Set Appreciation Post #20 - 2012 Topps Pro Debut

No special guests or Aaron Boone memes for this set appreciation post, just baseball cards of players wearing Minor League uniforms. As a person who follows and watches Minor League baseball, these are always fun sets to flip through. This was the third Pro Debut set, so it was still a relatively new product at this point. More than a decade removed from its release, there are plenty of players on the checklist who are in the prime of their carer or beyond.  

Let's get it.  

The 2012 Topps design has always been fairly low on my list, easily the bottom quartile of all their base sets. It's just uninspired and looks like they did not put much thought or effort into this design. Someone came up with this five minutes before pitching it to some higher-up. The photography is fine, it's not Stadium Club or anything. You better believe I am going to count the bad design towards the final rating at the end of the post.  

It gets worse.  

There are no statistics on the back of the card. I almost want to stop the post here and just tell you to avoid ever touching this set. Add in that Topps is calling Dante Bichette a "dynamic offensive" player. That is only making things worse. He couldn't hit a beach ball outside of Denver.  

This set is really a hit or miss product. The good names are great, but there are a lot of former highly regarded prospects who never panned out or lived up to the hype. As a fan of the Minor Leagues, I am going to try to stick to the success stories for the cards I show off. The percentage of players who did not make it is really high, even for a Pro Debut product.  

The best three cards in the set are no-brainers. Like decade into their careers and they are Hall of Fame trajectory type players.  

First, we have Syracuse SkyChiefs outfielder Bryce Harper.  

Bryce Harper was in Triple A less than a month during the 2012 season before the Nationals called him up to the Majors. I usually make a point to see players like Harper when they roll through Durham, but he did not make it that far into the schedule. Despite the miss on my part, this is a cool card. I miss the SkyChiefs, who had a train as a mascot. You can see it on his batting helmet. There is story there, but I am not going to tell it on my blog. Cool card and a cheap Harper rookie if you don't own one. 

One of the other really good cards belongs to Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado.  

Arenado is shown here with the Modesto Nuts of the California League. That's A Ball and Arenado is 20 years old in this picture. Arenado was actually on Modesto in 2011, his 2012 season was spent with Tulsa in the Double A Texas League. Who would have guessed this guy would go on to hit 300 home runs and win 10 Gold Gloves? 

Baseball America rated him the 42nd best prospect right along side fellow third baseman Mike Olt and Will Middlebrooks in their 2012 Prospect Guide.  

Oops, missed out on that one.  

Last up of the really good cards is Manny Machado of the Fredrick Keys.  

I will not listen to your Manny Machado slander about him not being a future Hall of Famer.  

A few other really good players in this set......

We've got Jose Ramirez. Probably also a Hall of Famer, or getting really close. The card shows him with the Indians entry into the 2011 Arizona League team. Ramirez is an 18 year old on this card, one the youngest players featured in this Pro Debut set. This card is why this set is fun to look at years later.  

We've also got what feels like an air brushed Gerrit Cole.  

Cole was actually in college in 2011. He went to UCLA and was selected by the Pirates with the first overall pick in the MLB Draft. Cole did end up playing with the Bradenton Marauders during the 2012 season, but he was only there for a few starts before the Pirates promoted him all the way up to their Triple A team.  

Locally, we've got Christian Yelich playing for the Greensboro Grasshoppers.  

Yelich is another really young player in this set, only 19 in this picture. Turned out to be a pretty good player. Why do the Greensboro cards never have the players posing with the bat dogs?  

Many teams have bat dogs these days, Greensboro was the originator.  

Let me move on to the Cardinals and Durham Bulls portion of the post. 

There are a lot of Durham Bulls in this set. There are not many Cardinals players in this set. At least not many who made it to the Majors.  It was a toss up between Shelby Miller and Matt Adams. 

I am going with Matt Adams, because you can see his uniform.  

I have always liked the Springfield Cardinals uniforms. The Cardinals should do this with all their Minor League affiliates. Two birds on the bat with the city name in the Cardinals script. 

My best memories of Matt Adams on the Cardinals include his home run off of Clayton Kershaw in the 2014 NLDS.......

There was also that time FanGraphs wrote an article about how bad Matt Adams was playing left field and fellow Cardinals outfielder Tommy Pham liked the article post on Twitter.  

On to the Durham Bulls portion of the post. There are a lot of them.    

Some former Bulls are in the base set, but were on the Royals at the time this product was released......

You can't read the names, because it's 2012 Topps, but this is Wil Myers and Mike Montgomery.  

