Year-End TTM Roundup: 2/7/2022 - 12/31/2022

Because my TTM output and input slowed to a crawl, I decided to just go all out and wait until the very last month of the year before writing another post.

Received On: 4/25/2022

My first return for this period came from Chris Bando.

Bando was originally drafted by the Cleveland Guardians in the second round of the 1978 MLB Player Draft out of Arizona State University. The switch-hitting backstop eventually made it to the big leagues in 1981 and would go on to enjoy a nine year career as a backup catcher. Mostly in Cleveland although he also bounced around to play for the Detroit Tigers and Oakland A's too. After his playing career he went into coaching and was the third base coach and a bench coach for the Milwaukee Brewers. He'd also be a manager in the Brewers and Guardians orgs for nearly a decade. He's still involved with player development today.

Received On: 4/29/2022

Next up is a return from Mets right-hander, Justin Lasko.

Lasko was drafted by the New York Mets in the 30th round of the 2019 MLB Player Draft out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Hailing from Stratford, Connecticut, the 6'4" righty is armed with a low 90's fastball, curveball and changeup, in the early going he made most of his appearances in relief before showing the Mets flashes of potential as a starter. In 2021 he made 18 starts (out of 20 appearances total) and showed some promise. In 2022 he's pitched exclusively in relief and the results have been mixed, but there's still time for him to make good on his potential. If nothing else, a 30th rounder making it as far as he has is already an accomplishment in and of itself. Hopefully it continues to even the highest level.

Received On: 5/13/2022

Next up is a return from former Texas Rangers prospect, Yanio Pérez.

Pérez hails from Havana, Cuba and was signed by the Rangers as a non-drafted international free agent in 2016. The first base prospect had a very promising 2017 which made him seem like he was going to be something to watch, this included a six game performance where he led all of affiliated baseball with 30 bases and a 1.958 OPS (he won player of the week that week). Although he'd continue to be an interesting prospect for the Rangers, the years after were marred by injury which slowed his development. Most of his 2018 season was lost to injury and in 2019 he wasn't quite the same. Throw in the lost COVID year of 2020 and a very short leash in 2021 and Pérez was unfortunately released in mid-2021. But hopefully he can find a home in baseball somewhere soon.

Yanio also holds the distinction for the first note I've received with a TTM in 2022. Sweet.

Received On: 5/21/2022

Here's a return from Calvin De Haan.

De Haan was originally drafted by the New York Islanders in the first round (12th overall) of the 2009 NHL Player Draft. The Ontario native defenseman made his NHL debut in the 2011-12 season and would go on to be a mainstay with the Islanders after that until he signed a four year deal with the Carolina Hurricanes before the 2018-19 season. He spent one season with the Canes before an eye injury put him out of play indefinitely. Despite being "pretty much blind" as he himself put it, he fortunately managed to get healthy but before playing for the Canes again he was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks with Aleksi Saarela for Gustav Forsling and Anton Forsberg. He still continues to play for the Blackhawks (for now) and honestly after the eye injury I'm just glad he can still do that.

Received On: 8/31/2022

Here are a couple of really nice returns from a rare paid signing appearance by Joely Rodriguez.

Rodriguez hails from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and was originally signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates as a non-drafted international free agent all the way back in 2009. Although he was never much a big name prospect his rise in the Pirates org was steady enough that other teams had him on their radar, case in point the Philadelphia Phillies who went so far as to trade for Joely Rodriguez in exchange for Antonio Bastardo. Joely eventually made it to the big leagues with the Phillies in 2016 but was later DFA'd and traded to the Texas Rangers who then DFA'd him again. He started 2018 with the Baltimore Orioles as a minor league free agent before being cut in July and signed with the Chunichi Dragons a week later. With the Dragons he made his first mark on the league by recording the fastest pitch thrown by a left-hander in the NPB at 159 km/h (roughly 98.8 mph), which is what the card on the left above commemorates. In 2019 he would go on to lead the Central League in holds and returned to the big leagues as a Texas Ranger in 2020. He was eventually traded to the New York Yankees as part of the Joey Gallo trade in 2021 and had some solid innings before being traded to the New York Mets in exchange for Miguel Castro before the 2022 season started. In 2022 Joely Rodriguez found himself being a part of Mets history by being part of the franchise's first ever combined no-hitter. He's also notable for basically being the only LHP in the Mets bullpen and the results were, less than stellar. Oof. Thanks for the good results as a Dragon and Yankee though Joely.

