Card of the Day: 2010 Topps Chrome Purple Refractor Nick Johnson

Oh, Nick. I wish your career would have turned out better. If only you weren’t made out of glass.

Card of the Day: 2010 Topps Stephen Strasburg

Finally pulled this from a pack of Topps Update a week or so ago. Glad to get it off the damn needs list.

Ryan Zimmerman GU, Auto, and Chrome Collection Part 1

This is by no means a comprehensive posting of my collection of Zimmerman GU & Autos, just to let you know up front. These are all treasured pieces to my collection, so I thought I’d start collecting them all into a series of ongoing posts. I think I’ll do one for Jordan Zimmermann soon, as well.

2004 SP National Honors

2006 Topps Chrome Blue

2006 eTopps

2006 Upper Deck Special F/ X Materials

2007 Upper Deck Artifacts

2007 Upper Deck Exquisite

2010 Triple Threads

2010 Topps Tribute

Trades with Rhubarb Runner and BA Benny

Apologies guys for combining both trades into one post, but I’ve run late on this one long enough. My first trade was with Rhubarb Runner from e Reyhahn, Reyhahn, a blog I’ve enjoyed for quite awhile now. He contacted me with a trade proposal, and we worked something out, with an eye toward a future, larger trade, I hope (the holiday season is just kicking me around timewise). Here’s a sample of what he sent!

 

2009 Topps Traded Gold

 

Very cool, goes straight into the Zim collection. I dig it.

 

2009 Topps Gold

 

And then here’s that OTHER Zim. I’m always happy to get Jordan’s cards, and I like this one a lot – I feel the photo works a lot better with the gold borders than the white ones.

 

2010 Topps Opening Day Blue

 

I think this was my first Opening Day blue card for this year, and I like it a lot. I may try to collect the entire team set.

And the centerpiece of the trade on my end. Everts never really panned out to be much, but I’ve been trying to get his autograph and GU for awhile now; I like obtaining stuff like this from obscure players almost as much as the All Stars, and it’s a nice addition to the collection. Thanks, David! I still plan to dig through that

Okay, now to Mike’s trade. Mike, of course, runs BA Benny’s Baseball Card Buffet and Pack Rip Cafe, both of which are great blogs worth checking out. This was actually our second trade, a follow-up to our previous trade. This began when I saw he had broken a box of 2010 Topps Update and scored some Nationals and Senators that I wanted. Let’s look at the targets first:

 

2010 Topps Traded Gold

 

Well, duh. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to part with this one, but I appreciate that he did. It’s definitely going to occupy a cherished spot in my collection, especially as it has both Stras and Zim on the same card. Very cool.

That coloring job is horrific, but I will always ALWAYS want a card with The Big Train on it. Walter Johnson was the man.

 

Original Back

 

I’ll also always want cards with Killebrew as a National/Senator. He was in Washington for such a brief time that these cards, even reprints, are always a treat.

There were a few other update cards, but that was the core of what I wanted. Of course, it wouldn’t be a trade without a few throw-ins, and he threw in a LOT of cards. My favorite, and what turned out to be my favorite of the package even ahead of the Strasburg, is this:

Detwiler will likely not become much, but this is cool because I have the non-gold edition of this card…putting the gold next to the regular is incredibly sweet. Like I said, sometimes it’s not about the player’s star power; there are lots of other factors.

1999 Bowman Chrome International

The 98 and 99 Bowman Chrome International cards are AWESOME, and this one is no exception.

2006 Topps Own the Game

2006 Topps Stars

A couple of cool 06 Topps inserts.

2006 Topps Trading Places

Another insert that seemed highly appropriate next to Soriano.

2007 Bowman Heritage Refractor/Rainbow

Are these refractors or rainbow cards? I’m never quite sure. Either way, love the set, and I like Jesus Flores. I keep holding out hope he’s not injured again.

There was a lot more stuff, but this is all I really have room for. Thanks a lot, guys! I hope you enjoy what I sent your way.

Card of the Day: 2010 Topps Chrome XFractor Stephen Strasburg

Hang in there, Stephen, and come back strong in 2012.