Montgomery recorded the final out in Game 7 for the Chicago Cubs in 2016 World Series, so I should probably ignore all his cards, but he also threw a no-hitter for the Durham Bulls at a game I attended. Seeing a no-hitter is pretty cool, so I just try to ignore his Cubs cards. 

I have also sacrificed a Durham Bulls card from this set for an in-person autograph for my son.  

Never replaced it, not sure I ever will.  

There is also a card of Taylor Motter in the set, but he is on the Princeton Rays and not the Durham Bulls. He looks weird with short hair.  Motter does not have any certified autographs, but I have an in-person autograph copy of the card that I prefer to the unsigned copy.  

There are also two Tim Beckham cards, which both show him on the Durham Bulls.  The first is a relic card.  

There are parallels of this card with patch pieces, but they've always been really expensive when they've shown up and the patch pieces are just the blue trim from the middle and sleeve areas of Beckham's jersey.  If I ever saw a patch piece from the Bulls logo, I would be all over it.  

Last Tim Beckham card......

Easily my favorite Durham Bulls card, as well as my favorite card overall in this entire set.  

Let's make one more stop with this set and then I will assign it a rating.  

Pro Debut products usually come with a few autographs per box. The 2012 Pro Debut set was no different, but the autograph checklist is terrible. I have autographs of Drew Hutchinson, Charlie Tilson, and Matt Adams, and they are three of the better names available.  

So, how does the 2012 Pro Debut set rate?  

I had been ranking the sets featured in my Set Appreciation posts, but I am going to stop that today.  Instead, I am going to rate the set on a 1-5 scale based on its design, quality of checklist, insets, value and price, and also an overall. 

Today's rating scale is using the Durham Bulls beloved mascot, Wool E. Bull.  

The design is really bad and the lack of stats on the back of the cards is really hard to get past for me. I gave the set 1 Wool E. Bull for design and I felt like that might be generous. The checklist has some strong names, but it is really top heavy. There are a few other solid names in this set that I did not bring up in the post, my time is limited, but there are a lot of failed prospects here. More than other Pro Debut sets. 

My two highest ratings were for inserts and value. While the autograph checklist is terrible, I am a sucker for those manufactured patch cards with the Minor League logos. I know that there are few Minor League card collectors floating around on Blogger, but those are universally loved and were a great concept. The value offered here is good too. There are really cheap boxes and packs of cards that you can find on the discount table at shops and shows.  

Overall, I give this set two Wool E. Bulls.  There are better Pro Debut sets out there. 

Around The Card Room, Take 8

I never understand people who are mean to Minor League players.

Generally speaking, Minor League players are underpaid and are working hard to make the Majors. 

Be kind to the Minor Leaguers, they might just be nice back to you.  

My latest Around The Card Room item is a game-used bat from every Rays fans least favorite number one overall draft pick, Tim Beckham. The biggest problem with Tim was that he was a fairly average Major League player who was not Buster Posey. I am not going to rehash the whole saga of Tim Beckham, but here is a two sentence synopsis: 

The Rays selected high school shortstop Tim Beckham first overall in the 2008 Major League Draft ahead of Florida State catcher Buster Posey, Vanderbilt third baseman Pedro Alvarez, and others. Buster Posey helped the Giants win the 2010 World Series and no Rays fan has ever forgiven Tim Beckham for making this happen.  

Tim Beckham was a good player for the Durham Bulls and I never saw the need to complain about him. His numbers could have been better, but it was also clear he was a highly skilled player. Beckham was exciting and talented even though his name is not Buster Posey.  

In fact, Tim Beckham was one of the regular players on one of my favorite Durham Bulls teams. His second season with the Bulls was in 2013 and the team won the International League Championship. The featured Wil Myers, Chris Archer, Merril Kelly, Jake Odorizzi, Kevin Kiermaier, and many other Major League players. Pretty good company. 

As the President, Vice President, Treasurer, and only member of the Tim Beckham Fan Club (I am joking, kind of....) I was gifted a game used bat at the end of the 2013 season.

Here is the bat:  

There is a small, horizontal crack in the handle, which is why there are two pieces of tape wrapped the bat. Outside of the crack, it's a really nice game-used bat. Looking at all the ball marks, it was clearly used for awhile before it cracked.

Beckham signed the barrel with a silver paint pen. 

 You can see a few of the ball marks around the signature and the label on the bat.  

Here is the knob of the bat.....

Interesting that there are no markings here, just the manufacturer sticker. I own several used bats and I believe this is the only one without any sort of markings or identification on the knob. Maybe he was the only player on the team who used this brand of bat or it stood out without marking the knob. 