Received On: 11/09/2022

Here's a return from Colorado Rockies third baseman, Kris Bryant.

Bryant was originally drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the first round (second overall) of the 2013 MLB Player Draft. Bryant's potential was well documented even before turning pro as his tenure and rise in the minors was parallel to the internet reaching a point where prospecting and keeping tabs on the best and brightest stars of tomorrow became easier than ever. Eventually he made his MLB debut in 2015 following a kerfuffle between the Cubs and Bryant's agent regarding the team not putting him on their Opening Day roster in order to delay free agency by one year. The rest is pretty much what a lot of people expected, Bryant would become part of the homegrown Cubs core that led the team to its first World Series title in 108 years. Cubs ownership gave up on winning a little after and Bryant was eventually traded to the San Francisco Giants. He then signed with the Rockies in what was a confusing move for both him and the franchise since Bryant was going to a team with no hope or direction, and the Rockies signing Bryant after trading away Nolan Arenado for nothing the winter before screamed of desperation to entice people to continue buying season tickets for what is essentially a distraction until Broncos/Nuggets/Avalanche pre-season starts. His first year with the Rockies can be summed up with how he never hit a home run in Coors Field. But there's still a lot of hope and optimism that he can rebound and be an elite hitter again next year. Bryant's power in Coors should translate to better offense if he can stay healthy, and it shouldn't take too much for him to emerge as the best bat on a team that for some reason likes to hit for contact (read: they like grounding out to infielders a lot) despite playing in Coors.

And those were my returns these past few months. Big thanks to Mr. Bando, Lasko, Perez, De Haan, Rodriguez and Bryant for the awesome autographs. And as always thank you (the readers) for stopping by. Take care.

2022 TTM Count: 11 (FINAL)

Sources:

*https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bandoch01.shtml

*https://www.futuresassociationbaseball.com/chris-bando

*https://www.milb.com/player/justin-lasko-686193

*https://www.amazinavenue.com/2019/6/21/18693671/2019-mets-draft-profile-justin-lasko-rhp

*https://www.milb.com/player/yanio-perez-672350

*https://www.hockey-reference.com/players/d/dehaaca01.html

*https://npb.jp/bis/eng/players/83985136.html

185

 Recently Night Owl Cards amassed 1,000 different Clayton Kershaw cards.

Even if we're in the era of mass production and able to purchase almost anything online that's still an incredible feat. One that I'm probably not going to reach with my Luis Torrens collection.

As of right now I'm sitting at 185 after the newest addition, the red Topps Now parallel above, came in.

It means I'm only the 1/1 away from the rainbow and 15 away from reaching the 200 Torrens card plateau. This is out of 232 total cards (according to TCDB).

Truth be told I'm not in any rush to reach that mark since I know it's just a matter of time.

I don't think Torrens is going to get the Kershaw treatment and get billions of cards every year (thank fuck) but I do still think it's neat that even this niche collection of an obscure MLBer can get to these levels. Speaks to just how hard Torrens has been working to stay relevant in the MLB these past few years too. They don't just give card slots away to anybody.

Meanwhile I'm not sure I'll ever get anywhere numbers wise with my Thairo Estrada collection. According to TCDB, Thairo has a respectable 311 cards. Of that I think I only have about 25 at most.

That's mostly by design as Thairo got a lot of cards as a token Yankees rookie in 2019 and I avoided most of them outside of just the simple flagship rookie card. I've long since accepted that Thairo won't be anywhere close to the Torrenterion collection and I'm just going after Thairo cards that appeal to me.

Like that Topps Now card above, celebrating how Estrada hit a walk-off dinger for his new team (not long after Torrens had his walk-off BTW). Not bad for a guy Cashman traded away for nothing.

Also his MiLB cards too. I also finally went out and got his Scranton Wilkes-Barre card from 2019 too, effectively completing the run of his MiLB team/league issued cards (as of today).

