Who the Heck Wants 14 Rockies Cards?

 The title of this post is a comment I left on Night Owl Cards' blog a while ago. It was in response to how the Colorado Rockies had 14 cards in a set. But also it was a reference to me, I am the one who went out and got 14 Rockies cards. Or specifically 14 cards of one specific Rockie.

TTM return from 2016, not part of the 14

Kyle Freeland is my favorite pitcher-only pitcher in the big leagues right now. No snark, no irony, no jokes, no nothing from me there, I just genuinely like his pitching and he's proven to be one of the few people in history who's actually managed to pitch well in Coors. When his breaking pitches are on it's insane how much movement they have.

Adding to that are other cool things about him like how he's a Denver native who was drafted in the first round by his hometown team that's been in existence for as long as he himself has. He's also the rare player I've accumulated a small collection of that is actually older than me! He seems like a cool chill person in interviews and his social media presence is positive vibes and charity work. He also stepped up when his country needed him and represented Team USA in the WBC.

Unfortunately this post is also a bit ill-timed because by the time I got all the cards shown below together and had this post ready to go Freeland had just suffered a shoulder injury in the middle of a game where he looked visibly in pain. I wish Freeland nothing but the best and a speedy recovery. And as if I wasn't feeling bad for him already, I learned his wife reported their car got stolen earlier last week too. Damn man. Give the Freelands a break.

This play is so cool (no it's not related to his injury)

That recent bummer not withstanding though, I still find him awesome and the stars aligned just right for yet another random sudden out-of-nowhere mini-collection for me.

To be clear though, Freeland's status puts him at just the right level of card output where I do not want to go all out with an extreme player collection like I have with Luis Torrens, he gets far too many parallels each year for me to even entertain that thought and I'm already a decade too late. But that output is also perfect for something I haven't delved with too much with Torrens. A selection of really cool cards for a mainstay in established MLB brand products. A lot of the cards I went after were for the sheer novelty of being cards I never had any real connection to. Except for a couple, they're all mostly from MLB products I rarely opened or considered even buying, so while they might be common/familiar to most baseball card collectors, for someone like me who's been in the prospecting realms for a decade a lot are new and still fun.

#1

Here's a great card to start us off, this is an autograph from 2019 Topps Opening Day. OD wasn't exactly a hit oriented product so that alone makes this a fascinating piece to me. Freeland feels like the right type of hit in OD.

#2

Here's another fascinating card to me, a 2019 National Baseball Card Day autograph. These are free cards given away at card shops if you purchased a certain amount of other products during a specific promotion period (although most shops would just give/sell you whatever they had left after the promo ended as it's not like Topps asks for them back). They're usually just all non-autographed base cards but there are a few autographs sometimes tucked within. An autograph of a staff ace in a freebie set. That's an insanely cool concept to me and I'm thrilled I have one with my favorite pitcher.

#3

Keeping it going with the wallet friendly theme, an autograph from 2019 Topps Big League. I'd like to imagine that there's an alternative universe where in 2019 I walked into a card shop and bought a hobby box of Opening Day and a hobby box of Big League, and received free National Baseball Card Day packs and pulled all three of these as my hits. And I'm one of the few souls on the planet who'd consider that remotely close to being a fun and successful break.

#4

This is something I'm very familiar with, a low numbered Bowman Chrome parallel (a red refractor limited to 5 copies FYI). Cards like this make up the backbone of my Torrens collection, and most modern player collections can probably relate to that sentiment (shoutout to MetallAttorney and his Connor Wong PC).

#5

Here is a true rarity, a relic card from Topps Heritage that I actually wanted and bought got for free with PayPal rewards points. The hits in Heritage are probably the least appealing thing about that set and this is an excellent example why, it's a boring piece of cloth. Although at least it's purple and not gray.

#6

This relic card is much better since it's a fancy patch from the high end Museum Collection. It's been a while since I've gotten a relic card this nice. Sidenote, I'm noticing a pattern that most of Freeland's MLB "hits" are concentrated in 2019, which makes sense given how he was really good in 2018.

#7

A 1st Bowman Chrome autograph of the staff ace for under $5 shipped. Great deal, I'll take it.

#8

One of the "rules" of collecting in 2023 is that the 1st Bowman Chrome is the autograph card for prospects and Topps Chrome is the autograph card for rookies. I think this is lame and just an excuse for people to justify a mediocre product like Topps Chrome continuing to exist but I do see the logic and I was able to get both for cheap and comply with that rule.

#9

Before this whole "adventure" started this was a specific parallel card/design I wanted to make sure I got at least one of, a Japanfractor parallel limited to 25 copies from 2014 Bowman Sterling. The Japanfractor is one of my favorite parallel designs ever on chrome cards and this was the only product Freeland was in that had this parallel. Unfortunately this parallel didn't last too long as Asia/Japan exclusive versions of Bowman sets ceased by 2016 (only to be replaced with a variation of flagship Topps which just literally plastered Japanese flags everywhere), but it's since been reused in retail Bowman offerings as a "mojo" refractor. Prizm has their own version of this design too but Prizm's logoless offerings for non-catchers look like horseshit so who cares (there's a reason this post is all Topps and Bowman folks).

#10

A seemingly ordinary base card stored and scanned in a one-touch that's sealed with a sticker? That can only mean one thing.

#10

Yep, it's the straight to eBay 1/1 Blank Back parallel. I don't think a 1/1 should be a requirement for all player collectors, but it certainly is for me.

#11

A shiny die-cut limited to 99 copies that I got for free thanks to rewards points? Yes please! We finally got a card that isn't just another ordinary rectangle. We're covering all of the bases here!

#12

This became my first 2023 Topps card and this is easily the best flagship card of Freeland to date. Also this is a new (to me) type of retail-exclusive parallel called "purple sparkle". It makes me think two things. One is that the thought of assembling a flagship rainbow is terrifying and probably impossible in 2023. The other is that this particular parallel works great with Rockies cards. Although it's a tragedy Freeland is wearing the pinstripe unis and not the purple unis.

#13

Out of all of the parallels for flagship cards, my hands down favorite will always be the vintage stock. It's a shame that these are limited to 99 copies because the vintage stocks offer a glimpse into what flagship would be like if they continued to use real cardboard stock like Night Owl often longs for. The best part is that the cardstock used is unique and different to the stock used for Heritage and Archives. Most parallels are just there to make life hell for completionists but this vintage stock parallel is one of the few that I believe deserve to exist.

#14

Finally the 14th card is my favorite card, an SSP (the backs now generously point them out). A lot of people have mixed feelings on their favorite team's City Connect jerseys but I really like the Rockies' one. I love the mountain on the jersey and the green pants should be hideous (and they are) but they're also glorious. Also this is the part where I'm super grateful Freeland is a Rockie since I would've been easily priced out of an SSP for an ace on a more popular team. The only issue I have with this card is that because this is an SSP it doesn't come with the green foil parallel which work well with the Rockies connects (just look at Randal Grichuk's card from 2023 Topps). We have been robbed of good Rockies cards!

Also confession-time, I got more than 14 cards of Freeland but wanted to keep the theme and also keep this post reasonably contained (this post is long enough as it is) and the 14 above were the ones that I thought were really worth talking about. Here's the rest I got as a scan dump here at the very end. There are also an additional few not shown here that'll be in a future post.

Ending this post on my first ever relic card that came with one of those authentication certificate stickers. Apparently this was part of Freeland's hat. Cool!

As always thanks for stopping by and take care. Kyle Freeland rules (rest up Kyle!). Go Rockies.