Showing posts with label 2014 Topps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2014 Topps. Show all posts

Monday, December 15, 2014

Howie Kendrick

Kendrick gets to stay in the So. Cal area and ends up playing for the more prominent 'LA' team - I guess with one year remaining left on his contract, it's great he was traded for a young, cost controlled pitching prospect.

I'm not so sure Kendrick was overtly popular with Angels fans, but for better or for worse, he just came to the park to play - the Angels are probably going to miss his presence at second base and his steady bat at the plate.

From a fan's perspective, Kendrick was expected to be a perennial hitting star, but he fell just a bit short of being the type of hitter that contended for batting titles - even as batting average is considered outdated means of gauging a player's worth, BA is still a stat to check out on a daily basis.

A home grown talent who has been in the organization since 2002 and been in the major leagues since 2006 - Kendrick is getting older and while it's obvious now that he's gone, the Angels weren't going to extend him.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Corey Kluber and 2014 MLB award winners

This was probably supposed to be a post having a small stash of Kluber signed cards from a minor league game or spring training perhaps - as is, I can't immediately find anything autographed by Kluber and despite being confident I had his scribbles on a few cards, I guess an unsigned 2014 Topps will have to do for now.

I do like cobbling together loose cards of the major award winners [Rookie of the Year, Cy Young and Most Valuable Player] - come awards season, I feel like I'm going to be able to make use of a few star cards [for the most part] that I'd normally overlook because I have too many in general to care about.

I'm adding this 2014 Topps Stadium Club Future Stars die-cut insert to my American League Rookie of the Year collection - the card I'll be adding to my National League Rookie of the Year collection has already been featured.

I found two of these 2014 Bowman cards, so even though I want different cards to represent an award winner in most circumstances - I think I'll live with dropping one card into my National League Cy Young collection and dropping a dupe into my National League MVP collection.

I have enough loose Trouts to choose from and it's a wonder why I haven't been able to use a couple more of his cards for my American League MVP collection already - but he finally took the MVP award home and I can put his 2014 Topps Stadium Club Rainbow parallel into my AL MVP collection.

Tuesday, October 07, 2014

Albert Pujols pick ups

Where was my man Pujols, who I hoped would have a big postseason - he hit one lousy home run and one other RBI base single in the American League Division Series, but nothing else.

As is, he played in 159 games in 2014 and posted decent offensive numbers - even though his on-base/slugging wasn't up to par with what he has done before.

The small lot of Pujols cards features his 2014 Topps Chrome Topps Shelf insert - his base 2014 Topps Chrome, a 2014 Topps Chrome 1989 Topps reprint refractor and also a 2014 Topps Red Hot foil parallel.

Friday, July 04, 2014

Jason Grilli

I thought Grilli was a journeyman who was out of baseball years ago - but he's actually pitched with the Pittsburgh Pirates for parts of the last four seasons until being traded to the Angels.

An All-Star last year, he struck out out 164 batters in 108.2 innings combined in 2012 and 2013 - hopefully he still has some juice in his right arm to help the Angels in the later innings whether as a set-up man or a guy that can close out some games.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Clayton Kershaw no-hitter

Since I have the Dodgers' TV station and someone is paying for it, I tuned in to watch snippets of the Dodgers game - I like how Kershaw showed some emotion after the final out was recorded, being congratulated by his teammates and eventually his wife.

During the game, the broadcast showed a graphic of the Dodgers' no-hit pitchers and I liked when Vin Scully said - we are here to broadcast the game, not be superstitious.

Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Featured autograph - Matt Shoemaker

The long shot threw two shutout innings in his 2014 debut Tuesday night - his upside seems limited as a 27-year old long reliever [looks like he was a starter in the minors] who doesn't throw hard, though he might have the potential to be useful as long as he isn't overexposed.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

A scrub for scrub trade

The Angels picked up Jose Alvarez, a little soft tossing lefty from the Detroit Tigers in exchange for shortstop / utility man Andrew Romine - who never really had a chance to play every day in the big leagues, but might get a prolonged look to fill in at shortstop after the Tigers lost Jose Iglesias for the season.

I know little of Alvarez except for having a lone 2010 Topps Pro Debut card - sometimes I wonder if some of these random minor league guys [either pictured on Bowman prospect cards or Topps Pro Debut] will ever reach the major leagues, but the 24-year old Alvarez did so last year [though the results weren't all that pretty].

Thursday, February 20, 2014

2014 Topps Target $9.99 hanger box break #2

I won't list the base cards because I feel like they are redundant - but I pulled a Justin Upton short print, so that's my 'big money, three dollar hit' on eBay.

I'm listing the other inserts / parallels I pulled - I just grabbed a random hanger box and didn't realize some boxes don't actually have the Target red bordered parallels in them [unless explicitly marked on the box], so I was out of luck there.

