The Trading Post #152: Card Hemorrhage (Part 1: Rockies)

Last October, I wrote ten posts in a single month. I doubt I'll be able to pull that off this year, even though there are a zillion playoff games on. The Rockies are in none of them, so I'll have to find some former Rockies to root for, guys like DJ LeMahieu and Tyler Matzek. Coincidentally, that's the matchup I predicted in Collector's Crack's annual contest, Yankees vs. Braves. 

But while the Rockies may not have made it to the 2020 Postseason, I still have Rockies cards to get me through the month of October, and beyond. This batch came from Jay at Card Hemorrhage, which fell victim to the diminished capabilities of the USPS. They eventually arrived safely, but far later than either of us hoped for.

1996 Upper Deck #320 Dante Bichette

It was worth the wait, because it included a great mix of old and new, starting with 1996 Upper Deck in all its coppery goodness. UD gave us a very Collector's Choice-esque photo of Dante Bichette, showing him involved in a cell phone conversation on a comically huge mobile phone. It's a museum piece by now, probably an early Motorola model.

I'm also noticing the "BICHETTE" lettering on the embossed label on his batting helmet, as well as the screen behind him that appears to be more like flimsy chicken wire than proper chain-link. Maybe this is a Spring Training photo, because it doesn't look like MLB was rolling in dough at the time.

I've seen 1996 Upper Deck a time or two, but I never really noticed the tiny baseball player outline in each corner of the copper foil. It blends in almost to the point of camouflage, but pops a little better on the scan. The card back is also pretty coppery, but lacks any foil other than the UD hologram. The photo on the back is almost a "Tatooine" photo, showing Bichette preparing to round third and casting a late-afternoon shadow in his stride. There's just the tiniest sliver of outfield grass to interfere with the photo.

1996 Upper Deck #320 Dante Bichette (Reverse)

I'm pretty sure that tiny baseball player icon above the hologram is the same image that UD put on the copper foil. It's cards like these that always make me an advocate for turning your cards over.

2017 Topps Heritage #169 Chad Bettis

This card marks the second consecutive appearance for Chad Bettis, this time on 2017 Topps Heritage. Clearly I like this set, because I've shown it in at least five different posts. I own only two real 1968 Topps cards, but the Nolan Ryan/Jerry Koosman rookie card has been on the top of my want list since early in my collecting days. The burlap set never rises to the top of the countdowns, but I'm confident in saying I like this one better than most do.

Obviously, this card doesn't discuss anything beyond Bettis's 2016 season, which was a pretty good one. This card was on the shelves as Bettis was fighting cancer in 2017, as I mentioned last time. I'm very glad to know that his Rockies career didn't end there.

There's a fun trivia question on the back of the '68s, and that's no different for 2017 Heritage. This one asks us who became the single-season Rockies leader in stolen bases, setting the mark in 2008. The mark still stands by far, and it was Willy Taveras with, appropriately enough, sixty-eight.

2018 Topps All Star Game Silver #688 Tony Wolters

The 2020 Rockies roster will round out the remainder of this post, starting with catcher Tony Wolters. You recognize the 2018 "waterslide" set by now, but this one has a special silver foil stamp on it, commemorating the 2018 All Star Game in Washington, D.C. Wolters has yet to earn a trip to the Midsummer Classic, so this isn't just for him. It's a parallel set that Topps released in factory set form, including this silver stamp on every card.

2018, you might remember, is the year that Bryce Harper won the Home Run Derby in front of his then-home crowd.

This card is a very tricky one to date due to how blurry the out-of-town scoreboard at Coors is in this photo, but I'll take a stab at it. I'm going to have to guess the top game is the Chicago Cubs at Milwaukee Brewers, in the 9th inning. The Cubs have 7 runs, that I'm confident in. The Brewers, 8? 3? 0? Hard to say. But we do have a candidate, April 9th, 2017. The Cubs beat the Brewers 7-4, but Milwaukee scored one run in the bottom of the 9th, so maybe that's a 3 and the final run hadn't scored yet. If I have the right day, the Dodgers were visiting the Rockies, an encouraging development that the Rockies were at home that day. Opening weekend, in fact.

