full year of college baseball.  

Carlson was also a first round draft pick of the Cardinals and played with the Gulf Coast League team.  Not a great season for Carlson, but he turned 18 during this off-season, so a lot of time for a guy with a big frame.

and finally Ryan Boldt who was a second round pick of the Rays.  For whatever reasons the Rays have had some problems with developing position players the last few years.  Boldt started out in the New York-Penn League last summer with the Hudson Valley Renegades.  Not a great season for the former Cornhusker and we will leave it at that.....

Project Durham Bulls #6: Blake Snell

Blake Snell 2015-2016 Durham Bulls 

Background-

Snell first arrived in Durham during the middle of the 2015 season after a dominating first half of the season in Double A and High A.  In Durham Snell made 9 starts for the Bulls going 6-2 with 57 strikeouts in 44 innings and an ERA of 1.83.  For the season, Snell went 15-4 with a 1.41 ERA and 163 strikeouts in 134 innings.  Snell started out the 2016 season with the Durham Bulls.  I actually got to see his first start of the season on opening night.....

Snell pitched well in Durham last year.  He made a few starts with the Bulls before he was called up by the Rays to make a spot start against the Yankees in April.  Snell was then returned to Durham where he stayed until the middle of June when the Rays called him up for good.  In 19 starts with the Rays last year Snell went 6-8 with a 3.54 ERA and 98 strikeouts in 89 innings.  I'm bullish on Snell's future....

for good reason.  I know a lot of other baseball fans are also high on the Rays hurler.  Snell misses a lot of bats and has several great pitches in his arsenal.  It would be nice if Tampa could get some traction going and build a team around some of the young pitchers on their staff like Chris Archer, Jake Odorizzi, and Snell.  

Card- 

This is my first Project Durham Bulls post where the baseball card has actually featured the player in a Durham Bulls uniform.  It's a hard task, but I am going to try to find as many of the former/current Durham Bulls as possible actually wearing a Bulls uniform.  That generally leaves me with the Pro Debut and Heritage Minor League sets for current products, although some of the sets from the early 2000s and 1990s make it a little easier.  I dig almost everything about this Pro Debut card from last year's set.  It's a great looking action shot of Snell pitching in the Durham Bulls Athletic Park.  The Snell autograph is a sticker autograph, but I am more than willing to get past it in this case.