And since I'm not sure I'll ever have another chance to talk about it, I got Anthony Seigler's latest MiLB card too.

And like Thairo this completes my run of Seigler's MiLB team/league issued cards too.

Maybe one day Seigler will also get a Topps Now card commemorating a walk-off in an MLB game. Fingers crossed. Though I don't think he needs too many more cards TBH. According to TCDB, Seigler has the most cards out of anyone I've shown in this post with 460(!) cards. Though in Seigler's case he has a bunch of Team USA cards as well as the boost of being a Yankees first round draft pick.

Hmmm, I think I'll just stick with MiLB releases with Seigler too. That'd make it a lot simpler.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

Checking in on THE Collection

 It's been a long time since I last blogged about Luis Torrens pick-ups. I made a lot but I didn't think blogging about them as they popped up was really necessary. Especially since they were essentially just the same card but merely in different colors.

That said I was able to finally sit down and restore my Torrenterion Collection page where I show my entire Torrens collection. When Blogspot changed its layout a while ago it suddenly became hard to update the old collection page so I had to delete that and create a new one. But I found out the hard way that it's hard to recreate a page that was built up across multiple years. Especially since I wanted to go back and fix past mistakes like my piss poor crop jobs on scans when I was first starting to blog back in 2014 and 2015. It took me seven hours but the page is finally back. If nothing else than because I needed it back online to let me know what I already have.

The collection page is up to date and all of the newest pick-ups are already on there, but here's a blogpost for a few of them that I think are worth talking about.

Might as well get the big 1/1 out of the way.

A certified yellow printing plate auto.

Make that two 1/1's.

If you're wondering about the signature, it's not certified and was already on it by the time I bought the card. Considering that I lost out on it unsigned earlier in the year, I think what happened was that whoever did win the plate got it signed by Torrens somewhere, then sold it on eBay. I don't like supporting people who sell IP or TTM autographs but this is a plate so, eh, gonna have to just accept it this time.

Oh wait, make that three 1/1's. Two plates and a 1/1 blank back from the Topps Vault (their eBay page).

Adding three 1/1's in a single year. Not terrible.

With these I now have 25 different Torrens 1/1's. The fact that it's getting very annoying/hard to get all of them in one shot is a good sign that I'm building up a decent collection.

I picked up bunch of Torrens from 2021 Topps Update and didn't blog about them because they're all the same boring picture and the parallels are really lame. I posted the vintage stock parallel up there because that might be my favorite out of all of them. Not that Topps needs any more useless parallels but I really do miss some of what I thought were cool parallels when I was starting to collect in 2011 like the silks or the Hope Diamond parallels, those looked and felt nice. There's nothing to talk about with the more recent parallels except that no one will ever complete any rainbow because there's like 5-6 different 1/1's.

I'm a little more closer with Topps Update Chrome Sapphire or whatever it's called. Only need the two (yes two) 1/1's, because of course I do. This set had no plates but instead the 1/1's are the superfractor and something called a "padparadscha". 

A red border parallel of Torrens from 2022 Topps Heritage. Because retail exclusive parallels are back apparently. I've also learned that Heritage has something called a "French text" parallel numbered to 73 copies, I assume it's an homage to the Canadian market OPC cards. Either way I still need that. Ugh.

A Topps Now card. Torrens' first Topps Now card.

A different Topps Now card, this one actually matters because it commemorates the walk-off he had against the Yankees back in August. The Mariners, being a complete joke of a team, DFA'd him after that. He's since been banished to triple-A and was even used as a second baseman.

Sucks but at least Torrens' last big league moment (as of right now) was ending one of the best (or worst if you're a Yankees fan) games in recent memory.

Also luckily for me there were a few parallels accompanying the 5 cards I ordered. I knew that Topps Now had parallels now but I wasn't expecting to get three of them.

Those three colors there are the /5, the /25 and /49. So I just need the 1/1 and one of the /10's for the rainbow.

So all in all, getting the collection page up and running again was pretty time consuming but it was really nice to just sit down and revisit my collection for the first time in a long time. It also helped me get a better idea of where I was at with all of these rainbows and what I need to look out for going forward. I also appreciate that I know how many cards I have of Torrens again.

