Mailer Prospect Report

I spent a lot of time complaining about the collation in 2014 Topps.  Too much time.  I had hopes that this year things would be different.

I was wrong.

I bought a rack pack of 2015 base a couple of days ago.  Before I opened the pack, I had roughly 1/3 of the set.  I got more dupes than new cards.  That ain't right.  <sigh>

In other news.....

Are there any cards better than unexpected cards?  I got an envelope from P-town Tom with cards from the 2013 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks set in it (I had to look it up).  Let's see what draft picks I got.

Alex Yarbrough was drafted by the Angels in 2012.  He made it to AA last year.  His batting line looks roughly similar to Howie Kendrick's.  The Sporting News has him ranked as the Angels' 7th ranked prospect heading into this season.  Maybe he'll be the Halo second sacker in 2016.

Kaleb Cowart was the Angels' first round pick in 2010.  He's been stuck in AA the last 2 seasons hitting in the .220s.  TSN has him ranked 9th for the Angels.

Zach Borenstein was drafted by the Angels in 2011.  He got his first taste of  AA and AAA last year.  Then was traded to the Diamondbacks in July in the deal for Joe Thatcher.  Then spent more time at both AA and AAA.  He didn't make TSN's list for the Diamondbacks, but he probably would have for the Angels who have literally the worst farm system in baseball.

These are the type of cards I could never get for myself.  Which is why the blogosphere is so great.  And there was one other card in the package.

Mike Trout was drafted by the Angels in 2009.  He made it to the majors at the end of 2011.  He hasn't really done much since then.  One thing he has done though... be the best player in baseball in each of the three years.


Thanks Tom.

I'll be your excuse too..

The mailman has been good to the house of Junk Wax recently.  I've had a couple of packages come in from generous bloggers and my collection is all the better for it.

Last month Tom over at Waiting 'til Next Year picked up a huge lot of 1984 Topps.  And he was left with 60% of a set.  I knew I had to send some cards to help towards completion.  It's always good to see a post where I can think "I can help!"

Tom decided to send me a bunch of cards from 2013 and 2014 Topps base.  I doubt anybody is as excited to see those cards as I was to get them into my growing set.  He didn't stop there.  He also sent me some needs from 1991 and 1992 Topps.

But he didn't stop there.  He sent off some extra Cubs for me to move towards set completion.  Ike Hampton up top there is in a Tidewater Tides uniform, but he was traded to the Angels in March of 75.

Rod Carew is my oldest PC, but I still have plenty of cards I need.  Here's one of the last from his playing days.  And a Fleer sticker of Gary Pettis?  I'm in.

A minor league Angel.  Nice.  The Angels drafted Herndon in 2006, but lost him to the Phillies in the minor league draft in December of 2009.  He spent 2010, 2011, and April of 2012 in the Phillies bullpen.  He must have been hurt, because he didn't play the rest of 2012 at all, and never returned to the majors.

I like Allen & Ginter.  A lot.  But I just can't bring myself to buy it.  I like a little more bang for my buck.  So I rely mainly on the generosity of bloggers to obtain these things.

Opening Day is another product I don't buy.  I bought a bunch of it last year, but I just can't justify buying a repeat of base.  One or the other Topps, one or the other.

Pitcher Yency Almonte made it out of Rookie ball in 2014.  But he's only 20, so he still has time.  Oh and his brother has apparently also played in the minor leagues for 8 seasons as an outfielder.

I had already received a Rainbow foil parallel of this card from a group break (although it looks black to me), and now I have the base card to go with it.

With the exception of Ryan, Panini is getting my cartoon fix all taken care of.  Have I mentioned lately that it would be a good thing to give Panini a license?  Competition is a good thing MLB.

I should say thanks to Tom.  And I truly am grateful.  But the reality is that Tom was just using me as an excuse to head down to his LCS. 

I feel so taken advantage of.

A new favorite set?

It seems I'm having a small run of luck lately.  Not long after winning a contest over at Junior Junkie's blog, I won another contest.   All I had to do was root for the Cubs against the Phillies.  Easy enough.  And the Cubs won.  So I won. 

What did I win?  Lots.  I'll break this into 3 parts.

 Part the 1st

First I got 4 Complete team sets from some box breaks Tom was having.  I of course picked the Angels.

Here's the complete Angel team set from 1989 Swell

Here's the complete Angel team set from 1990 Swell

Yup.  That's all the Angels in the set <sigh>


 Here's the complete Angel team set from 1991 Swell:

And here's the complete Angel team set from 1990 Pacific Legends

Bobby there can go into my Grich PC.  Lucky I got two.

 Part the 2nd

While I was already getting the Angels as the prize for my win, I decided to go ahead and buy a 2nd team from the break.  I went ahead and selected the Red Sox.  What's that?  No, I'm not secretly a Red Sox fan.  I've already detailed the nightmares the Red Sox have caused me over the years.  Nope.  I wanted:

those.  I considered getting the Twins so I could add some Rod Carew cards to my Carew PC.  But somebody already claimed them.  So I went with my other favorite and claimed the Boston Splendid Splinters.  I already have a destination for a set of the other Sox.

