Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 146 : June Players Of The Month PC

Transcript

Ep. 146 : June Players Of The Month PC · Cards & Categories

0:17
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome everybody to episode one forty six of
0:20
Speaker 1: Cards and Categories. I am Mike Coolard from Baseball Perspectus,
0:24
Speaker 1: joined per usual by my very good friend Jeremy Brewer
0:27
Speaker 1: from Rasball. How are you doing after your week.
0:29
Speaker 2: Off, buddy refresh? Ready to go? Good fourth of July.
0:34
Speaker 2: Lots of bratz and burgers, so in best plane shape
0:37
Speaker 2: in my life, so we should be good to go.
0:40
Speaker 2: How about you ready to go?
0:41
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I took a little time off, you know,
0:44
Speaker 1: to enjoy myself, to relax, get those vocal cords rested
0:47
Speaker 1: it up. We don't have a big series to like
0:50
Speaker 1: rattle through a bunch of different parallels, so we're prepared
0:54
Speaker 1: for when the next one comes out. We are talking
0:56
Speaker 1: here on July eighth, so we are actually talking on
0:59
Speaker 1: the tops finest release date. We'll get into a few
1:02
Speaker 1: of those details after we get into some news and
1:05
Speaker 1: notes when we do our typical Baseball old card release
1:09
Speaker 1: calendar rundown. But before we get into even the news
1:12
Speaker 1: and notes, we're also like in prime. All Star season
1:15
Speaker 1: kind of snuck up on even me because I kind
1:17
Speaker 1: of got sucked into World Cup matches and I think
1:20
Speaker 1: some of the information on the All Star Game also
1:23
Speaker 1: got buried. And I don't know if you realize on Sunday,
1:25
Speaker 1: but like all the games were not on MLBtv, they
1:28
Speaker 1: were on Peacock, and like I'm used to just watching
1:31
Speaker 1: Beginning all the time, and I was really bereft without
1:35
Speaker 1: having it around to be able to absorb all the baseball,
1:38
Speaker 1: and I was just like, I'm not even gonna bother
1:39
Speaker 1: with this Peacock stuff. I'll just watch the World Cup untill.
1:43
Speaker 1: But that's probably why I missed a little bit of
1:45
Speaker 1: the All Star announcement action where I mean, you always
1:49
Speaker 1: have your controversies every All Star Game and every release,
1:53
Speaker 1: this one, especially coming into the announcement of the starting lineups,
1:57
Speaker 1: we had a little bit of the Toronto just contingent
2:02
Speaker 1: and Blue Jay's contingent being a little bit over zealous
2:05
Speaker 1: in terms of their voting, where they had a ton
2:07
Speaker 1: of Blue Jays in the finalists. But at the end
2:09
Speaker 1: of the day, the only starters that came out Toronto
2:12
Speaker 1: were Ernie Clement, who actually kind of deserved it at
2:15
Speaker 1: second base was no second basement in the al this year,
2:18
Speaker 1: and vlad Garo Junior, who already bowed out because I
2:21
Speaker 1: think he realized he did not deserve the trip to
2:24
Speaker 1: the game and has been quote unquote nursing a back injury.
2:27
Speaker 1: So we've got the set rosters. Some of the highlights
2:30
Speaker 1: I think we should touch on. Our Phillies are sending
2:33
Speaker 1: the most with six, then the Braves and Dodgers with
2:37
Speaker 1: five apiece, and then the Blue Jays, Rays, Tigers, Yankees
2:41
Speaker 1: for four a piece. The White Sox only getting Miguel
2:44
Speaker 1: Vargas in right now. Of course, over the next coming days,
2:47
Speaker 1: I think we'll get more pitchers in. I think Davis
2:49
Speaker 1: Martin will join mcgil Vargas there, and we'll get some
2:52
Speaker 1: other shakeups. But what's your take on some of these
2:55
Speaker 1: all star rosters and how you feeling?
2:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean a little jaded just because of the
3:02
Speaker 2: voting process that's just been become a little bit too
3:05
Speaker 2: much the fan base, uh, you know, advertising or what
3:09
Speaker 2: you want to call that. U you know, a little
3:11
Speaker 2: too much Phillies, a little too much Braves, a little
3:14
Speaker 2: too much Blue Jays playing there. I'd like to say
3:17
Speaker 2: the same about the Dodgers, but it's hard to argue,
3:20
Speaker 2: uh with with a few of those guys there. So
3:23
Speaker 2: a little this point of that because I don't feel
3:25
Speaker 2: like we truly have the best starting lineups, uh for
3:29
Speaker 2: for these games, and so that that's a little disappointing. Also,
3:33
Speaker 2: you know, some of the best pictures like mizerowskiing guys
3:36
Speaker 2: like that aren't going to be pitching in the game,
3:39
Speaker 2: and the there's there's a few snubs out there. I'm
3:41
Speaker 2: still a little sour about the weather Hold unless he
3:44
Speaker 2: got added in the last like twelve hours and I
3:46
Speaker 2: didn't see it. So I'm a little homer sour at
3:49
Speaker 2: this point for for that one. But hey, it's it's
3:53
Speaker 2: it's a fun festivity. They've done a great job the
3:55
Speaker 2: last few years. Excited to see what's comes with the
3:57
Speaker 2: home run derby and who's all fully in it. Like
4:00
Speaker 2: Bryce Harper's interested in joint if you can find a picture,
4:03
Speaker 2: but he won't recruit his dad to come back. So
4:06
Speaker 2: a lot of controversy already starting across the league. So
4:09
Speaker 2: it's it's what it is. It's a festivity, it's for
4:13
Speaker 2: the fans. It's not meant to be competitive, but the
4:16
Speaker 2: competitive spirit within me, which is we had a little
4:18
Speaker 2: bit more true game to play, and that's the only
4:21
Speaker 2: thing about it. But otherwise relative pleased with kind of
4:24
Speaker 2: how things landed. And to your point, most of these
4:27
Speaker 2: guys that we feel like are snubs right now are
4:29
Speaker 2: gonna still be in the game because they'll like Wilson
4:31
Speaker 2: and Treres was kind of snubbed and he got He's
4:33
Speaker 2: immediately in. Like, there's quite a few guys that are
4:36
Speaker 2: just gonna sneak in on the back half of this.
4:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, and Bryce Harper will actually
4:41
Speaker 1: be there as a real All Star because he was
4:43
Speaker 1: the legend pick if for the NL, which yep, I mean,
4:45
Speaker 1: the legend pick on the ale made sense, justin Verlander,
4:48
Speaker 1: who actually announced this afternoon that he was going to
4:50
Speaker 1: retire at the end of season. We'll actually see how
4:53
Speaker 1: many innings he gets down the stretch. The good thing
4:55
Speaker 1: is he's on the Giants, so like, the Giants aren't
4:58
Speaker 1: going anywhere, and he can pay as much as he
5:00
Speaker 1: wants with San Francisco. But he's been banged up and
5:04
Speaker 1: got himself hurt while he was rehabbing as well. So
5:07
Speaker 1: he is the legend pick on the AL side. Harper's
5:11
Speaker 1: the legend pick on the NL side, which if I
5:13
Speaker 1: was him, I'd be a little offended by just because
5:15
Speaker 1: it's like everybody else who's gotten that pick has been
5:20
Speaker 1: in the last year of their of their career and
5:23
Speaker 1: are like on their way to the Hall of Fame,
5:25
Speaker 1: where like Bryce Harper is still probably got five ish
5:28
Speaker 1: years left playing and he got in as the old
5:32
Speaker 1: man pick, and so I mean, I'm sure he'll love
5:34
Speaker 1: to be there, and honestly, he's relatively deserving. It's not
5:38
Speaker 1: like he was would have been like a total out
5:41
Speaker 1: of left field pick, especially given the way that the
5:44
Speaker 1: Phillies have been playing recently. But I mean, what would
5:47
Speaker 1: your what would your take be if you were in
5:48
Speaker 1: Bryce Harper's shoes and you were deemed the quote unquote
5:52
Speaker 1: legend pick, even though you knew you had plenty of
5:54
Speaker 1: run left.
5:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that'd be kind of rough, because I mean,
5:58
Speaker 2: if you look at the season, it's it's not it's
6:01
Speaker 2: not like he's on a bad He's got one thirty
6:03
Speaker 2: eight WRC plus, guy's got twenty bombs. Like, he's not
6:08
Speaker 2: having a bad year. It's not unconceivable he finishes with
6:11
Speaker 2: thirty five, maybe even forty homers, with one hundred RBI season,
6:15
Speaker 2: steals ten bases, Like he's having a pretty good year.