Not Yet a National: Cole Leonida

2010 Elite Extra Edition

Cole Leonida was a big fish right out of the gates; in 2007, his senior year of high school at Grandview high in Colorado, he was named a Louisville Slugger High School All-American after leading his team to the Class 5A Centennial League baseball championship. He already had a scholarship from Georgia Tech waiting in the wings. His mission? Only to replace Matt Wieters by backing up incumbent Jason Haniger. Big shoes to fill.

Haniger was a pretty good player, though; he hit .329/.415/.638 in 52 games during Leonida’s freshman year, giving Cole 26 games, in which he hit only .145/.277/.291. It didn’t look like Leonida had long-term potential. Haniger was drafted by the Pirates in the 8^th round in 2008, but he chose not to sign, returning to Tech for a .311/.388/.473 campaign after which he went undrafted. That has to suck.

Not the Greatest Idea ever.

Leonida got about the same amount of playing time as the previous year, but improved to .306/.407/.556. Not too bad, right? He was handed the starting job in 2010, and proceeded to hit .296/.370/.500 with 11 home runs in 62 games as the Jackets became a powerhouse yet again, but were eventually eliminated from the playoffs. Just a few days later, the Nationals picked Leonida as the first pick of the sixth round. He was happy about it:

I’m really excited about it, because they’re a team that’s definitely going in the right direction. They’ve had, obviously, a good draft the last two years and they’ve got a lot of young talent. It’s also an organization where I could possibly move quickly because they don’t have a franchise catcher like (Jason) Varitek sitting in Boston for all those years. They’re still kind of on the up-and-up. It’s just a real good situation all the way around, and I’ve heard it’s a real good organization, so I can’t complain. I’m ecstatic.

2010 Topps Debut

Cole didn’t exactly get off to a stellar start in the system, though, hitting .146/.241/.184 with Vermont. He has loads of time, though, and I think his reputation is more as a defensive catcher than a hitter, so who knows? He may still make it. Only time will tell.

2010 Topps Debut #2

Let’s bring this set on home now. Today is mostly Vermont Lake Monsters, with one Syracuse card. I’ll get the Syracuse card first.

It seems like Jack Spradlin has been around for ages at this point. I watched him pitch at Potomac in 2007, and he still hasn’t gotten to the majors. 2005 was his year 25 season, and he ended up spending most of it in AA, as he got hammered at Syracuse much like in 2009. Both times he’s played with Syracuse, he’s ended up with a 6+ ERA, then promptly gone back down. I don’t know why they included him, but I doubt he makes the majors.

On to Vermont…

I’m supposed to have an autograph of Cole Leonida on the way from eBay, but who knows where it might be with the mail situation. Cole was a sixth-round pick this year and hit pitifully at Vermont, putting up a .426 OPS, but he’s still a 21-year-old catcher, so that’s probably to be expected. I’m not sure what to expect out of the guy, but I think he has a shot.

Destin Hood probably could have been a football star, but the Nationals were able to sway him away. In fact, Hood would have been part of a championship Alabama football team. That couldn’t have been easy for him to watch, but he insisted he always thought of himself as a baseball player first and had no regrets. He’s still 20, and he’s done fairly well for himself in the Nats minor league system. His biggest problem so far is his plate discipline and high strikeout totals, but that kind of thing can be taught, especially at his age, so we’ll see.

I wasn’t familiar with Jason, but that’s because he was a 2010 fifth rounder. Drafted out of Texas State, where he had a high OBP but was known more for his glove, he had a mediocre showing at Vermont this year. We’ll see where he goes from here.

A 2009 second-round pick, Jeff hasn’t shown much in the minors so far, but he hit .324 for his career at the University of California and was picked All-Pac-10 as a junior as well as the Collegiate Baseball Freshman All-America, so he has some bonafides.

The last player, Justin Bloxom, had a great 2010. A 2009 11th rounder, he hit 309/355/476 with 11 home runs after a so-so 2009. He’s not just an outfielder, though; in fact, he spent most of the year at 1B this year, though his glove is apparently the best in right field. I suppose we’ll see where he goes from here.

The most interesting thing about this set is that not a single player is below age 20, and almost all were college picks rather than high school picks. I wonder why that is? I’m very curious about the picks here in general. Why no Strasburg? Where’s Michael Burgess? No Brad Peacock? No Bill Rhinehart (not a prospect, but neither is Spradlin)? Tyler Moore had a fantastic season at Potomac, but I don’t see him here, either.  You could argue that no Strasburg because he had a 2010 Topps card, but so did Drew Storen, and here he is. Peacock has had a Bowman card already, so maybe that’s it? If they’ve had a card from previous years? I don’t know. I’d be interested in learning why these choices were made, though.

