Bat Blog Around: Top 5 Pack Pulled Cards

 So there was a bat blog around originated by Matt who runs the Diamond Jesters blog where you could flex and show off/share the best hits you ever pulled.

I left a comment in the original post laying out the best "hits" from an objective standpoint but they would be as follows.

2011 Bowman Chrome Ryan Pressly Superfractor 1/1 (Note: I found the blogpost by Match-Up where they scanned and shared this super)

2011 Topps Marquee Troy Tulowitzki Red 1/1

2012 Topps Chrome Will Middlebrooks Printing Plate 1/1

2012 Bowman Draft Christian Yelich Futures Game Jumbo Relic /25

2012 Bowman Sterling Yu Darvish Japanese Player Rookie Card Autograph /75

Honorable mentions:

2013 Bowman Draft Aaron Blanton Printing Plate 1/1

2013 Panini Prizm Draft Kris Bryant Gold Autograph /10

2016 BBM Homecoming Hiroki Kuroda patch /30

2011 Topps Update Mike Trout Rookie Card

2011 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects Mike Trout Rookie Card (Chrome)

2011 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects Mike Trout Rookie Card (Paper) x3

Objectively these would be the "best" cards I ever pulled. In terms of rarity and their value on the second hand market.

But subjectively, out of the 11 cards I listed I only have one still in my possession.

As cool as a lot of the stuff I've pulled over the years has been, the fact remains that I never really valued them because they were always just tradebait to get me what I really wanted. In the case of the Trouts, I pulled them in 2011 when he started his MLB career looking like a scrub so those cards weren't really much of anything to me. Even after 2012 I still only saw them as improved tradebait and not anything to actually bother keeping.

So I thought I'd take a different approach and give this topic a little bit more time to marinate and come together. I'll go an alternative route and present what would be the top 5 best cards I ever pulled in the context of how I was thrilled to pull them, and against all odds I still have them now.

You all know how often I turn over my inventory and pull the plug on my collections, do you know how hard it is for a card to stay with me? Well maybe these will hold the answer to how that's possible.

#1 2016 BBM Homecoming Hiroki Kuroda patch /30

This is the only card in the list above (an honorable mention at that) that's still with me. For obvious reasons.

#2 2012 Topps Allen & Ginter Ichiro Suzuki jersey relic

I opened four (4!) hobby boxes of A&G in 2012 and the 11 other hits were all garbage. By a wide margin, the best thing I pulled in the four (4!) hobby boxes was that Ichiro jersey relic. It's not even serially numbered but who cares, pulling a "hit" of Ichiro is always cool. Or at least I convinced myself it was to cope.

#3 2010 Tristar Pursuit Gary Sanchez Autograph /80

In a way this card is ass because if you look closely, you can see that the geniuses at Tristar bungled cutting the autograph sticker. There's fragments of two different signatures on the top and bottom. I'm pretty sure this lack of quality control is why they've since been banished to regional autograph shows and signed memorabilia.

But anyway when I pulled this in 2012, El Gary was one of the New York Yankees' best prospects and I was absolutely thrilled to nab an autograph of his. The shitty sticker sucks, there's still something charming about a serially numbered autograph card of a player you absolutely wanted to have and pulled when you least expected it. It's to the point where I was okay with moving on from my 2010 Bowman Chrome autograph because I had this card. Do you know how strong an attachment has to be to oppose the Chrome is King principle and willingly keep the unlicensed card with badly cut autograph sticker?

#4 2018 Hits! Honoka Costume & Autograph /55

Front

Back

She's hot.

#5 TBD

There is no fifth "hit" I've actually kept that I think is worth mentioning. There is a card or two that could round out this spot but I'd rather have something worthy of being catapulted to this list than just having an obvious placeholder that only exists to get jettisoned.

There's also a part of me that wants to leave the fifth spot open just because I am okay with being hopeful it comes along.

I don't open boxes or packs nearly as much as I used to. But I do think I'll probably buy something again when I deem that there's a card in the checklist I really really want. Having a whole case break is something of a bucket list item of mine. Just waiting for a product where I can just be like "yup, that's the one" and go in on.