What about Wolters? Well, in the bottom of the 5th that day, Wolters drew a walk to lead off the inning. He advanced to third on a Charlie Blackmon single, eventually scoring his second of three runs in a 10-6 loss. This photo sure looks like "advancing to third" to me, and the timing is about right, since games in Mountain Time run about 3-4 innings behind games in Central time. 

I'm not exceptionally confident in dating this to April 9th, 2017, but given such a blurry background, it's as good a guess as I could make.

2017 Topps Chrome #137 Antonio Senzatela (RC)

No such luck with Antonio Senzatela's card; it's just a plain outfield wall. But we get Chrome to make up for it. This is most likely a Spring Training photo, as the logo on his cap isn't the usual interlocking "CR". This is a more recent logo used only in the Cactus League, which keeps the mountain and baseball portion of the Rockies team logo, omitting the lettering above and below.

Senzatela has been a regular in the Rockies rotation for four seasons by now, but it looks like this is his Infield Fly Rule debut. He turned in a .500 record a couple times, but he's won more than he's lost, and that's no small feat as a Rockies pitcher.

One more win and he'll tie that legendary Rockies reliever, Steve Reed, who has slipped into a tie for 13th on the all-time Rockies Wins leaderboard.

2020 Donruss Holo Pink #46 Sam Hilliard RR

Also making his Infield Fly Rule debut is Sam Hilliard, a left-handed outfielder who has played a small part in the 2019 and 2020 seasons. He has 63 career games so far, and I'm not sure whether he's made enough of an impact to stick around in the big leagues. His bWAR in the abbreviated 2020 season was right at 0.0. He might have a tough time keeping a spot once Ian Desmond returns in 2021, assuming things are safe enough to hold a complete season next year.

This is my first look at 2020 Donruss, and I can certainly see the similarities to 1991 Donruss, right down to the Rated Rookie logo. Of course, twenty-nine years later we have about twenty-nine colored border parallels that 1991 didn't have, and this is the Holo Pink one, probably. Apparently there's something called a Baby Shark parallel(?). I'd like to see what that looks like just out of sheer curiosity. 

2020 Topps #293 Wade Davis

Our final card in part 1 is Wade Davis's 2020 Topps issue, which happens to the the first time the 2020 Topps base design has made it onto this blog. I've been spending all year catching up on trades, and it just didn't seem right to put a random 2020 Series 1 value pack ahead of all these awesome trades you've been seeing throughout 2020.

I still have a couple other trades to cover, from The Collector and Topps Cards that Never Were. I've had them here for a long time. They were so chock-full of awesomeness (and just, a lot of cards) that I haven't found a way to properly showcase those. I will, though. Mark my words.

Anyway, back to Wade Davis, who is no longer a Rockie. He finished with 43 saves in 2018, a Rockies single-season record. It looked for a while that this ultra-high-dollar signing was going to pay off, but instead the wheels started to come off in 2019. He was injured early on in the 2020 season, and was released by the team in late September. There have been many disappointing Rockies pitchers, but I can't recall any of them who grew to be so hated by the fans as Davis. It's unfortunate.

I'll have more to say on the 2020 design in a future post, but I will say it has a lot of angles. I think that much is obvious.

Thanks to Jay for the trade, and keep an eye out for a Stadium Club-heavy part 2.

 

The Trading Post #131: Nachos Grande

You're about to see a rare event on Infield Fly Rule. This is a post with precisely zero Rockies in it. I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure that none of these guys ever even suited up for the Rockies. That is surprising, both because the current nature of the game dictates that players are traded almost like stocks, and because this is the largest-ever Trade Stack ever claimed from the recently-redesigned Nachos Grande, at a whopping 35 cards.

I've had Trade Stack #93 on my desk for quite some time, and while everyone's favorite Barry Larkin collector documented his end of the trade in short order, it's taken several months for me to get to it. I've travelled a lot this year, and have seen quite a few MLB games, even one in another city! I had the good fortune to see Billy Joel play at Coors Field on Thursday, who is simply excellent in concert. He even peppered in a couple of Eagles songs.

I haven't been to a Rockies game in a couple months. In fact, my most recent game was the one in San Diego almost a month ago, which is appropriate for our first card.