184, and counting.

Also I did get a needs list of sorts up and running too. Purely for my own reference. I'm probably missing a few cards but I know I need about 61 Torrens cards, more than half are 1/1's. Great, just great.

Thanks always for stopping and take care.

An Old Friend

 2018, the last time I added new Sega Card Gen cards to my collection was 2018.

Sega Card Gen was at one point the cards people associated with me the most, then came Luis Torrens and a bunch of other things I grew interested in.

The now-defunct arcade game brand was the first base set I ever completed back in 2014, and I have fond memories of it. Some collectors might even remember getting these in a trade back from me when I was first starting to trade (or traded at all).

Since Sega Card Gen got discontinued in 2013, it's been increasingly harder and harder to find these cards. They just did not get enough time be widely distributed enough that they can be found easily. But once in a while you'll get lucky with a large lot. Which is where the Darvish above came from and where a lot of the cards I'm about to show below came from.

The key card in this entire lot was this Hideki Matsui rare. Back when Card Gen was active they'd host competitions at arcades and whoever won got these cool special rares as prizes.

The backs are special with goldish-yellowish tint and have congrats written on them. I'm not sure how much different these cards fared in the game (if anyone ever tried I wouldn't know), but I doubt it made much of a difference.

During the tournaments they also gave away these sealed packs of special EX (think like shortprints) cards for cards outside of the base set. There are a small handful of EX cards I could never track down like Magglio Ordonez or Shoo Shin Choo and though it is possible they're in these packs, I don't really want to run the risk of getting dupes of the few EX cards I do have. So they remained sealed. For now.

Accompanying the prize card, the consolation packs and the Yu Darvish were a bunch of base cards. They were all dupes and will be part of future Zappings and I won't be showing them (it'll be up to their new owners whether or not they get blog-time). But to round out this post I'll share the two additional foil rares in this lot, starting with Matt Kemp.

It feels like it was forever ago when we last saw Kemp in a Dodgers jersey. Though he got a huge contract from the Dodgers that more or less turned into an albatross, what the Dodgers managed to do in not only moving his contract but getting actual prospects in return for him would set the tone for how they'd operate going forward. Not to mention that the prospects LAD got back for Kemp from Cincinnati included Jeter Downs and Josiah Gray. Downs would later be part of the package sent to Boston for Mookie Betts and Gray would be part of the package sent to Washington for Trea Turner and Max Scherzer. Andrew Friedman folks, he's always four steps ahead.

And finally Prince Fielder. Man, the way these names just teleport me back to the late-2000's/early-2010's is something.

Fielder was at his peak in 2012 before things went downhill for him rather quickly, with him eventually having to retire in 2016 for health concerns.

That concludes my first Sega Card Gen mailday in forever and likely my last one for another long while. It's always nice to look back on these, back when I was first in the hobby and everything seemed fun and exciting.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

Quality in the Age of Quantity

One of the challenges of modern collecting is that there are too many cards. By this I don't mean there's a lot of cool options out there, I mean there are maybe three dozen unique cards released per year and they each merely come in a billion different colors.

Anybody who still reads my blog knows this so I know I'm not exactly breaking news.

But that still begs the question, what do you do if your favorite player has so many cards that you can't possibly have a collection where you collect every card of theirs. It'd take way too much money, space and time.

You could go the route I did and find niche players who aren't top rated prospects or superstars but still get cards here and there, but normal people want stars. Superstars.

Which is why I decided to try something.

According to Beckett and Trading Card DataBase, MLB superstar Nolan Arenado has roughly 8,670-something different cards and counting (if you consider each parallel a different card). That is absolutely insane and nobody could possibly come close to having even half of those. If you go to Check Out My Cards the number of Arenado cards they have available is roughly 2,680-something different cards available, which is still insane. COMC's not a perfect site but the way their layout works is good enough for my purposes.

The idea is basically to just try window shopping and see what I find.

Not to go all Dime Box Nick on you all but my definition of "quality" is primarily going to be "what does this card show or say about this player and why I think they're worth collecting". It's going to focus heavily on the photographs used (a picture tells a thousand words as they say) because for a lot of these cards they're not even trying with the backs. But I will note when something is worthwhile on the back.

