You do 50/50's.
I suppose that the more technical term for this is "consignment" but that's way too serious a word. I just want some squiggles written in sharpie, not have people sell my shit on my behalf. The term 50/50 comes from how if you want one autograph of a player via IP, then you send someone who can get that signature two cards so they can get one autograph for themselves and another for you.
As far as Yankees go I've had the luxury of seeing a bunch of prospects in the system come through Staten Island. At the same time there have been several players I missed out because they skipped the level entirely. It happens. This is where having contacts in Charleston, Tampa, Trenton and Scranton would be a big boost. Unfortunately I have no such contact in Charleston, my Tampa contact is no longer in Florida, and by the time the players reach double-A I tend to think getting even one autograph from them is impossible, let alone getting an extra one for someone else, so for the longest time I never bothered making contacts in Trenton and Scranton.
But then I encountered Nick who runs the blog n j w v. Nick is a prolific Tweeter and also goes to a handful of Trenton Thunder games. Although being an autograph collector isn't exactly what they intend on doing, we both joked(?) for a while about seeing if he and his family would finally take the next step towards that. Then the Trenton Thunder roster got released and I realized that many of the players I saw in Staten Island in 2015 were in Trenton now. I had several of the 2015 and 2016 team sets just sitting around gathering dust and I sent them out to Nick in a hurry. Effectively pushing him into the world of IPs like the time I pushed Gavin into the world of TTMs. I'm a bad influence. The kind your moms warned you about.
In the process my greedy self asked for his help in getting five autographs that I needed. I felt pretty bad because Trenton/the Eastern League in general is a tough place to get autographs. That's the kind of place/level where the hounds get really ugly and players get put off by signing altogether. But Nick was on-board and somehow made it work. You can read about the stuff I sent him here (he even went out of his way to make me a label/tag on his posts). That means I need to justify it by sending him more junk.
With all that said, let's look at the stuff sent back my way.
Starting us off is the key signature I needed, Albert Abreu. Abreu came over to the Yankees in the Brian McCann trade. He was a top 10 prospect almost immediately and as such he was hyped up a lot. To the point where he'd receive a Bowman Chrome Prospect Autograph not long afterwards. However, that meant two things. One was that he was well beyond Staten Island's level by the time he was traded over to NYY, another was that he'd be a lot more reluctant to sign autographs. To the surprise of no one he's pretty much a one per guy at this point. I sensed that this would be the toughest and I was proven right as he took the longest for Nick to get on my behalf. I don't blame Abreu though, it's very likely that the hounds in Tampa did him in long before he got to NJ, and the hounds in Trenton likely made it worse. Still though, I'm glad I can finally say I have an Abreu autograph in my collection. Also if you're wondering why I went with an EEE card that lists him as a Houston
Next up is the only guy I've gotten an autograph of before, Trevor Stephan. Stephan came through Staten Island back in 2017 when he was first drafted. He was one of the more polished pitchers on the team that year and I thought he'd climb up the Yankees org ladder in a hurry. The fact that he's already in Trenton shows as much. Stephan has the fastball/slider/changeup combo to be an effective pitcher going forward, and though his ceiling is limited, his floor is just that high.
I'm low-key working on getting the entire 2017 Bowman Draft base set signed and this goes a long way in helping me accomplish that.
Alright, now we're entering the really elusive names where they don't exist in the cardboard realm outside of minor league releases. Starting with Nick Nelson.
Nelson was the Yankees' fourth round pick in 2016 and here in 2019 he's developed into one of their top prospects. Prior to the Yankees signing him Nelson was a two-way guy capable of getting K's and hitting dingers. Now he's strictly a pitcher and he's improved on the mound since he made the commitment. He's a hard throwing righty with a mid-to-high 90's fastball, a curveball, a slider and a changeup. Whether or not his future is in the bullpen or rotation long term hinges on if he can get his secondary pitches working more consistently. Good luck to him. I think he can do it.
Next is reliever Trevor Lane. Lane is interesting to me because he was initially assigned to Staten Island in 2016 after being drafted, but he didn't show up in SI until the last week of the season. Here in 2019 he's made it all the way up double-A after an impressive showing in 2018 where he was a Florida State League All Star. According to 2080 Baseball, Lane has a low-90's fastball and a slider. He projects to be a middle reliever and he could make it to the big leagues like how Joe Harvey and Jonathan Holder before him did.
Last but not least is Nick Green.
Green came over to the Yankees in the trade that sent Carlos Beltran to Texas. That wasn't too surprising given how NYY liked Green enough that they actually drafted him back in 2013 (though he declined to sign and signed with the Rangers when they drafted him in 2014). He performed pretty well as a starter in the Yankees org, enough for the team to keep him a starter in spite of a sudden influx of starting pitching talent. Also enough so that the Arizona Diamondbacks actually took him in the Rule 5 Draft this past spring. Unfortunately Green didn't quite make the cut to join the D-Backs bullpen and he was returned to the Yankees. He had four appearances in April this season before going on the IL. Hopefully he returns soon and comes back strong.
So those were the cards Nick got signed on my behalf. It worked out great because I was definitely not getting 3/5 of these guys via TTM. And whether or not I would've gotten Green at all is iffy at best given how he got hurt.
Accompanying these cards were a 2018 Trenton Thunder team set. Kind of appropriate given how I sent him six team sets.
Lastly there were three programs Nick sent along. One from 2018 and two from 2019. I sent Nick some programs from Staten Island and he noted that the Thunder programs were better in quality. He was right. The look and feel of these things right off the bat is impressive. I initially told Nick that I was okay with programs (they can take up a lot of space if you're not too careful), and now I feel like I dick for telling him to not bother sending these. Though truth be told that guilt stems from how he had to pay the Priority Rate to send me these. Hopefully the Park made up for it.
So that was my first 50/50 in years. I've had that label created on this blog for a while and this is only the third time it's been used. Woof.
Big thanks to Nick for getting the autographs for me in the hostile EL environment. As more former SIYs climb the ladder to Trenton, maybe I can sent more stuff your way in the future.
As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).