2017 Topps Heritage #81 Adam Rosales

Adam Rosales is currently in the Cleveland Indians organization, and hasn't played in the big leagues this year. But not long ago, he played a full season with the Padres. That was in 2016, the same year the All Star Game was in San Diego, as noted on Rosales's uniform patch. Topps included him in 2017 Heritage on the '68 design.

Rosales is listed as a third baseman, but he has the versatility to play all over the field. His 13 homers in 2016 was the highest mark of his career, and his signature move is sprinting around the bases after sending one deep. I love seeing hustle like that. He's like the anti-Machado, for a whole bunch of reasons.

One other thing I'll mention about Rosales is that one of my good friends knew him growing up. He's less than a year older than me, and my friend says he and some other buddies "used to take swings in his basement in Park Ridge." How cool would that be for one of your childhood friends to make it in the big leagues? I don't personally know any Major Leaguers, but my sister knows Deck McGuire and his wife. They have kids around the same age, and have all been to storytime at the library together.

2018 Topps Gypsy Queen #130 Michael Fulmer

There were many retro sets represented in this trade, so it's going to take a while to find a glossy card, and even longer to get to the gold foil. Gypsy Queen may be one of the many retro sets out there, but even it is embracing Sabermetrics. The card back tells us that Michael Fulmer had a 0.71 HRA in 2017. I'll admit, I had to look that one up. It stands for Home Runs Allowed (per 9 IP), and Fulmer had the lowest rate in the league that year.

I'm not the type to downplay the importance of advanced statistics, unlike many old-school announcers. This is a game of numbers, and there are some valuable insights to be gained by slicing the numbers a different way. The only trouble I have with them, as I was still raised on batting average and ERA, is that I don't have that innate sense for what a "good" number is. 0.71 HRA sure sounds good, but I'm not at the point where I can, at a glance, know whether that's better or worse than other players. I'm sure it will come with time, but it's a bit like the metric system. I know the math behind what, say 90 km/h represents, but probably couldn't pilot my vehicle to that exact speed without having to convert it in my head. It's a bit like a second language, I suppose.

Even with all this talk of Sabermetrics, I'm reminded of a post I ran across on reddit today. Since the dawn of Major League Baseball there have been nearly precisely as many hits as there have been half-innings. Well over a hundred years of play across hundreds of thousands of games has produced a sport that generates, on average, one hit per every three outs.

2009 Upper Deck Goudey 4-in-1 #35-56 Russell Martin / Brian McCann / Ryan Doumit / Geovany Soto

Upper Deck gave us plenty of entrants into the retro set library, including their brief resurrection of the Goudey brand. The 2009 set offered an insert set modeled on the 1935 design, which featured four players per card. This grouping of four catchers, two of whom are still playing, unintentionally foreshadowed Upper Deck losing their MLB license the following year. These four close-ups of armored catchers doesn't feature a single team logo.

This is actually a fantastic card for fans of catchers on the defensive side of the game. Current sets don't give us many catchers who aren't simply batting, and I'd love to see more cards like this, especially with catchers still wearing their masks, as Ryan Doumit is here. Remember that Johnny Bench card from 2017 Stadium Club? Catcher's gear cards are awesome, and might even be mini-collection worthy.

1999 Upper Deck Retro #90 George Brett

Most catchers on cards just happen to be partially in the frame, like this unknown American Leaguer behind George Brett. The mask is there, along with a left-handed mitt, but there's not much else to go on. Some of the coloration in the background is making me lean Blue Jays, but that's just a guess.

Like in the previous Trade Stack I claimed, there was some Upper Deck Retro. This base card is from 1999, the final year of the set's two-year run, and this is the first base card from the '99 set to enter my collection.

The card back has no picture, but includes about half of his annual stats, a color palette similar to the front, the usual Upper Deck diamond hologram, and a fun fact about this Hall of Famer. You may have heard this before, but we're told that George Brett is the only player to win batting titles in three different decades. One of those years, 1980, also was his MVP year.

Back on the front, in tiny print on the lower left, Upper Deck has the slogan "A Guaranteed Hit". I doubt that meant UD was promising a rare card in every box, and more likely referred to their certainty that this set would be a top seller. As "nineteen 99" (also spelled out in the lower left) was the final year of Upper Deck Retro, that did not come to pass.

