That Other Team In Town

Yesterday I saw a minor league baseball game. Yesterday the Staten Island Yankees played a game at home in S.I. The game I saw was not a Staten Island Yankees game (GASP!).

Yes, I went to see a Brooklyn Cyclones game instead.

The main reason for this was because I thought I could use a bit of change of scenery and return to Brooklyn for the first time since 2016. The last time I went there I ended up writing "I hate baseball" in the recap blogpost. Basically I just wanted to get myself the 2018 team set and any of the ones from previous years they had left for my collecting buds overseas who're Mets fans.

And of course there was a rain delay before the game :P. It was just a passing rainstorm but man, I just do not have any decent luck here as a regular viewer.

Anyway the opponents were the Connecticut Tigers so this was supposed to be a neutral "I have no allegiance to either team so I just want good baseball" game. I didn't even bring my normal autograph collecting gear because I just wanted to get the cards and then sit down and enjoy the game.

As you could reasonably expect that did not happen. Neither of those things happened.

The team store had the Top Prospects set in stock and I bought it. I quickly found out that both of the Tigers reps had cards. Like Sam McMillan here who signed for me before the game. McMillan was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in the fifth round of the 2017 MLB Player Draft. The Tigers lured him away from a strong commitment to the University of Florida, so much so that they even pooled money from the rest of their bonus rounds to give him a bigger bonus. McMillan is all about projection at this point in time and the idea of what he could be is pretty appealing. He's a high school catcher so there's still a long ways to go in terms of development but his bat has been said to be pretty solid. Same with his defense. That said there's a lot of growth that needs to happen and that's mainly on the physical front as McMillan figures to add some more pounds to his frame as time goes on. Right now he's not on the Tigers' top prospect rankings but he could end up there in a year or two with some improvements.

Next up is Gio Arriera. Arriera was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in the fourth round of the 2017 MLB Player Draft. Arriera is armed with a low-90's fastball that is said to have heavy sinking action and a curveball. Although he does have a tendency to get hit hard sometimes, he is more than capable of racking up a ton of k's. Such as how he k's 12 batters in seven innings earlier this season. Going forward it'll be interesting to see how his development progresses further, good luck Gio.

From the Mets side I only got two. Jose Miguel Medina was one of the two and is actually a repeater. Last year he was one of the Cyclones' best young hitters and got promoted to single-A Columbia (he even had a brief stint in high-A St. Lucie). However his results at those higher levels were mixed and he's back in Brooklyn this season. Good luck to him.

My last autograph was from Ross Adloph. Ross was drafted by the New York Mets in the 12th round of the 2018 MLB Player Draft and projects to be a solid centerfielder. Whether he reaches the majors remains to be seen, but he seems like the quintessential Mets OFer. As in, every player comp (I hate player comp but these make too much sense) ties him to the likes of Matt den Dekker and Kirk Nieuwenhuis.

And that was it for the autographs. The rain delay gave me a bit more to time to go after autographs on both teams but the Cyclones dugout was crowded. After a while I remembered why I never come to Brooklyn for autographs. Let's just say that you take one look at the people doing that shit and you're like "I do not want to be seen as one of these people". Thankful for the players that did sign though, especially the two Tigers.

As for the game itself it was at least better than the last Cyclones home game I went to. This one had a bit more action, probably too much action, in the form of a five run second that knocked Tigers starter Kacey Murphy out of the game. The bullpen didn't give the team a lot of relief either.

The rain ruined most of the seats, and being a neutral observer of a delayed and slow moving game just made get really bored really quickly. So I ended up walking around the ballpark.

My favorite part of the MCU Bank Ballpark is the Cyclones bullpen area. The stuff you see on the ground there are prizes. You see the bullpen sets up a cup where people above in the concourse can throw coins into the cups. Whoever throws one into the cups gets a prize of their choice.
Personally I love this dugout because this is where I saw Luis Torrens get ready before his appearance in the 2014 NYPL All Star Game.

Man, that was a fun night.

According to the official box score, the Cyclones won 9-2.

Actually no, they weren't the Cyclones yesterday. They were Los Brooklyn Jefes. It was Puerto Rican Heritage night so they were "The Brooklyn Bosses". Throughout the night they were doing all sorts of special promotions for New Yorkers with Puerto Rican bloodlines, lots of charity events for recovery efforts after Hurricane Maria and lots of Latin American (presumably Puerto Rican?) music playing throughout the night. Despacito only played once that entire night, so you know the entire promo team made sure to put an insane amount of work into planning that promotion. Props to them.

So did the trip out make me realize that Brooklyn is a good place to watch baseball and that I should go more often?