6:19
Speaker 2: So it does feel like one of those legend pick
6:21
Speaker 2: is a little bit of a stretch there. I feel
6:24
Speaker 2: like you probably could like ver Lander makes sense, You're
6:26
Speaker 2: absolutely right. I feel like there's probably somebody else that
6:29
Speaker 2: we could have found. I don't like wrack the brain
6:32
Speaker 2: to see who that who that could have been, but
6:34
Speaker 2: there there's gotta be another guy out there. Uh, to
6:37
Speaker 2: your point, like Harper also feels like the guy that's
6:40
Speaker 2: gonna play till he's like forty three. Uh, kind of
6:42
Speaker 2: Lebron James style. Right, he's gonna play forever. I mean
6:46
Speaker 2: he's still he's still got five years on the contract left.
6:49
Speaker 2: His contract goes through twenty thirty one, so it's not
6:53
Speaker 2: like he's going anywhere anytime soon. And this is a
6:55
Speaker 2: guy that's got three hundred and eighty three career home runs.
6:58
Speaker 2: You know, he's he's gonne at the five hundred mark.
7:00
Speaker 2: That's gotta be a huge aspiration and he absolutely can
7:03
Speaker 2: do it. So Yeah, it feels like the weirdest like
7:07
Speaker 2: slight to a player where you've got said that you're
7:11
Speaker 2: so good should be the All Star Game, but really
7:13
Speaker 2: you're not good enough, so we're gonna call you an
7:15
Speaker 2: old guy and bring you that one just feels a
7:17
Speaker 2: little off. So I don't know, we will see Bryce
7:19
Speaker 2: Harper's a pinch hitter, and that's that's about it.
7:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I mean, then on the other side
7:25
Speaker 1: of the coin, like what a slap in the face
7:27
Speaker 1: to Paul Goldschmid and Max Scherzer, who are both in
7:30
Speaker 1: the al and probably could have been legend picks themselves,
7:34
Speaker 1: because I think they'll both be in Cooperstown when it's
7:37
Speaker 1: all said and done, and especially Sure's are I mean,
7:39
Speaker 1: gold Schmitt was on the border, I think, but especially
7:42
Speaker 1: Hit the work that he's done this year has kind
7:43
Speaker 1: of pushed him over that edge, but also brutal to
7:47
Speaker 1: just have them be flat out denied. And I mean,
7:50
Speaker 1: certainly Verlander is a little bit of a cut above them,
7:53
Speaker 1: certainly over Goldie, but compared to Max, I mean, mad
7:57
Speaker 1: Max is right there right behind Shars are interns of
8:00
Speaker 1: pitchers from this era. So yeah, just kind of funny
8:03
Speaker 1: all around how that has worked out. And I guess
8:05
Speaker 1: maybe it's also Rob Manfred telling Paul Goldschmitt and maxuers
8:09
Speaker 1: or that they're forced to come back again next year
8:11
Speaker 1: and make sure that they're in separate leagues so that
8:14
Speaker 1: they can get this legend picked.
8:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost like there was inside information that Verlander
8:18
Speaker 2: was like gonna announce his retirement. I mean there, I mean,
8:21
Speaker 2: he's forty three and he's pitched three and two thirds
8:24
Speaker 2: innings this year or so, I guess that's the way
8:28
Speaker 2: to look at it, because even Susier's got a whole
8:30
Speaker 2: twenty two innings this year, so he's he's clearly got
8:32
Speaker 2: a lot left in that arm, obviously.