Please note that this is NOT an invitation for people to send me Arenado cards. I don't want them, I already got all of the ones I would want as you'll see below.

One would think getting those rookie cards or Bowman Chrome prospect cards would be at the top of the list but honestly I'd stay away from both, if for no other reason than because they're overpriced. They're the cards people invest in for a reason folks. Sucks to have to pass on a collecting staple like the vaunted rookie card but honestly the money could be better spent elsewhere.

Ah here we go, the oldest we're going to go today is with 2015 Topps Stadium Club. Keeping in line with the core theme I've selected, this one card says a lot. He's passionate, he looks like he's yelling "lets fucking go!" at the top of his lungs right as he crossed home plate at Coor's Field. You can tell he's the type of player who ran with enough hustle that he left his helmet far behind and doesn't care how dirty his jersey gets.

There are more than a handful of cards that feature Arenado yelling but I think two is about enough to get the idea across, this roll call insert from 2020 Topps Big League also had a better write-up on the back stating Arenado's bat is elite and his fielding is also elite.

Now the last card mentioned Arenado's defense, which brings me to the third card, a Topps Now card from 2017, specifically the All Star Game. In the shot you can clearly see Arenado making a leaping throw from the hot corner. When you think of Arenado you think of his offensive output obviously but you also think of his slick defense at third, we've all probably seen at least one highlight of him making a tough grab in foul territory and just gunning down some runner at first.

A fair number of Arenado cards that picture him fielding appear to be while he's throwing and are kinda meh because of the cropping. The key feature of his glovework is that he can do things like leaping throws or throwing from his knees or throwing off-balance on one foot. Making the focus just his upper body and face as a lot of cards tend to do robs the card of being able to communicate that. This Defensive Wizard insert from 2020 Topps Big League is a good example of showing he's going for a tough grab and probably about to make a difficult play look easy. No part of his body is cropped out, this card adds to telling the story of Arenado's glove. The back also has some great things to say too.

Now back to Arenado hitting, obviously you can imagine that there are hundreds of very boring Arenado cards featuring him in a standard hitting pose. So instead I opted for the slightly less generic shots above courtesy of the 2019 Prizm Star Gazing insert and a photo variation from 2020 Topps flagship. They picture just the right moment when Arenado is getting locked in and all his focus completely shifts to hitting the ball as far as he can possibly hit it. Like up at the stars.

Blast off.

These are just really good shots of contact being made and the subsequent "holy fuck, where is that thing gonna land?" Stadium Club really is the best at this kinda stuff. Although Stadium Club chrome scans and looks like shit. A shot like the one they used for that one deserves a regular paper stock release.

Consider these a stream-lined version of the events above. He gets his equipment from the rack, he gets in the zone, then into that MLB logo stance, he launches a ball into orbit, he runs the bases (extra points for the face he's making in the little window), then he can enjoy things like tipping his hat at fans who appreciate how good he is at hitting the ball. A simple story told through just six cards.
Also note that the Home Run Challenge card is the only generic batting pose card I picked up because the card being a niche contest giveaway outweighs its flaws. Although it deserves a little credit for having Arenado's full body in the frame and not being cropped above his torso.

Thus far this collection has been void of those cards that come with giant price tags. The patch autographs limited to 10 copies and that kind stuff. They'll continue to be omitted because I can't afford them, also there's not much to say about most of them since the cards are made with the understanding that the only thing that matters is that they're signed. But it doesn't hurt to add one autograph to a collection to give it a little nudge. The cheapest I could find on COMC (and on eBay by extension) was the Prizm Spectra above. It's not going to command triple or quadruple digits thanks to that very visible logo-less hat. But I picked it up because it's the cheapest Nolan auto on the market and because the signature is on-card. Although when I got this in-hand I was shocked at how thick this card is. It's impossible to store in a regular binder page so I may have consider selling this in the future to get a much more reasonably thin one.