Here is the barrel of the bat, which has been cupped out.  

Overall, this Tim Beckham bat is one of my favorite Durham Bulls items in my baseball card room and it hangs prominently next to my Ozzie Smith bat.  

The Ozzie Smith bat needs a post one of these days. 

Big Leagues

The scan is really crooked, but I found the last Tim Beckham autograph I needed from last year.  He was in a few different Topps products last year, but somehow I missed this card from Big Leagues.  It's a sticker autograph, but I still like the card.  There have been a few up on Ebay with "Buy It Now" listings, but I thought I could get it at a better price.  A little patience paid off. 

Which brings me to this year's Big League set.  I ended up picking up a few packs the other week at Target, the blaster boxes are dirt cheap.  I got something good out of the box too.  First off, the base set is a disaster. 

Not sure you could squeeze much more onto a card.  My ADD is kicked into overtime here.  There is a crooked photo, a wood grain background, a bar with the player name, a pennant, a ticket stub looking box with SEC, ROW, and SEAT, and the brand logo in the top right.  

It looks like the car that Homer Simpson designs in that one episode where he finds out he has a brother who runs a car company.......

Terrible.  I won't even find the single Cardinals or former Durham Bulls players in this set. 

My good card....

This design is a little better, but after a week in my collection I still do not know what is a "Rookie Republic"???? What is it?  Anyone at Topps?  

Seriously, I really like that I got a Willians Astudillo autographed card out of a box of cards from Target.  The picture on the card makes him look slender, and you cannot see the true volume of his hair on this card.  

Definitely one of the better personalities in baseball at the moment. 

One More From 2018

My interest in Tim Beckham cards started a few years back when he played for the Durham Bulls.  He was a former first overall pick, and while he did not seem like a superstar type of player that teams hope to get with the first overall pick, Beckham seemed like a solid everyday player at worst.  There were some good ones out there.....

this card out of Topps Pro Debut was my favorite.  Obvious reasons.  

Somewhere along the line Beckham was suspended for drugs, endured a lot of ridicule for not being Buster Posey, and was eventually traded to the Orioles.  He actually hit well during his first half season in Baltimore, there were more than a few people who were encouraged. 

The sweet Beckham cards started to pop back up last year.  It was sort of a bumper season for his baseball cards.  Bunches of autographs.  These were two of my favorites.....

The year was actually a complete disaster for Beckham and the Orioles on the field.  He did not hit and he struck out a ton.  The Orioles ditched Beckham at the end of the year, set him out to find a new team.  Beckham ended up signing with the Mariners early in January.  

There was one last Beckham card from last year that I really wanted to add, closing out the book on his time with the Orioles.  The card was out of the Triple Threads set, it was a little too expensive for what I would be willing to pay for a Beckham card, when the set first came out.  I hadn't looked at it in awhile, but I checked a few days ago......

and it was in my mailbox yesterday.  

Triple Threads has not changed much over the years, and I feel a little bored with it at this point, but this is a really nice card.  I love the green color on the background, the gold foil is a nice touch too.  Not sure what the future holds for Beckham's cards with the Mariners, but it was a nice 2018.  

Stack Of Stadium Clubs

Stadium Club came out awhile ago, there are a lot of repeat signers for the Cardinals and Rays who are in multiple 2018 products, so I took my time trying to add a few cards.  I really like the Stadium Club cards.  Topps has done a great job of bringing this product back over the past few years and reviving it's 1990s branding of being a high quality set with high photography. 

I have done some posts in the past just to showcase some of the base cards from the recent Stadium Club sets.  They are fun sets to sit down with and just flip through the cards.  So many great photographs. 

In keeping with putting together fewer sets this year, I have actually decided to add single cards of the Cardinals and former Durham Bulls players, along with a few other cards that I thought looked really nice.  Obviously, I am going to showcase my autographs for my post this evening. 

I managed to land a pair of Cardinals cards and a former Durham Bulls player.  However, I am going to start out with a different card.  I participated in a charity break awhile ago.  It was for a good cause, I was given two spots in a case and got whatever autographs were pulled. 

One of them was one of the Cardinals players, the other was a 1980s nemesis of my favorite team.  Pretty sweet looking card.....

If you ever saw a Darryl Strawberry at bat, this is a pretty cool moment in the whole process of how he swings a bat.  He always had a leg kick when the ball was being thrown and his bat was angled forward.  You can tell this is a second before he swings, or maybe he took the pitch.  Either way, it's a cool moment in time.  