So big thanks to Matt for the fun little blogging exercise.

And thank you (the readers) for stopping by.

Take care.

Grab One Now, Think Later

 So after all of the movement/downsizings I took a little look at what I still have left.

One thing I've taken note of and had to reflect on after the dust settled was this, I was down to just one superfractor.

This Kyle Zimmer superfractor was the last man standing.

One is still better than none mind you, but moving on from the two superfractors in the Luis Torrens collection, giving away the Thairo Estrada rainbow and sending the Austin Kubitza superfractor away to Dime Box Nick reduced my superfractor inventory from five to one in a month. Not good, this is one area where I had to replenish the reserves.

I usually tend to think long and hard about stuff I really "want" but superfractors fall into this "just grab it!" territory. Because there's only one copy of it. Plus unlike other 1/1's like printing plates, this one actually matters. It has cache in the hobby. It's totally stupid that it does, but it does.

And because Kyle Freeland superfractors weren't available and no other Colorado Rockies superfractors that were available were worth thinking about, I decided to opt for this.

Yes, a 1/1 superfractor of Albert Abreu from 2019 Bowman Chrome.

Despite my past as a New York Yankees prospect nut Abreu was never really high on my favorable meter. Mostly because I never saw him in person. He was traded to the Yankees when he was too advanced for then short-season Staten Island. So in that regard I would've gladly gravitated more towards someone like Leonardo Molina.

Abreu's career didn't really go the way fans and the organization alike had hoped. He gave it a good shot but unfortunately most of his time in the majors was spent in relief eating up mop-up garbage time innings.

Still, Abreu was the best option and I sent the seller an offer and they accepted. Great.

Also while I never saw Abreu in person but I did get a 50/50 from him via nick at n j w v, I've still kept this because it's the one 50/50 I've anointed to be the one that stays with me. Abreu was tough to get (it was tough for Nick too as his blogpost at the time shows).

Oh and Abreu went to pitch for the Seibu Lions in Japan. It says a lot about how the Yankees let someone who was immediately banished to Japan soak up lots of innings for them but whatever. I do like the concept that someone who I'd heard about for years head over there.

Good stuff. Almost as good as...

OOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

I knew that Topps Chrome NPB had superfractors and whatnot but what I didn't know was that you could find one from an eBay seller based in the United States. The heck?!

Being bored and looking up "Japan superfractor" one night led me to find that Daisuke Sobue superfractor.

1/1 stamp on the back and everything.

Now THIS is a great way to replenish the superfractor reserves. After losing three really really important 1/1's with former PC guys like Torrens and Thairo, getting a Chunichi Dragons superfractor is a great way to fill the void.

Daisuke Sobue is also a great player to have represent the Chunichi Dragons because he was born in Nagoya, Aichi. He graduated from Aichi High School and later Aichi University. He then pitched for the industrial leagues as an employee of Toyota Motors (who have their HQ in Aichi) and later joined the Dragons who play in Nagoya, Aichi.

This is literally one of the most extremest examples of the hometown kid playing for their hometown team. The man's entire life has been in Aichi in an era where everyone has to move to Tokyo because that's the only place where people can find employment. Incredible.

So with this this brings the total superfractors I've owned in my life up to eight, and the three I still have have a corresponding autograph to boot. Not bad.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

Some Chunichi Pick-Ups before the Year of the Dragon

 Japan uses the Gregorian calendar but they also use the Chinese Zodiac, and according to that it's the Year of the Dragon in 2024.

I wish I could say this is the year the Chunichi Dragons finally capitalize on the great pitching they have and make it to the playoffs but lmao, no.

So instead I wanted to talk about a few Dragons pick-ups I made in 2023. A big chunk have already been sent to NPB Card Guy, but I actually did keep some. I already showed the Akira Neo (easily the most expensive Dragons auto I've gotten now), accompanying it were the following.