8:35
Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into the news and notes that are
8:37
Speaker 1: affecting us on the fantasy side before we get into
8:41
Speaker 1: some of those Baseball card release calendar notes. So let's
8:45
Speaker 1: kick off with some of the happier news first. So
8:47
Speaker 1: we do have a ton of injuries, and it's not
8:49
Speaker 1: because we've we've been out for two weeks that actually
8:52
Speaker 1: most of these have stacked in since we would have
8:56
Speaker 1: been on our normal recording schedule. So there's a lot
9:00
Speaker 1: of injuries, but let's focus on the positive. First. We've
9:02
Speaker 1: got two call ups, the first one being Luis Lara
9:05
Speaker 1: in Milwaukee. He was called up for the Really, it's
9:09
Speaker 1: a it's a crazy stretch that the Brewers have before
9:11
Speaker 1: the all Star Game where they were playing eight games
9:14
Speaker 1: this week with a double header in Saint Louis while
9:16
Speaker 1: it's like ninety degrees down there, and so they needed
9:19
Speaker 1: the extra help. But currently he's freed up a roster
9:23
Speaker 1: spot and roster resource has Laura on the bench in
9:26
Speaker 1: like a platoon role as a switch hitter. But the
9:29
Speaker 1: first two days that he's been up in days is
9:32
Speaker 1: why I'm also using that instead of games, because he
9:34
Speaker 1: played only one game of the doubleheader yesterday and then
9:38
Speaker 1: played again tonight. But he's looked pretty solid and action
9:41
Speaker 1: got his first big league hit and was hitting three
9:45
Speaker 1: twenty one, four thirty two, four seventy for a one
9:48
Speaker 1: forty three WRC plus and triple A before his call up,
9:51
Speaker 1: with nine homers and twenty four stylem bases over seventy
9:54
Speaker 1: eight games. Has been a pretty solid reliever. Is a
9:58
Speaker 1: tiny guy, like he's he's got a little bit like
10:00
Speaker 1: a Hefo Luis ran he Fo body where it's like
10:04
Speaker 1: he's probably like five eight ish and a switch hitter,
10:08
Speaker 1: but a lot of speed, a lot of talent, and
10:10
Speaker 1: you can see that in the box when I was
10:12
Speaker 1: watching him that like, I think he's gonna hang on
10:14
Speaker 1: top of it. The bat speed. You know, we got
10:17
Speaker 1: a few swings and the bat speed looks okay, So
10:20
Speaker 1: you know, the warrior sometimes is when you get these
10:22
Speaker 1: tinier guys coming up that ran gaudy numbers and triple
10:26
Speaker 1: A that they use their speed and their ability to
10:30
Speaker 1: hit triple A pitching to their advantage to be able
10:32
Speaker 1: to just run a muck. But it does look like
10:35
Speaker 1: Luis Laura has skills in terms of power in that
10:40
Speaker 1: bat and isn't just going to be a little bit
10:41
Speaker 1: of like a noodle bat all speed guy. So we
10:45
Speaker 1: liked him. We've covered him already previously in the pod,
10:47
Speaker 1: so you can certainly go back and catch that episode
10:50
Speaker 1: when we talked about him as a pickup for a
10:53
Speaker 1: breakout prospect. But what do you see him doing for
10:55
Speaker 1: the rest of twenty twenty six, because he should be
10:58
Speaker 1: out there on waiver wires likely if you've got a
11:01
Speaker 1: process where you you know, free agents that come up
11:05
Speaker 1: from the minor leagues go through that process and will
11:08
Speaker 1: be on NFBC wires this weekend. So what do you
11:11
Speaker 1: what do you expect to have Lara the rest of
11:13
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six.
11:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm actually really excited about Lara. I mean he
11:16
Speaker 2: you know, first game up, he was batting the two hole,
11:20
Speaker 2: So you know, he's a guy that's got great speed,
11:23
Speaker 2: great discipline. He just looks to have the grit. To
11:27
Speaker 2: your point, Like I didn't even realize he was called up.
11:29
Speaker 2: I was watching the Cardinals game and then all of
11:31
Speaker 2: a sudden, he Lara was at the plate. I'm like, wait, second,
11:34
Speaker 2: I missed the news because they kind of just buried
11:36
Speaker 2: the news to a degree on that call up. But
11:39
Speaker 2: like he just looks very comfortable, very natural, and he
11:42
Speaker 2: just the athletic ability is there. So is he gonna
11:46
Speaker 2: be the guy that's gonna hit three ten and a
11:49
Speaker 2: ton of moms. No, he's probably a two sixty two
11:52
Speaker 2: seventy hitter. He might be able to manage like a
11:55
Speaker 2: double ditch as a home run across the full season,
11:57
Speaker 2: but power is not his calling card. So the rest
11:59
Speaker 2: of the seas and let's call it half a dozen
12:02
Speaker 2: home runs like that, But he could also steal fifteen
12:05
Speaker 2: bases the rest of the way, and that might even
12:08
Speaker 2: be like lo, Like this guy can fly and he's
12:11
Speaker 2: pretty efficient doing so, and so I think he's a
12:13
Speaker 2: guy that's gonna get on base he's gonna score a
12:15
Speaker 2: lot of runs. He's gonna be in a good lineup,
12:17
Speaker 2: and I don't think they're gonna sit him. They signed
12:19
Speaker 2: him to a seven year contract while he's in the minors.