1998 Upper Deck Retro #115 Mark Kotsay FUT

I've yet to see a base card from the prior year, 1998 Upper Deck Retro, but Nachos Grande has become my sole supplier for 1998's Futurama subset. This marks my fourth card from that subset, one from very early in Mark Kotsay's career. The journeyman outfielder played for seven teams before retiring, and shifted to first base later in his career.

I didn't really notice the sepia-toned photographs last time I saw these, but when you know Kotsay is wearing the bright teal jersey of the early Florida Marlins, it's slightly jarring to see that taken away.

1991 Topps Archives 1953 #25 Ray Boone

A major part of this trade stack was a batch of Cleveland Indians from the 1953 Archives set. Ray Boone, who took over at shortstop in Cleveland for Hall of Famer Lou Boudreau, would be traded to Detroit partway through the 1953 season, leaving the city where he began his career and earned a World Series ring in his rookie year of 1948. His one and only postseason at-bat was a strikeout in Game 5.

1948, of course, was the last time that the Indians won the World Series. That's 71 years, but that number becomes particularly impactful when you remember that was Ray Boone's rookie year, and his son Bob and grandsons Bret and Aaron have all concluded their MLB careers by now. Aaron Boone is now managing the Yankees, and had to argue against Brett Gardner's completely unwarranted ejection during Friday night's game in Toronto.

2018 Topps Allen & Ginter World's Greatest Beaches #WGB-5 South Beach

Boone's card is the glossiest one we've seen yet, but as retro as this post is, let's include some Allen & Ginter, shall we? Every year around this time, the hobby erupts in either appreciation for the set, or indignation for the so-called quality of non-baseball topics in the set. I still enjoy it, and the History of Flight insert set in 2019 A&G interests me, although I will question the skipping of card numbers 301-350.

Anyway, here's a card of a beach. I made sure to get some beach time in during my trip to San Diego, and even managed to avoid a sunburn. I haven't been to South Beach, the subject of this insert card, or even Miami. My beach visits in Florida have been limited to the Cape Canaveral region. It sure looks enticing, though I doubt you'll find three perfect scallop shells like you see on this card.

1994 Post #30 Orlando Merced

I've hunted for them more carefully than seashells, but try as I might, I have yet to find an Utz potato chips oddball card this year. Fortunately, I love potato chips even when they don't include baseball cards, so that's not a huge disappointment. Perhaps I'll just have to keep searching. However, I'm not really much of a breakfast guy. I'll have an apple for breakfast most days, or perhaps the occasional granola bar. I can't remember the last time I bought a box of cereal, so completing a Post cereal oddball set would be out of the question. Fortunately, I have trading partners looking out for me.

Long before Upper Deck lost their MLB license, companies like Post were putting out sets with the logos airbrushed out. Pirates outfielder Orlando Merced was the final card in the 30-card checklist that year, and this is the third card I have from the set. Andres Galarraga is in my collection, which I thought I posted about once upon a time, but I couldn't find anything in the archives.

There was another logo-less cereal oddball in this stack, the Kirby Puckett card from the 1989 Cap'n Crunch set. Bob Walk the Plank added that to my collection long ago in The Trading Post #4.

1995 Collector's Choice #26 Paul Shuey

I was a big fan of Collector's Choice as a kid, and I bought plenty of this 1995 release. I didn't notice until recently, though, how strange these Rookie Class subset cards are. The bubbly pink background wouldn't be at all out of place in 1995 Fleer. Maybe it's just Paul Shuey's card, because a few others in my collection have a much smoother background in the pink area.

I also question whether this is a true action shot, because that is certainly a strange look on this reliever's face, which goes along with a comically high leg kick.

Pitchers.

Incidentally, he is one of the few pitchers to pull off the error-assisted feat of striking out four batters in an inning.

1994 Topps Gold #351 Gary DiSarcina

We're finally at the point of gold foil, and what better way to introduce it than on 1994 Topps Gold? There's an anthem shot on the card back for you mini-collectors, and Gary DiSarcina is wearing the same California Angels uniform that was used in Angels in the Outfield, one of the baseball movies I grew up watching.

DiSarcina spent is whole career with the California/Anaheim Angels, and is now the third base coach for a New York Mets team that is heating up at a good time. Their walkoff win on Friday night saw Rookie of the Year candidate and Home Run Derby winner Pete Alonso (aka Polar Bear) hit his 38th home run of the season.