#24 Manny Machado - Red Hot Foil parallel
#229 Justin Upton - image swap SP
#UC-35 Ken Griffey Jr. - Upper Class insert
#FN-17 Wil Myers - The Future is Now insert
#50YD-2 Gerrit Cole - 50 Years of the Draft
#SV-4 Adrian Beltre - Super Veterans insert
#205 Seth Smith - Yellow
#49 Enny Romero - Yellow

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Mike Trout pick up

Shows what I know, but I missed the boat on collecting his best cards when he was first drafted - now, I'm probably just picking up random cards of his that look cool, like this 2014 Topps framed rookie reprint serial #'d.

I wish I'd picked up a first-year autograph from 2009 when he was just another prospect before the 2010 season - though I have in-person autographs I've gotten over the years, as far as collecting cards, they just don't count.

Friday, February 14, 2014

Random pack break recaps - 2014 Topps and 2013 Topps Update

2014 Topps Series I hobby [$2.00 each]

Pack one
#257 C.J. Wilson
#210 Jose Altuve
#317 Lonnie Chisenhall
#156 Kendrys Morales
#UC-44 Gary Carter - Upper Class insert
#95 Brandon Morrow
#226 Sean Doolittle
#45 Jake Marisnick
#9 Dustin Ackley
#27 Michael Choice

Pack two
#290 Chad Bettis
#100 Bryce Harper
#166 Dustin Pedroia
#36 Billy Hamilton
#62 Joe Kelly
#260 Zoilo Almonte - Gold parallel serial #'d 0962/2014
#58 Dan Straily
#131 Junichi Tazawa
#326 Khris Davis
#120 Kevin Correia

2013 Topps Update hobby [$2.00 each]

Pack one
#US-315 Bruce Rondon
#US-171 Nick Punto
#US-271 Francisco Liriano
#US-285 David Ortiz
#US-307 Mike Carp - Gold parallel serial #'d 0362/2013
#PH-3 George Brett - Postseason Heroes insert
#US-51 Brett Marshall
#US-199 Juan Lagares
#US-89 Michael Pineda
#US-320 Chris Archer

Pack two
#US-38 Denard Span
#US-30 Mike Adams
#US-169 Ezequiel Carrera
#US-160 Lyle Overbay
#US-185 Daniel Nava
#CH-104 Nomar Garciaparra - Chasing History insert
#US-136 Travis Hafner
#US-131 Josh Phegley
#US-330 Yasiel Puig
#US-227 Carlos Gonzalez

Monday, February 10, 2014

2014 Topps Target $9.99 hanger box break

It's only been two weeks but I think I'm kind of bored done with the base set already - I figured to find some of the more common [retail?] parallel cards out of an impulsive hanger box purchase, so I could see what they looked like in-hand.

#70 Marcell Ozuna
#239 Jeff Samardzija
#124 Jay Bruce
#101 Chris Nelson
#53 Clay Buchholz
#307 Jake Peavy
#328 James Loney
#74 John Mayberry
#270 Corey Kluber
#326 Khris Davis
#120 Kevin Correia 
#325 Trevor Plouffe
#132 Henderson Alvarez
#330 Evan Longoria
#194 Joel Hanrahan
#146 Jonny Gomes
#299 Max Scherzer/Bartolo Colon/Matt Moore - 2013 AL Wins Leaders
#250 Miguel Cabrera
#116 Hiroki Kuroda
#261 Michael Brantley
#208 Dayan Viciedo
#324 Elvis Andrus
#67 Yasmani Grandal
#264 Huston Street
#247 Anthony Gose
#147 Jason Frasor
#242 David Holmberg
#281 Robbie Erlin
#219 Charlie Morton
#241 Henderson Alvarez
#232 Chris Owings
#170 Wade Miley
#200 Derek Jeter
#300 Yu Darvish
#318 Luis Valbuena
#17 Todd Helton
#6 Josh Beckett
#14 Yoenis Cespedes
#60 Jon Niese
#218 Matt Dominguez
#61 Nick Markakis
#224 Michael Saunders
#122 Jonathan Papelbon
#265 Yordano Ventura

#181 Jim Henderson - Gold parallel serial #'d0620/2014

#176 Alex Cobb - Red Hot Foil parallel
#PP-8 Alex Rios - Power Players code card
#TM-49 Bryce Harper - 1989 Topps minis die-cut
#UC-41 Jacoby Ellsbury - Upper Class insert
#FN-10 Zack Wheeler - The Future is Now insert

#220 Ryan Doumit - Target red border parallel

#184 Yunel Escobar - Target red border parallel

#67 Yasmani Grandal - Target red border parallel

#62 Joe Kelly - Yellow parallel
#323 Jose Bautista - Yellow parallel
#51 Kyle Lohse
#105 Ryan Howard
#320 Hector Santiago
#98 Edwin Encarnacion
#99 Melky Cabrera
#15 Paul Goldschmidt
#262 Jeff Keppinger
#319 Ryan Goins
#48 Jarrod Saltalamacchia
#220 Ryan Doumit
#184 Yunel Escobar
#55 Chia-Jen Lo

#163 Matt Shoemaker
#32 Reymond Fuentes
#83 Jonathan Schoop
#322 Emilio Bonifacio
#254 Brett Gardner
#65 Hisashi Iwakuma

Thursday, February 06, 2014

2014 Topps HC set - the breakdown

I finally got my hand collated set in the mail and randomly created a Google Sheets file - I cut and paste a 2014 Topps checklist from Sports Card Radio and scrutinized each of the 330 cards [minus the retired #7].