Overall, very pleased, though. I’d love to see it expanded to cover more players, though. Maybe next year.

2010 Topps Debut #1

This is an odd little set. I’m not even sure why it exists, exactly, but at the same time I kind of don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, as I’m thrilled to be able to get more cards of players in the Nationals organization. The problem, of course, is that many players that I’d like to see are omitted.

Today we’ll take a look at the players from the GCL Nationals, Potomac Nationals, and Hagerstown Suns.

Well, play-ER from the GCL Nats. I was surprised to see Danny Rosenbaum is already 23, but then he also didn’t spend 2010 with the GCL Nationals at all. He spent most of the season at Hagerstown, where he had a 2-5 record with a 2.32 ERA and 84 strikeouts in 101 IP. He moved up to Potomac and pitched pretty much just as well, a good sign for a guy who had a mediocre college career. To be honest, I didn’t know much about him until I read this article on washingtonpost.com, and I’m glad I learned.

 

A.J. Morris was the only Suns player with whom I was not familiar. With A.J., it became clear that these cards are based on the player’s team from the previous year, as he didn’t pitch for Hagerstown this year. Morris was a bit of a drop-off from Danny Rosenbaum, though. He was sent back to the GCL Nats early this year and didn’t significantly improve at that level, throwing a 3.21 ERA with 10 Ks in 14 IP. Not to mention he was giving up 5.8 hits an inning. That ballooned when they moved him up to Potomac this year; his ERA went up to 3.88, and he surrendered 8.4 hits an inning. At age 23 at that level, I’m not optimistic we’ll ever see him in the majors.

Drew Storen, of course, made the majors this season. He was mediocre, but considering he was in college just a bit over a year ago, I think he’ll be fine.

I’ve written about Steve Lombardozzi on this site before.

Steven Souza has been kicking around the Nationals system since 2007, but he was a high school draftee, so it’s not that big of a deal. He’s floated between SS and 3B, but with Zimmerman firmly entrenched at third, I’m not sure where he would fit in long-term. Hell, I’m not sure he does. He repeated with Hagerstown this year and finally started finding his power, knocking 11 home runs, but he also hit .231/.306/.432. That’s definitely not going to get it done. Still, he’s only 21 and has some time, so we’ll see.

I recently got a Trevor Holder autograph from eBay, so I was excited to see him in the actual uniform. Unfortunately, he’s struggled quite a bit in the minors, so he may never see Nationals Park. He had a 1.393 WHIP at Potomac this year at age 23, so…hrm.

Derek Norris is the most solid prospect we’ll see today. He had some trouble with high-A pitching this year, only going .235/.419/.419 (NICE ops) with 12 home runs, but he’s only 21, and catchers develop more slowly, so I’m not too freaked out. Not to mention he has some great power potential.

Tom Milone was another player that I’d never heard of, but he looks pretty good; he went 12-5 in both 2009 and 2010, which doesn’t mean a whole lot, but when you consider it’s between A and AA and that his ERA stayed almost the same, I think he looks like a candidate to eventually get to Washington. I’d bet he makes it as a reliever, though. We’ll see.

 

Morning Coffee and the Blog Roundup 11/1 – Can’t Wake Up Edition

Seriously. Had trouble going to sleep last night, then woke up at 5:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep. Oh the burdens I bear…

Halloween party went well Saturday night, even if I had to shift gears on my costume after some damage to my bald cap. I went from Tor Johnson to a corporate zombie. I went for a trial run on Friday at work, and ended up with this:

I mean, that’ s okay and all. But I saw what needed to be changed and was able to put this together Saturday night:

So, eh. Good weekend and all. Found some cards at a thrift store. Nothing incredibly major, but turned up some die-cuts from the late 90s and a huge stack of 2009 SPx cards. Guess someone busted a box and donated the base cards. It felt so wrong to see it there…I just had to give it a home, and I figured some folks might need them. No Nationals in that pack, but I did find a nice 93 Stadium Club rainbow/foil/whatever those things were of Dennis Martinez.