The Dragons have so much good pitching depth that Kodai Umetsu being hurt all of the time is almost a non-issue for them. Because of that he's become a bit of an afterthought but throughout his career he's shown that when healthy he's can be an absolute beast on the mound. Across four seasons from 2019 to 2023 he's managed to pitch in 19 games and he's got 95 K's (vs 45 walks) in 108.1 total innings pitched. One of his more notable outings was on August 2nd, 2020 where he put up 10 shut-out innings in what ended-up being the first game that ended in a tie in extra innings in NPB in nearly eight years.

While injuries weren't the only reason Umetsu's missed so much time, it doesn't change the perception that he spends most of his days rehabbing from an injury. He came back near the end of the 2023 season and looks hopefully good to go for 2024, maybe this is the year he finally stays healthy for an entire full season. The Dragons rotation is already really good, adding a healthy Umetsu would make it one of the best (the team would still lose every game 0-1 because the offense stinks tho).

Discussing an offense as bad as the Dragons' is difficult since there's so many different things to point to but I suppose one place to start is how Shuhei Takahashi has fallen off these past few years. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Dragons in 2023 got worse as he missed time due to injuries. Then again he's a glove-first third baseman with a career OPS of .689, it's a bit unfair to point to him when a roster is made so horrendously that he's one of the best they can do.

At the same time, is there anyone else on the Dragons who can "hit"? The lineup is basically just him, Yuki Okabayashi, and a collection of has-beens and Tatsunami-will-never-play-thems. Hopefully he regains some healthy first in 2024 and then we get to see what Takahashi looks like as he enters his 30's.

Okay so here's an area where it's a lot easier to point to for why the Dragons offense stinks, the foreign gaijin bats they bring in fucking suck. For anyone who thinks triple-A/quad-A guys can just go to Japan and mash, look no further than how the bums the Dragons have tried that with like Zoilo Almonte and Aristides Aquino just stunk in 2023. Outside of maybe Ariel Martinez nobody's been worth caring too much about in recent times.

I know that there's a lot of reasons for why a foreign import might not work out. The cultural adjustments, the adjustments to the way the game is played in Japan, the Dragons being cheapskates, the language barriers, all that. But for a team that's trying to catch lightning in a bottle and views getting Tony Blanco reincarnate to be their key to getting to the playoffs again, they should try looking at more than just guys who are only consistent at swinging at every pitch the opposing pitcher throws.

On the flipside the Dragons' foreign pitching corps (especially in their bullpen) has been excellent in recent years. Yariel Rodriguez, Raidel Martinez, Joely Rodriguez, all studs.

I picked this autograph up in early March of 2023 when reports that Chunichi lost contact with Yariel started floating around. I had a suspicion he defected since he wasn't the first Cuban to do so during the WBC. A few days later it was confirmed.

Rodriguez's defection was a pretty messy situation for Chunichi and really put them in a precarious spot given how much they depended on Cuban imports. Complicated relations between American baseball and Cuban baseball as well as Japanese baseball's uneasy role in between weren't discussed that much outside of hardcore NPB circles but this was a reminder of that really awkward dynamic again. I did have plans to make a post on it but as you'd expect talking about defections requires more nuance and is a lot more serious a topic than this card blogger is capable of.

One of the few retired guy autographs I picked up. Daisuke Yamai was a pitcher whose time with Chunichi coincided with the last time they were good (the 2000's Ochiai-era). As even his English Wikipedia page states, his best known achievement was throwing a combined perfect game with Hitoki Iwase (the NPB's Mariano Rivera) to clinch the 2007 Japan Series for the Dragons.

That move left a lot of people divided as some talking heads thought then-manager Hiromitsu Ochiai should've left him in to complete it himself but Ochiai stated in later interviews that Yamai himself said he was gassed and probably couldn't last much longer in the game. So like any sensible person Ochiai had Yamai come out and put in the best closer in NPB history lock down the win and win the championship.

I didn't pick up any Shigeru Sugishita autographs in 2023, thought about it but I felt I had enough.