Here is a look at the swing on a pretty crazy looking home run.  Apologies for the announcers.  McCarver is on this video and he's the better of the two.  

On to the Cardinals.  

Flaherty has been a priority of sorts for my Cardinals collection.  The was my second autograph out of the charity break.  I am a believer in the abilities of Jack Flaherty.  I like the red Spring Training jersey with the green grass in the background.  Nice contrast.  I also like that you can see his grip on the ball.  I'd guess some sort of changeup.  

Next. 

I am posting a Tommy Pham card on the day he was traded.  It's got a nice photograph.  I will miss Tommy, but I understand why the Cardinals traded him.  I made my peace with it about thirty seconds after I saw the news of the trade.  

Let's share a good Tommy Pham moment and move onto the last card.  

Last one is a former Durham Bulls card.  

Tim Beckham has been in a few different sets this year as an autographed card after having a good half season in Baltimore.  It seemed like a change of scenery really helped, but he's not having a very good year at the moment.  The Orioles have cleaned house the last week, so I am pretty sure that Beckham and Chris Davis will now be covering the entire infield.  

The Last Time We Saw Tim......

was almost two and a half years since I last posted a new Tim Beckham baseball card.  He was one of my favorite Durham Bulls players for awhile, but then a few things happened that slowed down the flow of his cards into my collection.

Here was the last card from January of 2016.

Here are three quick reasons for the dearth of Beckham baseball cards......

1. Beckham stopped signing cards.  It has been four years since he had a certified autograph, which was in a Panini product.  The last certified autograph Beckham had in a licensed product was his 2012 Bowman Platinum autograph.  I tried to buy one of those once.  Seriously, the guy wanted $200.  

I wonder if anyone ever actually bought this card?  There is one currently listed on COMC, but its $40, which is still about twice as much as one should pay for a Tim Beckham autograph.  

2.  I actually took a vacation from talking about Beckham around Rays and Durham Bulls fans on social media.  Did I know that the Rays drafted Beckham in front of Buster Posey?  Did you know that Buster Posey has won a bunch of World Series with the Giants?  I did know all of that, but none of that makes Beckham a terrible person.  

Not sure that certain people around Tampa cannot help lump the two players together.  Absolutely brutal comments on these sorts of things.  I wonder what would have happened to Sam Bowie, guy drafted in front of Michael Jordan,. if he played during an era where there was social media.  

3. Beckham was traded to the Orioles last year and he had a great stretch for the team at the end of last year.  In 50 games in Baltimore, Beckham hit 10 home runs, 13 doubles, 26 RBIs, with an OPS of .871.  There were some Rays fans that were pretty silent.  

I tried starting a Beck-O-Meter, based on the Shawon-O-Meter......

from the Cubs games while Shawon Dunston was their shortstop.  At first the Beck-O-Meter was a success.  I expanded to include some stats outside of just batting average....

Beck-O-Meter:

2.4 WAR in 238 games with the Rays
2.0 WAR in 41 games with the Orioles #Orioles #Rays #TimBeckham

— The Snorting Bull (@TheSnortingBull) September 15, 2017

but unfortunately, Beckham has been injured most of this year.  The stats are low, but it's also a pretty small sample size at this point.  Just 30 games.  Maybe after break.  

Which brings me to the good news, which is that Tim Beckham is back signing in Topps products again this year.  There are three different sets in which he appears so far, I have managed two of his autographs.  Although, you know that in today's day and age there are about seven different colored variations of each of these cards.  

I am just happy to have two new Tim Beckham autographs.  

This is my favorite of the two new cards.  I worked on putting together the 1983 inserts from the Topps Series 1 earlier in the year, and included a few autographs as I was putting those cards together.  I am not sold on doing the same for Series 2, but I am still going to pick up another autograph or two.  This card, with the number 1 inscription, was the number one card on my list.  

The signature is a little off center, but Beckham signed the card on the lighter backgrounded side of the card.  Kind of considerate.  

The next card is a little bit nicer, in terms of brand.  I really do like the 1983 Topps style card the best.  This is out of Tier One, which seems like a little bit high end for Beckham.  In fact, the whole reason I tracked this card down was because I saw a few case breakers complaining about the fact that they pulled a "utility infielder" out of a pack that cost $125.  

That's why I do not open boxes/packs that cost that much.  I do appreciate the autograph though.  