12:21
Speaker 2: They are absolutely gonna give him a chance now that
12:23
Speaker 2: he's called up because they've invested in the guy. They
12:26
Speaker 2: believe in the guy. So I think he's a really
12:29
Speaker 2: solid pickup, especially if you need speed on the base paths.
12:32
Speaker 1: Yep. I think I'm right there with you. I think
12:34
Speaker 1: this is what we've wanted as stewary Uz to be
12:37
Speaker 1: and he's got the pop, And I mean Reiza has
12:40
Speaker 1: actually provided fancy value for the Marlins in a part
12:43
Speaker 1: time role, and I think Laura can do that too,
12:45
Speaker 1: where I don't think he you know, maybe his playing
12:48
Speaker 1: time is capped at seventy five eighty percent of the games,
12:52
Speaker 1: but that's also just because there's so many outfielders there
12:57
Speaker 1: right now in Milwaukee. But one of them is Garret Mitchell,
13:00
Speaker 1: who I mean has been healthy so far, but not
13:03
Speaker 1: you know, knock on Wood there has dealt with a
13:05
Speaker 1: lot of shoulder injury issues. And I think they're going
13:07
Speaker 1: to find creative ways to get Laura into the game.
13:10
Speaker 1: And if you're looking for speed, this is that is
13:12
Speaker 1: like the one category where you can take a guy
13:16
Speaker 1: that is playing seventy five to eighty percent of the
13:18
Speaker 1: time and stick him into a weekly lineup because the
13:21
Speaker 1: speed will still play like he'll come in and pinch
13:23
Speaker 1: run and maybe the RBIs and runs will be a
13:27
Speaker 1: little bit lacking, but at this point in the season,
13:29
Speaker 1: it's not gonna really set you too far behind your competitors. Okay,
13:34
Speaker 1: next call up we have is in Cleveland, where Cooper
13:37
Speaker 1: Engel was promoted after a solid triple A performance this
13:41
Speaker 1: season two eighty four four sixteen five point fifty one
13:44
Speaker 1: on the slash line. That's a one to fifty WRC
13:47
Speaker 1: plus pop twelve homers in fifty one games. Now, he
13:50
Speaker 1: is a catcher and came up as a catcher, but
13:53
Speaker 1: they started shift him into the outfield a little bit
13:55
Speaker 1: in Columbus before the call up. Actually, over the fourth
13:58
Speaker 1: of July, I went to Columbus Clippers game where they're
14:01
Speaker 1: trying to do this now with Ralph vie Velskiez, and
14:04
Speaker 1: I only saw one game. Let's just say it's not
14:05
Speaker 1: going so hot for Ralphievelskaz and the outfield, not like
14:09
Speaker 1: it actually has been perfect for Engle either. And in
14:11
Speaker 1: one of his first games, he caught a ball that
14:14
Speaker 1: he thought was the third out, it was only the
14:16
Speaker 1: second out. He threw it into the stands and is
14:18
Speaker 1: a two base error that allowed to run to score.
14:21
Speaker 1: So he's brand new to the outfield really like he's
14:24
Speaker 1: kind of learning it on the fly. I only got
14:25
Speaker 1: a handful of games down in Triple A before that.
14:29
Speaker 1: Because they are running with Patrick Bailey continually in Cleveland
14:33
Speaker 1: at the backstop. I guess we'll also see how much
14:36
Speaker 1: that sticks, because I think if Cooper Engle shows up
14:39
Speaker 1: and hits and is working well at the pitchers inside sessions,
14:44
Speaker 1: I think he could take over full time catching duties there.