Instead my coolest Sugishita pick-up was this serial numbered card commemorating how many pitcher wins he had for the Dragons. Sugishita is a special player to me given how he's someone even the oldest members of my family still remember, and just seeing pictures of his old playing days is cool.

An extremely cool serial numbered parallel card with a faux-signature of Hiroto Takahashi.

Some baseball fans might recognize Takahashi as one of the many relievers Team Japan dished out in the WBC Championship game against Team USA. But Takahashi is a starter and one of the best among the newer crop of arms in the NPB. Boy did he show it by striking out Mike Trout and Paul Goldschmidt too. I did want to add an autograph of Takahashi but it was in the $500 range so I passed on one for now.

A serial numbered parallel rookie card (INVEST!) of Takahashi.

It's scary to think that this card alone might fetch a pretty penny. Still, I hold firm in my belief that after Roki Sasaki makes the move to come stateside, Takahashi is going to be one of the guys MLB scouts look to next as the next big time arm from Japan. Though I don't think Chunichi is going to post him, nor am I sure of how much he wants to compete in the states.

Overall the ratio of stuff I got and kept vs the stuff I sent to NPB Card Guy is like 1:50. Not great odds, I need to send him more stuff and make that ratio bigger.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

Thonks

 There's a lot that's been written and discussed about social media and the current state of the internet. How it's all just one gigantic blob of content consumption. Whether we want to or not, the only six websites that still exist are just there to bombard us with content. Some of it is tailored to us, a lot of it is tailored against us, and it's really easy to get burnt out quickly.

That current content consumption landscape is also pretty much the backbone for sports fandom and sports content on the internet. Makes sense, in sports cool shit can happen at any given moment spontaneously. There's no greater rush than seeing a bunch of people (anonymous and unknown to you or not) be caught up in the moment. It makes people who spend their days feeling nothing (read: everyone born after 1993) feel something.

As such there's this constant need for things to be going on all the time. Every five picoseconds that go by without any activity means "ded sporp f". This past winter wasn't a dud because the Scott Boras clients signed at the 11th hour, it was a dud because there were no "PASSAN BOMBS" with league shattering moves every other day. Folks were down bad enough to track a flight from California to Toronto.

But baseball in the regular season is where there's so much baseball happening every night. To the point where we don't even need it all if we're being honest. The 2024 MLB regular season hasn't even been in full effect for a month but already we've cycled through like 5 different headlines. The part I'm not proud of is that I kind of have/had thoughts about each.

- The see through pants and uniforms

I saw someone remark that every manufacturer in the world is in a different stage of not having to give a shit about what they make and that's about the best way I can describe it.

- The Ippei Mizuhara Gambling Scandal

I always thought Ippei was an asshole because he got paid money to hang out with Shohei Ohtani and speak the same two languages that I speak everyday for free.

- The Oakland A's situation

If you think about this for longer than 5 seconds the most cynical side of you completely takes over. Not remotely fun to think about anything related to this.

- The pitching injury epidemic

Gee, who would've ever thought that the league where everyone just copies what the Tampa Bay Rays are doing would end up going through arms before realizing they don't have an army of nameless, faceless pitchers ready to go in triple-A.

- Whatever Jeff Passan/Ken Rosenthal/Evan Drellich writes about next week

I am outraged and indifferent at the same time.

These topics and my thoughts on them are not what I want to talk about though, because these come and go.

No, the thing that made me want to write this post is how I bothered to have opinions on all of these. And how I'll continue to form thoughts and reactions.

Why?

Well this is an unfortunate side effect of having a brain and thoughts. Also this ties back to that spiel at the top about constant content consumption. On the most basic level all of this is content that I consumed. Then during the digestion process I formed thoughts on it but these poisoned me and my body forcefully shat out anyway in a muddied not fully formed state. Because like all of us in 2024, my brain is broken and this is how I "exchange" ideas with others.

But then I took another step back and wondered, are these genuinely my thoughts?

I did think these sure, but how much influence did other people and their reactions have in my thoughts being molded before coming into being?

