The Angels could use off-season help

As a fan, I bang the drum for the Angels so I have something to look for as far as a big league team to collect - with the exception of all-world Mike Trout and Albert Pujols however, the Angels have really been hard to watch in recent seasons.

With the big league team presumably desperate to contend with Trout 'just' entering his prime years - the Angels need to fill some big holes sooner than never.

With injuries knocking out starting pitchers left and right for much of the year [and maybe through next year] -  the team was forced to start guys like the corpse of Tim Lincecum, Ghoulish Chacin, something called a 'Brett Oberholtzer' and Jeff Weaver.

Picking up a Jose Quintana or Chris Sale is totally unrealistic, but I can dream about that No. 1 or No. 2 guy the Angels have not had in recent seasons - the team would probably need to empty their barren farm system to get one of those guys and so be it, since there should be no particular minor leaguer the Angels must hold onto.

The obvious problem is every other team looking to get Quintana or Sale has a deeper set of prospects to trade off - maybe outfield prospect Jahmai Jones, a couple of pitchers [Nate Smith and/or Grayson Long] and money is just not going to get anything done.

As far as position players, the Angels need a second baseman and longtime Cincinnati Red Brandon Phillips may help - he is going to be 36, but he's a guy that has put up counting numbers with the bat and you take what you can get [hopefully his OPS+ gets a bit north of 100] if you can trot him out at second base for at least 130 games in 2017.

Finally the Angels probably need a competent veteran catcher - after Geovany Soto didn't play much due to injuries, Jett Bandy did emerge as a viable semi-regular option while Carlos Perez kind of plateaued as a strictly a backup guy with limited upside.

The Angels might need to go out and get Matt Wieters - he was never the great hitting all-around catcher people anticipated as he made his way to the Major Leagues, but if the 30-year old is healthy to play 120 games behind the plate, he probably does enough good things to be an asset.

Another option would be Brian McCann, who would give the Angels lineup a lefty hitter with pop to lengthen the lineup a little bit in addition to the usual Trout and Pujols power duo - maybe money and a prospect of some sort would get McCann to Anaheim.

A caveat is McCann is going to be 33, an age where many catchers seemingly crater with the bat - will the Angels be able to give McCann time at DH [Pujols] or first base [C.J. Cron] to get his bat into the lineup when he's not catching.

Featured autographs - Dodgers prospects

Pitchers Grant Holmes, Josh Sborz and Andrew Sopko maybe just the trade bait needed to land an ace like Chris Sale - who seems an obvious fit for the Dodgers now that Clayton Kershaw could be out for the season.

The trio of Holmes, Sborz and Sopko have each shown they can pitch in the hitter friendly California League - but regardless of their performance or ceiling, the Dodgers maybe less reluctant to deal either one or all three as opposed to Julio Urias, Jose De Leon or Yadier Alvarez.

Sborz and Sopko were drafted out of college, so as long as they are healthy and effective, they may get to the big leagues by some point next year - while a team like the Chicago White Sox can wait for Holmes to make the progression a level at a time.

I really don't ask for inscriptions [particularly on cards], but it's cool to get something a bit more than an autograph [especially when the player has more of a scribble] - if a player is willing to add the inscription and it looks clean.

2016 Topps Gypsy Queen value pack II

Maybe it's the Gypsy Queen banner in red kind of clashing with the grayish borders but these cards put me to sleep - the base cards don't really pop and seem kind of ugly.

I got a value pack from Walmart because the framed parallel pack contained five cards as opposed to only three in the Target value pack configurations - the framed parallels are pointless, but I want a reason to lure myself into an impulse baseball card purchase as opposed to avoiding things all together.

Bonus framed parallel pack
#20 Todd Frazier
#16 Miguel Sano
#52 Jeff Samardzija
#25 Chris Sale
#3 A.J. Pollock

Pack one
#11 Jason Heyward
#17 Nolan Arenado
#154 Joey Votto
#220 Trayce Thompson
#MVPM-CJ Chipper Jones - MVP Minis insert
#274 Homer Bailey

Pack two
#62 Sonny Gray
#75 Jeurys Familia
#190 Devon Travis
#7 Corey Seager - mini
#138 Adrian Gonzalez
#177 Ian Kinsler

Pack three
#17 Nolan Arenado
#62 Sonny Gray
#154 Joey Votto
#174 Matt Holliday - mini

#329 Craig Biggio - short print
#175 Jose Peraza

Card shop finds - retro uniform images on 2013 Finest cards

I grabbed these 2013 Finest base cards of Roy Halladay, Chris Sale and Adrian Beltre - it is fun for me to be able to flip through a handful of cards from the quarter box and come across random cards that have to stick in my stack even after I've whittled down the number of cards I'm actually going to buy.

I've kind of neglected picking up and talking about collecting topic cards - I'd rather do things on the down low, maybe trying to work picking just a bit more cards here and there hoping to list the collecting topics cards I've picked up this past year in a database and putting the actual cards away.

Featured autograph - Chris Sale

I was able to get the young pitching ace when the Chicago White Sox played the Angels a couple of weeks ago - he was pretty accomodating signing after the gam, though it seemed like the regular autographers were probably somewhere else the afternoon I got him.

I can't really say much more about a guy who carved up the Angels this season - Sale struck out 19 and walked three in 16 2/3 innings in two starts against the Halos, allowing only 4 hits and a grand total of 0 runs.