Local Longo Trade

I am down to my last few days of my winter break.  Last week I decided to take a little bit of time out of my day to trade with a couple of local collectors.  I unloaded some of my extra cards helping one of them out with finishing up a few sets and a Mike Trout Topps Update rookie card.  I ended up with a giant box of Cardinals autographs, relics, and serial numbered cards.  There is a limit on how many cards I scan on put up on here.  Trading 1000 cards for 100 cards can probably be left alone without too many pictures.

I also traded a few autographs away for a couple of nice Longo cards and a pair of smaller cards.  Here are the cards I ended up with, going small to large.......

First up is the Yadier Molina saber variation from this year's Topps Update set.  Topps has been making these for two years now.  I have pulled a couple out of packs, traded for a few, and won a few cheap in auctions.  Not the flashiest variation, but still a really nice card.

Next up is a Tim Beckham black border from this year's Topps Chrome.  The card is numbered out of 100.  I am not sure if he is going to do much with the Rays this year, but hopefully he can land a job on the bench.  If not, he is still one of my favorite Durham Bulls players.  

Next up is a booklet.  I picked up a similar booklet of Longoria last year, also from Panini's National Treasures product.  Not the most expensive booklets in the world, but they still look really nice.  Plus they do a pretty good job of getting around the whole no logos thing on this card.  Last card and my favorite....

Really like the Five Star autographs, always a really good product.  This autograph is from the 2014 Five Star.  Very nice on-card autograph of the Rays third baseman and former Durham Bull.  

More From the Vault

I picked up another card from the Topps Vault this past week when I landed a copy of Tim Beckham's Topps Heritage High Numbers blank back.  The card is a one of one and features one of my favorite Durham Bulls players......

Beckham actually split the season between the Durham Bulls and the Rays.  He should some good pop for the Rays hitting 9 home runs in part play.  With Asdrubal Cabrera leaving as a free agent this off season Beckham should get a chance to start next year.  Maybe.  This 1/1 card has the usual blank back from the Topps Vault with the sticker in the lower right hand corner of the card......

Seriously, A $300 Tim Beckham Autograph.

At some point earlier this year I added a wanted list to the side of my blog.  Look over there to the right hand side of the blog and you will see it sitting there with some holes in it.  I have been able to add some of the cards on my list to my collection over the past year, but recently I have not kept up with the list.  Honestly, I am a little bit frustrated with a particular card on the list.  

The top card on my most wanted list is a Bowman Platinum Tim Beckham autograph.  It's a rather tough find, but then again it's Tim Beckham.  I like Tim Beckham.  He has spent a consider amount of time playing for the Durham Bulls and I have enjoyed watching him play.  His cards are fairly inexpensive and not too difficult to find.  

I understood that putting the Beckham card on the top of my list was a challenge, but it has turned out to be the exact opposite problem that I was expecting.  Beckham has a low print run of autographs in the Bowman Platinum set, so I figured finding the card would be the difficult part.  How much can it possibly cost?  It's Tim Beckham...

Well, the card has been on Ebay for awhile.  I have made offers, sent messages, and received nothing in return.  No: 

"Hey, this is my bottom line" 

or

"I could sell you the card for this much"

Nothing.  The problem with buying it as it is currently listed?   

You have to squint your eyes a bit, but that listing does say $299.99 for a Tim Beckham autograph.  I made my first offer on the card a few weeks back, then made a second, and a third today after hearing nothing from the seller after multiple attempts to contact them.  My third offer was the most insane price I have offered on a card in a long time, but sadly I knew that the seller would turn the offer down.  Sad, but someone would not take $50 for a Tim Beckham card.....

Crazy offer, crazier seller.  So, let's talk about unique cards for a minute.

I understand that a lot of collectors have cool, unique, low print run cards in their collection.  I have had some print plates and autographs of some really cool players during my time collecting baseball cards I have no problem cashing in on those cards.  I have a Mike Trout Finest autograph and would not hesitate to asking for a lot cash back for a card like this.....

Many of us also have cards that look really cool, and could be valuable, if they only had a different player on the front.  For example, I own this awesome Brett Wallace patch card from Topps Pro Debut.  It's an incredible patch piece......

No matter how cool the patch piece, or low serial number (it's print run is 5), it's still just a Brett Wallace card.  If a ever ran into a huge Brett Wallace fan, or someone who wanted the card, I can honestly say that I would guess the card is worth $30.  I wish it were something I could turn around for $300, but it is not.  

The moral of the story is this: If you have a low print run card that's autographed, or has a cool patch piece, be proud of your card.  However, if you are going to sell or trade the card keep in mind who is on the front and be realistic about what you are asking for your item.  We all want the most for the cards we are selling, or trading, but there comes a point where you are just being completely unrealistic.