2001 Topps Gold Label Class 1 #23 Darin Erstad

Gary DiSarcina retired in 2000 without any Postseason experience, but his teammate Darin Erstad was present in 2002 for the first World Series title won by the Angels.

Really, he was more than just "present" in that Series. His leadoff home run in the 8th inning of Game 6 kickstarted a rally that would not only see the Angels stave off elimination, but go on to win the whole thing in Game 7 over the Giants, with Erstad himself catching the final out.

This Topps Gold Label card was printed a year before that, with a photo from 2000, their 40th Season. Erstad is sporting an anniversary patch on his right sleeve documenting that milestone, back when the team was still known as the Anaheim Angels and was laying it on a little thick with the heavenly wings motif.

There's another reason I remember Darin Erstad besides his World Series heroics. He was the subject of a trivia question I missed. One day in high school, my teacher asked a question about her alma mater: "Which Angels player went to the University of Nebraska?" I guessed Chad Curtis, drawing on my encyclopedic knowledge of the 1994 Topps set many years too late. Curtis hadn't been an Angel since then, and the correct answer was, of course, Darin Erstad.

Whether they're a friend of a friend or the answer to a trivia question, these baseball players are more than just athletes.

Thanks to Nachos Grande for the swap!

The Trading Post #107: Summer of '74

We've probably seen the two biggest transactions occur already during this MLB offseason. Japanese star Shohei Ohtani has chosen to hitch his wagon to the Angels, and the Yankees just took a nine-figure obligation off the Marlins' hands in Giancarlo Stanton, becoming the first team since 1919 to lead the Majors in home runs and then acquire the individual home run leader. The Yankees acquired Babe Ruth almost a century ago, though it would be a few more years before that turned into a championship.

The trades that occur in the Cardsphere have far fewer zeroes in the value column, but they are still appreciated, especially when there is a new face in our community. Summer of '74 is a newcomer as of this past April, and Matt P has already established himself as a trading partner with many veteran bloggers.

This won't be a two-part post, but Matt sent me a stack of 1994 Topps Gold cards before I could even blog about this first shipment. Watch for that in the near-ish future, but for now, let's start things off with a double play/cameo card:

2000 Topps #306 Mike Lansing

2000 Topps doesn't get a lot of love. The gray border and vertical back are often cited as demerits, but it's one of my favorites of the long period that Topps moved away from white borders. It has generally good photography, and I particularly like the "Topps 2000" lettering, something that really taps into the turn of the millennium craze that was happening at that time.

Mike Lansing is shown turning two over top of Brian Giles, center fielder of the Pirates. At first, I thought this player was an Oakland Athletic, thanks to the yellow outline on his uniform numbers. It took a bit of digging to find out that neither Brian Giles nor his brother Marcus ever played for Oakland, and what's more, #24 is retired by Oakland, as Rickey Henderson wore it for much of his career. I mistook the black for a shadowy dark green.

This was a tricky one to pinpoint. The Pirates hosted the Rockies twice during the 1999 season, but Lansing only played in the first series. There's no clear situation where Giles was the first out in a double play, so the best guess I have is May 1st, 1999. Giles was forced out at second base in the bottom of the first inning, and it looks like the Rockies may have tried turning a 5-4-3 double play but couldn't pull it off, allowing a run to score. This high slide of Giles', which does not look entirely Kosher to me, may have had an effect. The inning deteriorated from there, as the Pirates batted around and plated three.

I'm not as confident in this detective work as usual, so take it with a grain of salt. But it's a good shot, regardless.

2014 Topps Upper Class #UC-30 Matt Holliday

In 2014, when Upper Deck was several years removed from the baseball card market, Topps was bold enough to name an insert set "Upper Class", and this is my third card from it. There's plenty of gold foil and a nice frame, as well as a posed shot of a youthful-looking Matt Holliday. This 50-card insert set focuses on the player's rookie year, and Holliday's was full of power, including a grand slam. The back also mentions a few other rookies that joined the league the same year, in this case David Wright, Joe Mauer, and Adrian Gonzalez.

None of those players made a dramatic impact last season; in fact Wright didn't play at all. They may have a few years left in them, but their careers are definitely winding down.