*mini-rant time.  I got 68 Red Sox from the four sets, including doubles.  I got 9 Angels.  What the ??  Seriously no love for the Angels.  C'mon man!  end rant.*

Part the 3rd

Now, that was pretty much what I was expecting and was really very happy with that.  But there was an added bonus.  And by bonus, I mean B O N U S !

 I LOVE SSPC!!  Seriously.  I remember seeing this set in a Baseball Card Guide as a kid and thinking it was a novelty.  It looked odd to me.  It was a one-off set.  Now that I have some, I want more, more, more.

That's a coach card.  That is outstanding. Donruss dabbled in coaches in 1982 (and maybe 1983?), but SSPC did it 6 years before that.

Between Bowman in 1955 and Fleer and Donruss in 1981, SSPC is the only real challenge Topps faced.  These cards are fantastic.  The design is so simple and clean, that it's timeless. 

I can't say too many times how great these cards are.

Here's a look at the back.  There's a lot to notice here. 

First, full names.  Another thing Donruss ripped off. 

There's uniform numbers.  Nobody did that until Score in 1988. 

These are 1976 SSPC, but notice the 1975 copyright date.  And to top that, notice the teams listed for these players.  The two on the left are in Angel unis on the fronts, and the two on the right are in Red Sox unis.  All four were traded between November 4 and December 12 of 1975.  But there's a 1975 copyright date.

Did I mention I love SSPC?

Thanks Tom.

Okay Tom, because you asked.....

Been silent for awhile.  Eh, that's the way it goes.

P-town Tom of the excellent (although misguided..Cubs? really?) blog Waiting 'til Next Year sent a PWE my way.  The first group of cards

had some very cool, and new to me 1987 Fleer (oddball?) Angels.  Back in high school Wally Joyner was a big deal, and his rookie cards were all the rage for awhile.  That Brian Downing will of course be headed off to the Downing PC.  If I didn't see the name, I'd think that was Ryan Howard on that Bowman refractory thingy. 
(Side note: I took the two pictures on Grant Green's BaseballReference bullpen page.  <patting self on back>)


But he posed a question a to me.

"...could you explain why Wade Hinkle gets 2 Bowman cards in 2013.  Is he that good?"

So I will attempt to explain that now.  The first thing I did was go look up who Wade Hinkle is. He was a 27th round pick of the Angels in 2012 out of Kansas State University. 

To get 2 Bowman cards, I would think you would have to be unique.  There were 96 players who qualified for the batting title in the 2013 Midwest League.

Of those 96 qualifiers, 35 hit .270 or better.

Of those 35 qualifiers who hit .270, 10 hit 13 or more Home Runs.

Of those 10 qualifiers who hit .270 with 13 homers, 4 hit 30 or more Doubles.

Of those 4 qualifiers who hit .270 with 13 homers and 30 doubles, 2 had less than 90 strikeouts.

Of those 2 qualifiers who hit .270 with 13 homers, 30 doubles, and less than 90 strikeouts, only 1 stole a base.

Yes, the only batter who qualified for the 2013 Midwest League batting title, and hit .270 with 13 homers, 30 doubles, less than 90 strikeouts, and more than 1 stolen base is the immortal WADE HINKLE.

So there you go Tom.  Wade Hinkle is unique.  He was the only player in all of baseball to accomplish that feat.  So Bowman gave him 2 cards.

But I bet Tom knew that.  Wade Hinkle was a visiting player in Peoria a couple of times last year.

The card that exploded into hundreds

Just a quick post today.  And it seriously won't even begin to do justice to the package I got last week.

I sent an email to P-town Tom over at Waiting 'til Next year.  I saw a card he posted and asked if it was available, and offered up my usual assortment of junk wax.  I'll trade however many of those things I can to make a fair trade.  But Tom responded with the words "making this trade bigger".  I'm all for that.  So we turned it into a set building trade.  And as usual, I was so excited to get cards into sets, I didn't scan many cards.  Bad blogger (and when referring to me, I clearly use that term lightly).

But there are a couple highlights:

First off, here's the card I initially asked about.  Truth be told, I probably would have sent off the box I sent just for this card and called it even.  But Tom knocked off huge parts of a number of want lists for me.

One of things I have done is buy large lots of cards on eBay as long as it comes out to like 4 or 5 cents a card with shipping.  The problem with that practice is you never get any star cards.  Included in a stack of 1978 Topps that Tom sent was this guy:

Great ballplayer, so-so announcer.  And a star card.

Oh, and is there any question

which team Tom

collects?

I love me some 70's cards.   And there were plenty of those in the box. 

Thanks Tom for shrinking down some holes in my set collections.