Often times my first introduction to a topic is someone else's reaction to it. Maybe it's a quote tweet, maybe it's one of those roundtable discussions done on podcasts and discussion panels, whatever. How much do the reactions color my perception before I even know what the main thing is even about?

Probably a lot, especially if I deem that the topic isn't that important and just steal someone else's opinion so I don't have to waste time forming my own.

Or alternatively, if I hear one opinion, there's a high likelihood I want to adopt the other opinion just to be contrarian. Especially for a lowstakes nothing burger topic like sports.

Thinking all of this does not make me feel particularly great. It just makes me feel like a dolt.

It also opens up more questions. Am I alone? Do other people think like this at a subconscious level? What constitutes as someone's genuine thought?

Blah. No more.

I think the best solution is to just take breaks from social media altogether but doing so would hinder my ability to find titties on the internet. Twitter is just swamped with totally real women who are definitely not bots with nudes in their bios these days.

In conclusion, less thinking with my brain. More thinking with my dick.

Goodnight. Take care.

That Duo, Forever

 When I think of the early 2010's, I think of both Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez.

While we know how their careers ended, at the time they were one of the best duos in the sport. Perennial All Stars who had people wondering when they were going to be traded out of Colorado. As is the rite of passage for all Rockies greats not named Todd Helton (and possibly Charlie Blackmon).

That also means that they were unescapable in the card world for those two years.

Like if you bought a hobby box, there was a more than 30% chance your hit was going to be a gray jersey card of either Tulo or CarGo. You were also going to pull both of their base cards and at least three different inserts of one of them.

I'm not going to look at EVERYTHING they got, but I did cherry pick some cards I like just because.

Like this Black Diamond Wrapper Redemption card thingy from 2011. Lifetime Topps covered the set and has scans of the full base set for all who're curious but the gist is that you had to mail in 10 HTA jumbo pack wrappers or 36 hobby pack wrappers for a five card pack of these cards that featured the 1952 design but with some sparkly diamond theme.

This Carlos Gonzalez is from the Gold Rush Wrapper Redemption program from 2012. The scan doesn't do this card's shininess justice. I wasn't expecting there to be sparkly gold flake effects on this when looked at in-hand.
I'm not sure when Topps stopped with the wrapper redemptions or if they only do them scantly now, but if they ever bring them back I will be sure to have no idea they're going on until I happen to see a card from it pop up on eBay.

I hope Topps cut back on the captions on these Triple Threads cards because people are paying way too much money now on cards for them to be sullied by unfunny Instagram captions.

Although noting Tulo is signed until 2020 is one of the better messages since he was one of the first superstars to sign a long-term extension before hitting free agency, a trend that shortly after took off and continues to this day. Also worth pointing out that Tulo's last season as a MLBer was in 2019 with the New York Yankees.

These silk parallels just kind of came and went. The frames made them a little bulkier than I would've liked but I thought they were neat. I guess Topps figured adding more color borders was better than a card that feels nice to touch.

I remember these die-cut parallels of the Bowman's Best inserts from 2012 being hard to find at the time. Fast forward to 2024 and the artificial scarcity (like how this one is numbered to 99) has allowed them to stay hard to find but when they pop up, they go for pretty reasonable prices.

These Cut to the Chase die-cuts from 2013 are nice and I feel they got overlooked in a rush of good die-cut offerings in the early 2010's. The fact these come in shiny chrome is *chef's kiss*.

My philosophy towards baseball autographs has largely shifted to "do they have Topps 60 autographs from 2011?". Mainly because just having the names from that time period on the designs I liked the most from the time period matters a lot more to me than just getting the cheapest option available. Tulo himself signed a ton for Upper Deck and Topps so there are a lot of cheap autographs of his on the market, but I don't really want those. I wanted this specifically.

Lucked into this CarGo 2013 Sega Card Gen rare for really cheap. The Japanese Yen to American USD exchange rate continues to be more of a discount rate and beneficial for me.