I added three rows labeled 'Collecting Topic 1,' 'Collecting Topic 2' and 'Collecting Topic 3,' to list whether a card stood out as interesting - when I looked at a card, the first collecting topic collection that comes to mind is listed in category 1, then perhaps the card can count for another collecting topic [category 2] and maybe a third [category 3].

I added some comments as whether or not to count a particular card as a new addition [I may already have cards of a particular player from previous years] - as well as cards I'm looking to get autographed in-person.

Not quite, but sort of related - is this Michael Young card [#72] the worst card from Topps' Series I set?

Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Thoughts on 2014 Topps

I supposedly have a hand collated set 2014 Topps I bought on eBay - hopefully I didn't pick up a set from a seller who can't deliver the goods, like last year when I bought a 2013 Topps Series I hc set that never arrived.

I hope the set purchase serves as a ‘preemptive’ strike to purchasing any 2014 Topps packs, blasters, retail jumbo packs, retail hangers, hobby, etc - it doesn’t mean I won’t seek any 2014 Topps cards from the quarter bins at my LCS or buy unopened product, but I’m trying to secure the basic cards before blindly jumping into anymore offerings of this year's flagship brand.

After seeing all the breaks and pictures from other cards blogs and forums, I spent about 20 minutes at a card shop and dug into a bunch of 2014 Topps leftover from someone else's recent break - I suppose in the limited amount of time I had, I went to work, looking on doing the following:

A.) Fill out my 1978-present Topps sampler set - maybe a pie in the sky project for me, where I try to pick up a random [or not] card to represent all 30 MLB teams [obviously expansion teams like the Florida Marlins, Colorado Rockies, Tampa Bay Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks will have less cards while Montreal Expos and Washington Nationals are counted as one team].

B.) Be able to scrutinize many of the cards for collecting topics - it looks like Topps has put together a flagship set with all sorts of interesting images pulled from Getty Images and put them into cards.

I like the idea of randomly discovering cards that are kind of 'fun' in their own unique way - but it maybe more practical to go through a hand collated set of cards and see where I can fit each card.

C.) Pick up cards to be autographed in-person - mostly rookie cards and players who may have had a couple of years of MLB experience with not quite a lot of cards out.

Monday, February 03, 2014

2014 Topps Series I hobby jumbo pack


Even though I'm waiting on a hand collated set I purchased - I tried a 50-card pack for about $12 to see if I could pull something decent like this past break.

Pack one 
#90 Ethan Martin
#198 Nick Swisher
#284 Brandon Belt
#63 Tyler Skaggs
#107 Jordan Zimmerman
#46 Kolten Wong
#129 Yonder Alonso
#252 Kevin Pillar
#6 Josh Beckett
#14 Yoenis Cespedes
#60 Jon Niese
#328 James Loney
#74 John Mayberry
#279 Corey Kluber
#326 Khris Davis
#233 Rafael Soriano
#237 Michael Cuddyer/Chris Johnson/Freddie Freeman - 2013 NL Batting Average Leaders
#36 Billy Hamilton
#62 Joe Kelly
#323 Jose Bautista
#207 Jonathan Villar
#66 Kris Medlen
#180 Ben Revere - Gold parallel serial #'d 0269/2014
#185 Howie Kendrick - Red Hot Foil parallel
#PP-26 Jon Lester - Power Players code card
#TM-23 Roberto Clemente - 1989 Topps minis die-cut
#UC-24 Justin Verlander - Upper Class insert
#FN-7 Jean Segura - Future is Now insert
#BG-18 Cal Ripken Jr. - Before They Were Great insert
#10 Junior Lake
#272 Carlos Villanueva
#196 Cole Hamels
#154 Chris Iannetta
#125 Joe Mauer
#315 Jose Quintana
#40 Hyun-Jin Ryu
#144 Joakim Soria
#311 Chris Young
#216 Ubaldo Jimenez
#26 Josh Phegley
#181 Jim Henderson
#65 Hisashi Iwakuma
#242 David Holmberg
#281 Robbie Erlin
#219 Charlie Morton
#241 Henderson Alvarez
#33 Matt Harvey
#58 Dan Straily