14:48
Speaker 1: But you also have a situation in Cleveland where there's
14:51
Speaker 1: actually four catchers on the roster. Not only is there
14:54
Speaker 1: Bailey and Engle, but you also have Austin Hedges hanging
14:57
Speaker 1: around in David Frye, who I mean hasn't really been
14:59
Speaker 1: ca but he could in a pinch and probably won't
15:03
Speaker 1: now that there's three other better catchers in front of them.
15:06
Speaker 1: So this one kind of stuck up on me just because,
15:08
Speaker 1: like I thought that the Guardians would let Engle cook
15:12
Speaker 1: for another year before they brought him up for next year.
15:16
Speaker 1: Wasn't fully on my radar, but they are in the
15:18
Speaker 1: thick of the al central race and need the extra bat.
15:20
Speaker 1: So what is your outlook for Cooper Engle the rest
15:23
Speaker 1: of the season.
15:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm I'm not too terribly excited for this season.
15:28
Speaker 2: I look at angle as I'm hoping he's more than
15:32
Speaker 2: a quad A bat is my problem because he does
15:35
Speaker 2: he's gonna be a middling average. He doesn't have speed
15:37
Speaker 2: to your point, he doesn't play good defense. He has
15:40
Speaker 2: a good played approach as far as patience is concerned,
15:43
Speaker 2: and he's got a little bit of pop, and I
15:46
Speaker 2: just don't know if the game's well rounded enough, even
15:49
Speaker 2: at the catcher position to really make a stick. And
15:51
Speaker 2: since he's not the greatest catcher he's I don't know
15:54
Speaker 2: that he's gonna play every day. So I think he's interesting.
15:57
Speaker 2: I think he's definitely the watchless kind of guy to have.
16:00
Speaker 2: But there's nothing this This profile doesn't just yell at
16:03
Speaker 2: me of like, hey, you got to pick this guy up,
16:04
Speaker 2: you got to rely on him. I think that he's
16:08
Speaker 2: kind of going to be a Uh, a guy that
16:12
Speaker 2: you hope to play, but he's going to always be
16:16
Speaker 2: the guy that they're looking to see if i'ves being better.
16:18
Speaker 2: I just don't think he's as projectable as even though
16:21
Speaker 2: what those triple A stats were this year, I think
16:24
Speaker 2: there's enough luck in that that I don't think it's
16:26
Speaker 2: something that's going to come through. So I'm shading away
16:29
Speaker 2: from from Angle here. I think part of part of
16:31
Speaker 2: me and I really shouldn't play in the fantasy game
16:33
Speaker 2: is the defense just being so poor that I just
16:36
Speaker 2: worry that's going to have more real world effects for
16:38
Speaker 2: him and therefore he's not going to play as much
16:42
Speaker 2: and that you know, this is the kind of guy
16:43
Speaker 2: that might get called up and sent back down and
16:45
Speaker 2: called up and sent back down. So watch this for me.
16:48
Speaker 2: Hopefully I'm wrong, but I've got the quad A label
16:51
Speaker 2: on him right now.
16:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'm right there with you. Beat that. Like,
16:55
Speaker 1: obviously this situation changes. You know, if they do go
16:58
Speaker 1: to Angle full time catcher over Bailey, then we are
17:02
Speaker 1: talking about a pretty solid catcher. I think that is
17:05
Speaker 1: probably addable in twelve teamers because of the the bat
17:09
Speaker 1: is in front of the glove at this point. But
17:13
Speaker 1: those numbers with the bat are also a little bit
17:15
Speaker 1: inflated because the other thing you know, going to that
17:18
Speaker 1: Columbus Clippers game, Engle is left handed bat. The right
17:22
Speaker 1: field line in Columbus is it's like the I think
17:26
Speaker 1: it was Shy Park in Philadelphia where because they put
17:29
Speaker 1: it into like a little box inside of a city,
17:32
Speaker 1: it was all short down the lines, a little bit
17:34
Speaker 1: like the Polo Grounds. But Columbus has that in right
17:37
Speaker 1: field because it goes right up against a street and
17:40
Speaker 1: so it's like three sixteen down the line and the
17:44
Speaker 1: fence is taller. But like lefties take advantage of that
17:47
Speaker 1: all day long. So something to keep in mind with
17:51
Speaker 1: those stats from Triple A on Engle. But yeah, I
17:54
Speaker 1: think I'm with you unless I think you can add
17:56
Speaker 1: them in in ale only just because you're looking for
17:59
Speaker 1: warm bodies. But this is different from Lara, where the
18:02
Speaker 1: speed plays in a in a not full time situation.