Giants are closing in on winning the World Series. I’m rooting for them, and even I’m shocked. Oh, and I’m sick of hearing the crap about how the ratings would be better with the Phillies and the Yankees. So what if it would? That doesn’t mean it would have been a better series.

Could this possibly be the most poorly photoshopped DVD cover ever?

The reason there’s not a whole lot of baseball card content here is because it was kind of a quiet weekend on that front for a variety of reasons; with the holidays approaching, money priorities have shifted. I did score the entire 2010 Topps Debut Nationals team set, which I’ll be posting in the near future (hopefully tomorrow), but most of my card-based activities have been related to getting my cards into albums. I’ve seen a few cards that I think I should cover here soon enough.

So, let’s take a look at what everyone else has been saying!

• Bad Wax started his brag photo series with a PAINFUL cut. I’m going to love this series, I can already tell.
• The Card Corner Club informed us that Upper Deck had postponed (more likely canceled) 2010 SP Prospects baseball.
• Nachos Grande advocated contests as a method of increasing blog popularity. Hmmm. May have to go for that myself one day…
• Wrigley Wax concluded the 1990 Topps TV series with the prospects that made it and the prospects who didn’t make it (some of these guys, not so much prospects really. Bob Bafia? Please.).
• The Priceless Pursuit shows us just how stylish Paul Sorrento was. I was so blind!
• Flywheels opened a pack of 2010 Obak at A Pack to Be Named Later. Hey, I opened one of those this weekend, too! Pulled crap, but they’re fun cards.
• Grand Cards reflected on Brandon Inge making the Tigers’ Man of the Year.
• Night Owl Cards contemplated color-coding refractors to holidays. Psst, I made some mock-ups of his suggestions:

 

Christmas edition

 

 

Valentine's edition

Easter edition

 

• The Greatest 21 Days featured John Flaherty and Johnny Paredes.
• Padrographs had an autograph from the reclusive Brad Pounders. Is he still a potato farmer?
• My Cardboard Mistress “made” a “trade” with “the collective troll”.
• Night Owl continued the card back countdown with 1966 Topps (that’s pink).
• Orioles Card “O” the Day featured Tripper Johnson. Saw this guy play at Frederick in 2004 and he was a beast. I always wondered what happened to him. Football, eh?

And that does it for today. Have a good one.

EBay Week: Day Five

Okay, so the guy I was worried about came through after all, even if I have some quibbles over the delivery method. Let’s start, however, with another arrival:

 

2010 Topps Tribute

 

There, now I have a Ryan Zimmerman from each of the 2010 high-end Topps issues. I may try to score a GU/Auto from Triple Threads, but I’m generally not a huge fan of this stuff. I mean, for God’s sake, the sticker is on crooked. Ah, well.

The last thing that I was waiting for was an assortment of cards from a seller on eBay. Most of these ran between 2008 and 2010, base cards from a guy who probably broke some boxes, with a patch auto included. For the price, it was a good buy. Here’s the patch auto:

 

2009 Donruss Elite Extra Edition

 

I had actually never heard of Holder until I saw this card for sale, but I did a little research on him and learned that he was a surprise Nationals pick. I don’t know if he’ll ever make the majors, but I dig the hell out of this card. I like the collegiate patches concept a lot, and it’s a nice auto.

Of course, there was also a lot of base and some parallels. Like this:

 

2009 Donruss Elite Extra Edition

 

Yep, guy obviously broke at least one box of Elite. I got a couple of the Storens, and I was happy to receive them.

 

2010 National Chicle

 

The lot also included a near-complete team set of National Chicle. Score! It also included this sweet Walter Johnson:

 

2010 National Chicle

But that’s not all! He also included this sweet 2010 Bowman Blue Cristian Guzman:

 

2010 Bowman

 

And the last Bowman Chrome prospect I needed from the 2008 issue:

 

2008 Bowman Chrome

 

As well as a 2009 Unique Adam Dunn (I’d never heard of this set before):

 

2009 Topps Unique

 

He also completed my 2010 A&G Team set (minus the minis):

 

2010 Allen & Ginter

And, finally, a mess of Topps Finest:

2010 Topps Finest

So, yeah, overall, I’m pretty pleased, and it was a nice week of pick-ups. I’m definitely going to focus more on singles than packs from here on out.