No.

If anything it made me dislike traveling to Brooklyn even more. At this point the ballpark in Staten Island is the one I'm used to and the ONLY one I'm used to. Every time I go to Brooklyn I end up thinking "hmm, is it okay that I'm out this late? Should I get home before the trains stop?" I don't have that with Staten Island (even though it's literally an island that's closer to New Jersey than it is to my house), because the ferries operate twice an hour and go directly to downtown Manhattan. From there the 4/5 lines are relatively reliable because they pass through the entire affluent parts of Manhattan (the east side basically). Meanwhile, Coney Island is on the very edge of Brooklyn and getting from there to Manhattan is always a mindfuck because the subway trains are inconsistent due to the MTA only caring maintaining efficiency in the richer, more affluent parts of the boroughs. And they can't even do that right.

But I did get the team sets though. I guess that's what I really went there for anyway. Very cute that the team added rehabbing big leaguers Noah Syndergaard and Jason Vargas to the set. I'm sure all of the autograph collectors groaned knowing that those two are never going to be signed and their sets will be incomplete forever.

So in summation:
*The Puerto Rican heritage night was very well done
*Going to a neutral baseball game is boring unless you're there to see someone specific
*Neither the Tigers or Cyclones Jefes had any top prospects on their rosters and yet a game was played
*Rain delaying or postponing games is the theme for baseball in New York this year
*The programs in Brooklyn now cost $1 each, which is some real BS

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

2018 IP Auto Count: 57

Slow Yet Not So Steady

Apparently I am not the only one buying Luis Torrens cards.

A while ago I was outbid for a second printing plate of his that popped up on eBay. And someone actually paid money on a Platinum parallel 1/1 of Torrens too.

Those people are people looking to get Torrens cards for me, or they're the most die hard Padres collectors ever. In either scenario, I've lost my will to go after the Series 2 Torrens rainbow.

Still, when I get decent deals I take them. Like when I got this sparkle foil parallel for roughly 60 cents (shipping cost me six times that though).

Normally I wouldn't bother spending money on parallels numbered to anything over 50 until a good four years after the set's release, but this is one of those "factory set exclusive" parallels that you don't see too often if you're a player collector. So I pounced on it.

I also got two parallels of Torrens. A Father's Day Powder Blue and a vintage stock. A Japanese collector who currently lives in Connecticut found me through mutual friends on Twitter and a few DMs later I got these in my hands through them.

Lastly I finally got the base card thanks to a special package from Night Owl Cards. You know 2018 has gotten weirdly out of control when even Night Owl is sending me Luis Torrens cards.

As a sign of contempt, N.O. included cards of Padres prospects that I plan on giving to Gavin. I love prospects, but as time has gone on I've come to really think negatively of the Padres. Their system is loaded and has both high caliber top heavy talent in addition to depth in the lower parts too. But I'm concerned they're going to mess up Torrens' development. I can feel it. Austin Hedges is terrible and probably an indicator of what's to come for pretty much all of their catching prospects. Granted he's a holdover from the previous regime and probably just a stop-gap until the real catchers that AJ Preller is banking on arrive like Francisco Mejia, Austin Allen and Luis Campusano. Although all of them are at risk of ending up falling far below expectations. Mejia's likely going to turn into an OFer making his bat significantly less valuable and Allen's probably more of a 1B at this point. Campusano shows potential but, he's a Padre.
That same wart is what plagues Torrens. Someone free him before the Padres hurt him by virtue of being a Padre.

Well okay, this is probably a bit too harsh on my part on the Padres. At least they don't make terrible blunders like trade/sign human trash accused of domestic violence charges or contemplating signing convicted sex offenders. A low bar to hold any MLB team to, but I'm finding that that bar isn't as low as you'd think (for reference Yankees have their own piece of human garbage closing out their games). We'll see what happens when they're finally ready for a playoff push and will have to pit the values they have for players against their own values/morals and see which wins.

Night Owl also made sure to send along some nice cards like Andres Gimenez (one of the few Mets prospects worth caring about), Jon Duplantier (who is already up in double-A, woof), and a bunch of Yankees. Some of which were Aaron Judge and one of the 2018 wonderkins, Miguel Andujar.

Big thanks to Night Owl for the cards though. I needed that base card :).

So yeah, I'm building this rainbow, but extremely slowly. My top priorities are the lower numbered stuff (like 25 and below) and then seeing where the others fall as the calendar turns from 2018 to 2019 and 2020 (and beyond). This is my recommendation for anyone looking to start a rainbow BTW. Lowest serials and rarities first, focus on the rest later.

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