2010 Topps Update #US-56 Matt Holliday

Matt Holliday's time in Denver had come to an end by the time the 2010 Home Run Derby was contested, where he represented the Cardinals. He didn't make it out of the first round, and it looks like this particular swing counted as one of his ten outs. But as this card tells us, he did have the longest shot of the night, 497 feet out of Angel Stadium (of Anaheim).

There are logos plastered all over this card, from the huge National League logo in the curve where the team logo is usually found, down to the Home Run Derby logo, which incorporates State Farm, the MLB logo, and a little architectural feature found in the Angel Stadium (of Anaheim) parking lot, which also makes an appearance on Billy Cowan's famed 1972 Topps card.

2013 Topps Emerald #638 Andrew Cashner

Andrew Cashner hasn't been able to take part in any All-Star Game festivities, but he was promising enough a prospect to get a base set card in 2013 Topps. That means there is an Emerald parallel, which is what you see above. The retro Padres uniform clashes somewhat with the design, but in my mind, that's what a Padres uniform should look like. Also notice the camo t-shirt that Cashner is wearing under his jersey, frequently a staple at Petco Park.

This was one of about a half-dozen Emerald cards that Matt threw in, and the retro jersey caught my eye enough to use it in this post. And I'll give a little love to the Padres, a team that the Rockies usually share a similar spot with in the NL West standings. Interestingly, Cashner didn't begin his career as a Padre. He was drafted by a few teams, including the Rockies, but didn't sign until the Cubs came knocking a second time. The Cubs eventually swapped him for Anthony Rizzo, a move that surely helped the Cubs break their curse.

2017 Topps Salute #S-191 Jeff Hoffman

Speaking of big trades, Jeff Hoffman joined the Rockies as the "key return in the Troy Tulowitzki trade". He's young, has performed reasonably well both in the rotation and out of the bullpen, and he may be more of a later-innings guy in the 2018 season, as the Rockies have some work to do in rebuilding their bullpen.

Topps Salute is a rather forgettable insert set that spans a gigantic 250 cards across the two Series and Update. I'm pretty sure I've seen this set before on some of the blogs, and it jumps out at me enough to include in a post, but not nearly enough to make me want to chase the other 249 cards.

1995 Upper Deck #265 Juan Acevedo (RC) (AU)

I remember Juan Acevedo as one of the many pitching prospects that the Rockies fielded before it became clear how difficult it is to pitch in Coors Field. Alphabetically, at least in my collection where the Rockies are first, he was at the top of the stack in most of the 1995 sets I collected. I have his rookie card from 1995 Upper Deck already, but certainly not a signed copy! This was a nice surprise to get from Matt. I have no idea if this was signed during his rookie year, or perhaps during his brief second stint with the Rockies in 2001. He played with numerous other teams in his eight year career, even closing games for the Cardinals and Tigers.

This has the look of a rookie card to me. His uniform is tucked in just so, his glove looks like it just came off the rack at a sporting goods store, and he's got a touch of his own style in leaving the top button on his road jersey open. He has a more youthful-looking photo on the back, where he appears in the familiar Rockies pinstriped home jersey, which is inset next to a paragraph detailing his Minor League accolades. His big-league debut came in a 3-1 loss played in the Astrodome, a few days after Dante Bichette's historic home run.

2017 Topps Heritage #357 Mark Reynolds

Just like 2000 Topps, 1968 Topps and 2017 Heritage gave us vertical backs. Fortunately for Mark Reynolds, there is plenty of space to have a Home Runs column, but not enough for a Strikeouts column. Those counts have gotten better since he was on the Diamondbacks, but he still struck out 175 times last year. It's amazing that you can hit for power, get away with putting up a .198 batting average in a full season, and still be playing toward the end of the same decade.

The Rockies roster is set to undergo some major changes in 2018. Chris Iannetta will be returning to Denver, making it unlikely that Jonathan Lucroy will stick around. Also hitting the free agent market are Carlos Gonzalez, Greg Holland, and this guy, Mark Reynolds. Do the Rockies keep the veterans around a while longer with some short-term contracts, or do they commit to their solid pipeline and start calling up their prospects like Ryan McMahon and Brendan Rodgers? Ohtani and Stanton are off the market, but there are tons of players out there for the Rockies to fill their 25-man roster.