All in all I picked up 16 Nolan Arenado cards. If you exclude the autograph the remaining 15 cards added up to around $15. If I weren't a niche/Luis Torrens super-collector I'd assume this would be how I personally would go about collecting my favorite stars. Building rainbows and whatnot are fun but at this level of card output it's impossible and would make it un-fun very quickly. But this is a low-stakes, very cheap method of hand picking the type of cards I can just store in a 9-pocket binder page, flip to said page and say, yep that's the player I collect all right, and keep it to cards that show exactly why. It's just right. And for the curious don't worry, I already have other Arenado cards to fill up the 18 pockets in the binder page that I'd already pulled before.

And these aren't too bad either honestly considering they're Utz, a photo variation and MiLB Heritage cards from my first days in the hobby. But they also unfortunately do a great job in highlighting just how boring and generic these cards can be.

Thus concludes my little experiment/excuse to splurge on Arenado cards I thought looked cool.

Again please note that this is NOT an invitation for people to send me Arenado cards. I already got all of the ones I would want.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

The Younger Man's Game

 Last week I took a break from work and timed it so it'd be roughly around the Hudson Valley Renegades series in Brooklyn.

Of the six game series where the New York Yankees affiliate actually came to the city, I only attended two games. I only got one autograph during those two games.

It was a great one though.

Back in March I picked up this Anthony Seigler plate for $15 and thought I might as well have it just to have it. Months later it's been finally inked.

Seigler was the Yankees' first round pick in the 2018 MLB Player Draft out of Cartersville High School in Georgia. A catcher/pitcher in high school, the Yankees have developed him as a switch-hitting catcher and although his career so far has been hampered by injuries, this year he's put up good results thanks to getting consistent at-bats. Even when he's not catching his bat's been valuable enough that the Renegades continued to slot him in at DH.

If he can build on this year in 2023 and beyond, he may find himself back on prospect radars again and make the Yankees catching pipeline just as logjammed but also busy and healthy as it ideally should be.

Also, no he does not throw as a left-hander while catching as the mirrored image on the plate would suggest, although he is able to pitch with both his left and right arm. Obviously the Yankees are not interested in another Pat Venditte project but y'know, still interesting fun fact.

I did also get a MiLB ball thanks to Saul Torres, who remembered me from last year, after I gave him some Hi-Chews. As is "tradition".

But that was it as far as stuff I "got" from the players. I didn't do a lot of prep-work or research on the rosters, I didn't even have cards of the really big names the autograph hounds at the stadium were after like Jasson Dominguez or Trey Sweeney. I didn't really try or feel the need to.

The games themselves were pretty great. The way a simple game of live baseball at a park can just let you forget about whatever's going on in life for a few hours is pretty nice. And I guess I was at these games more for that than anything else. The Renegades won both games I went to and overall had a great series against the Brooklyn Cyclones, which is big for their MiLB playoff hopes and everything.

During the games I was mostly just rooting for "my guys", ie just Seigler and Torres. Torres never played in either game so I was mostly just observing Seigler's at-bats. His approach at the plate was so much better. He was taking more pitches and had just the type of patience you want from a hitter up in the box. And it's not like the Cyclones pitchers were slouches, they were sending some of the top prospects in the Mets org up on the mound.

Outside of Seigler's at-bats I was just hoping for quick outs and the games delivered. Folks, let me tell you that the pitch clock down in the minors is a joy. Makes the game so much quicker. Once it reaches the majors, you'll never be able to go back to letting pitchers take two minutes between pitches ever again.

All in all these games just made me realize that I'm probably too old to be chasing autographs at games at this point. I don't have the energy or desire to devote hours to looking at MiLB rosters, browsing eBay listings, or standing in parking lots just to get scribbles from people who are at least five-to-10 years younger than me. I also can't even tell you what the top prospects list for the Yankees looks like anymore. I know, totally not like me/my brand at all lol but it's the truth.

A few years ago I was still in college and had nothing but time to do this, but now I've got a job and a mindset where I'd rather just work for another hour and buy a certified autograph on eBay. Case in point, I've got a certified autograph of Trey Sweeney headed my way and it only cost me $10 and two minutes.

So big thanks to Saul Torres and Anthony Seigler for their generosity. I'm kinda hoping that Seigs there will be my last IP at a game for a while (wouldn't be a bad one to go out on) but we'll see.

As always thank you (the readers) for stopping by. Take care.

2022 IP Auto Count: 1