So back in early March Night Owl Cards blogged about which player showed up the most for each team in his collection.
I get the feeling that unless you're an absolute nut with an Excel spreadsheet where your brain is, this would be hard to do. But in my case I have the fortune of having a collection that's down to its very very littlest core. So I was able to sort through and come up with each team leader.
Please note before we go in that I only considered the team/the MLB team the minor league team was affiliated with that particular year specified on the card as part of the tallies. Stuff like NPB era cards, Team USA or Perfect Game did not enter into these MLB totals. Oh also dupes (if any) count.
Similar to Night Owl, the order will go from the team/player with the most cards then I'll work my way down. Also I'll put in the 2nd place runner up for each team too as these will serve as tie-breakers for when I have multiple teams/players with the same number of cards.
1. Colorado Rockies
I dismantled my Freeland collection but I still have 12 cards I found too neat to move on from.
Still have my Freeland jersey too.
2. Washington Nationals
Runner Up: Adam Dunn - 1 Card
These 10 cards are all of the Nationals cards I currently have in my collection. The Harpers singlehandedly forced this team in my top 3 and above the team I expected to be in second place.
3. New York Yankees
I've come full circle.
Betances was my first ever player collection and despite all of the ups and downs and purges, he's back on top with a whopping 8 cards. If it's not Luis Torrens I'm at least glad it's Betances representing the Bronx for me.
4. Seattle Mariners
Ichiro being on top for the Mariners just feels right. Also worth noting that I also have 5 cards of Ichiro as a Yankee, which would put him on top on a bunch of other teams as we'll see later on in this list.
Runner Ups: Lucas Luetge/John Jaso/Hisashi Iwakuma/Brandon League/Ken Griffey Jr. - 1 Card
5. Houston Astros
Runner Up: Brian Bogusevic - 2 Cards
6. Texas Rangers
Yoshinori Tateyama - 3 Cards
Runner Ups: Derek Holland/Joey Gallo - 2 Cards
7. Boston Red Sox
Runner Ups: Ryan Lavarnway/Jarrod Saltalamacchia/Rafael Devers 1 Card
8. New York Mets
Amed Rosario - 3 Cards
Runner Up: Ezequiel Zabaleta - 1 Card
9. Toronto Blue Jays
Jose Bautista - 3 Cards
Runner Up: None
If you see "None" for any team's runner up it means that I have absolutely no other cards of that team in my possession.
10. Los Angeles Dodgers
Pedro Guerrero/John Richy - 2 Cards
Runner Ups: Ron Cey/Diego Cartaya/Jose De Leon/Walker Buehler/Clayton Kershaw - 1 Card
11. Chicago White Sox
Chris Sale/Addison Reed - 2 Cards
Runner Up: None
12. Miami Marlins
Josh Johnson - 2 Cards
Runner Ups: Ichiro Suzuki/Nate Eovaldi/Andrew Heaney/Trevor Rogers/Tom Koehler/Giancarlo Stanton/Anibal Sanchez - 1 Card
Why do I have so many Marlins cards?
13. Tampa Bay Rays
Runner Up: Blake Snell/Garrett Whitley - 1 Card
14a. Arizona Diamondbacks
Ian Kennedy - 2 Cards
Runner Up: Paul Goldschmidt - 1 Card
14b. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Shohei Ohtani - 2 Cards
Runner Up: Mike Trout - 1 Card
These runner ups were supposed to serve as tie-breakers but I failed to account for how something like this could happen. Oh well.
14c. San Diego Padres
Robbie Erlin - 2 Cards
Runner Up: Max Fried - 1 Card
Okay now begins the half of the list where I only have one card of the top player(s), as such we're saying bye-bye to the runner-ups and going by teams I have the most singletons of.
17. Philadelphia Phillies
Pence is the only player to claim top honors on multiple teams.
18a. Chicago Cubs
18b. Milwaukee Brewers
18c. San Francisco Giants
Hunter Pence/Masanori Murakami/Dick Estelle - 1 Card
Congrats to Pence on the three-peat.
21a. Atlanta Braves
The actual answer is Craig Kimbrel and Jose Constanza with 1 card apiece but I like Trae more.
21b. Cleveland Guardians
21c. Minnesota Twins
Joe Mauer/Vance Worley - 1 Card
21d. Pittsburgh Pirates
21e. St. Louis Cardinals
Chuck Taylor/Nolan Gorman - 1 Card
26. Detroit Tigers
27-30. Baltimore Orioles/Cincinnati Reds/Kansas City Royals/Athletics
I own 0 cards of any of these teams. I've penned Rob Manfred a letter recommending that they be contracted.
With all of this laid out like this, I think it's really easy to see which era of baseball I was the most invested in.
Overall this was a fun way to sort through and take stock of the current iteration of my collection. It was fun to be reminded that I still somehow had 5 Leonardo Molina cards or 3 Wilkerman Garcia cards or 3 Yeicok Calderon cards. I can also easily see a world where a bunch of these teams with only a card or two to represent them end up with 0 in the future.
So big thanks to Night Owl for the inspiration and as always thanks for stopping by.
Take care.
Ha, John Richy and Pedro Guerrero have the same number of cards -- now that's a refined collection!
ReplyDeleteBoth have a personal story. Pedro obviously had the assist from you and was also the last IP I got at a show (it was also right before COVID shut the world down). John sent me back a letter asking me to translate his middle name Minoru, which then made it super clear to me he had Japanese ancestry since Minoru is a semi-common Japanese name.
DeleteI've got plenty of A's dupes laying around. If you ever crave adding some to you collection, let me know :D
ReplyDeleteThanks Fuji but knowing me I'd just send them back to you later.
DeleteFantastic choices for the only two Giants cards in your collection. Most of the Murakami autos I see are just the "Mashi" too so it's cool to see his full name.
ReplyDeleteI got Murakami to sign my card just before he started signing for the companies and before he started making more public appearances. Right place, right time I suppose.
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