You know, in a lot of ways the Rockies franchise has been defined by duos, or at least it felt like it in retrospect after each core dissolved. Todd Helton-Larry Walker, Todd Helton-Matt Holiday, Nolan Arenado-Trevor Story were some of the other ones that defined entire eras of Rockies baseball. The current non-identity crisis the Rockies have is tied to how the franchise is still waiting for its next duo.

I'm sure another pairing will emerge and give a new generation of Rockies fans fond memories of the team finishing above .500 and making a Wild Card round appearance or two. I'm just not sure how far away in the future that is.

Still, at least I can point to Tulo and CarGo as my go-to duo.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

First Trade(?) of 2024

 At this point I don't "trade". I don't like going through lists and seeing if anything on it tickles my fancy, nor do I have lists of my own for people to look through. Such things take time and effort, neither of which I am willing to put in for this hobby.

But the nice thing is that every now and then it's good to have friends who you can ask for small things.

Base Front

Case in point, I actually reached out to The Lost Collector and got the base card of Kyle Freeland from 2024 Topps. It's spiffy and really nice thanks to a combination of the 2024 Topps design and Freeland rocking the City Connects jersey. A jersey I'm on record previously saying I think is so bad it's great.

Technically TLC's son pulled the Freeland, TLC mentioned he traded his son a Jazz Chisholm card for it but I later sent a Francisco Cervelli autograph just to be make sure. I still stay up at night worried that it wasn't good enough.

Base Back

In a lot of ways this was as ideal a transaction as I could hope for. Saved me so much time and money compared to going on eBay and seeing if anyone is selling base cards anymore at $1 with free shipping. Plus it was with an old friend who I've traded with since, well, basically the beginning.

But as nice as it was to get the Freeland base, in 2024 it's no longer just about the base. There's another reason I wanted that.

Yup, got the "Golden Mirror" image variation shortprint too.

So I'm going to go a little bit on a tangent here but we'll come back to this card.

2023 Variation

Freeland's shortprint in 2023 Topps is one of my favorite Freeland cards in my collection. It's so great that I've proudly placed it on my blog when viewed on browser mode as the replacement for what used to be the signed Luis Torrens superfractor. That's how much I like it.

2024 Variation Front

The 2024 shortprint is not nearly as good to me for some reason. It's a unique pre-game shot of Freeland chilling in the sunlight for sure, but it's just not hitting the same. Maybe it's the way this card looks like more an Xfinity ad, maybe it's the empty stands, maybe the 2023 SP just raised the bar that much higher because that was a good shot taking inside the dugout and not on the railing next to it. Whatever the reason this card is one of those gray areas where I'm glad I have it but it's more just because I wanted to say I have it as opposed to really wanting it.

Edit: TLC pointed out in the comments that this variation is actually likely a picture of Freeland in an airbrushed Denver Nuggets jersey (maybe Nikola Jokic). Pretty interesting factoid, the way there's just this airbrushed void left is kind of a good reflection of how I'm feeling towards seeing this.

Source: Getty Images, taken by Rachel O'Driscoll

A quick Getty Images archive search proved that theory correct. And not going to lie, if this picture had been left intact, this SP would've been so much better.

Which is to say that if there ever comes a time when I pull the plug on the Freeland collection, this card is definitely going out the door.

2024 Variation Back (we don't need to squint and read codes anymore!)

But right now I have both the base and variation from 2024 Topps flagship. As someone who's built rainbows before I feel like this is a lot better (and feasible) as a compromise than trying to assemble a giant lot of cards that all look the same but just come in different colors.

I'm not sure if Topps will continue to do these short print image shenanigans in 2025 and beyond for Freeland's cards, but I may have just set myself up to obligate myself to continue assembling them for as long as they continue. Maybe thinking I have to do this is why I wasn't thrilled with this 2024 SP in the first place.

Both are City Connects shots now that I look closer

Then again I might not do it anyway given how I'm, well, me.

Maybe I'll realize the idea of owning these cards appeals to me more than actually owning them for real and I lose interest as I tend to do with 90% of stuff that enters my possession.

Either way thanks to TLC and his son for the assist :).

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.