18:06
Speaker 1: It doesn't play in a Cooper Ingle situation because you
18:09
Speaker 1: need the volume with the bat to make up for
18:11
Speaker 1: the lack of speed. Yeah, and so you can't be
18:13
Speaker 1: making up that many categories all at once. Okay, you
18:17
Speaker 1: ready for the dark side now? You're ready for these injuries.
18:21
Speaker 2: There's too many, and my fantasy team is well aware
18:23
Speaker 2: of it.
18:23
Speaker 1: So let's go, Okay, Well, this one really hurts because
18:28
Speaker 1: I think this could be a season ender and we'll
18:31
Speaker 1: see how it plays out. But Connor Griffin is down
18:35
Speaker 1: out eight to ten weeks, is what they're saying, with
18:37
Speaker 1: a torn left tendon in his left ring finger, which
18:41
Speaker 1: he's only twenty years old and married. But maybe there
18:43
Speaker 1: is a little bit of a lesson there in terms
18:45
Speaker 1: of like maybe he was stressing out that that left
18:48
Speaker 1: ring finger too much. That Connor could have probably waited
18:51
Speaker 1: a few more years. But I mean, he was what
18:55
Speaker 1: we wanted to see as a twenty year old in
18:57
Speaker 1: the big leagues through his fifty nine games so far
18:59
Speaker 1: to six seven three thirty two four four in the
19:02
Speaker 1: slash line, just five homers in fifty nine games, but
19:04
Speaker 1: he had twenty steals like the steals we're gonna be.
19:09
Speaker 1: That's like a fifty steel pace essentially along with you know,
19:13
Speaker 1: it would have been a mute, a little bit muted
19:15
Speaker 1: on the power, but if he had stretched out to
19:17
Speaker 1: give you two seventy fifty fifteen a pace, I mean,
19:23
Speaker 1: that's fantastic for Connor Griffin, but this second time that
19:27
Speaker 1: he's been placed on the IL this year, he does
19:30
Speaker 1: play with his hair on fire. We've talked about this
19:32
Speaker 1: over the year in terms of guys like Bryce Harper
19:35
Speaker 1: certainly used to be in this category where the talent.
19:38
Speaker 1: Acunya's in this category two RealD Acuna Junior where the
19:42
Speaker 1: talent is immense, But there's another element of learning to
19:46
Speaker 1: play baseball where you've got to post one hundred and
19:49
Speaker 1: sixty two games and be able to find the spots
19:53
Speaker 1: where you turn the throttle to full volume and other
19:57
Speaker 1: spots where you keep it in a lower gear. So
20:00
Speaker 1: what's your take on Connor Griffin. I don't think this
20:03
Speaker 1: is really probably too big of a long term injury individually,
20:07
Speaker 1: but collectively with what we've seen this year in the
20:10
Speaker 1: way that he's played, might be raising some alarms.
20:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it definitely raises a little alarms, the
20:17
Speaker 2: alarms of the Bryce Harper type of alarms, where like
20:20
Speaker 2: it's I'm not reading him at this point as injury prone.
20:23
Speaker 2: I'm just reading him as overly aggressive. So like on
20:26
Speaker 2: the on a scale of Bryce Harper injury to gian
20:29
Speaker 2: Carlo Stanton injury. He's on the Bryce Harper side. He's
20:32
Speaker 2: not committed glass, he's not fragile. He just plays the
20:36
Speaker 2: game hard, and so I think that's youthful exuberance. Harper's
20:41
Speaker 2: never lost that. Maybe the legends Pickle make him reconsider,
20:45
Speaker 2: but that is something that I'm I'm a little bit
20:48
Speaker 2: more willing to take the risk because I think with
20:51
Speaker 2: with age, with growth, that is something that he will
20:54
Speaker 2: learn to to to throttle at some point. I actually
20:58
Speaker 2: I look at this as the weirdest as a buying
21:01
Speaker 2: opportunity with Griffin. If you actually look at his underlying metrics,
21:05
Speaker 2: they don't actually look that terribly good except for his
21:08
Speaker 2: bat speeds. Baspeed's been great, his print speeds ninety ninth percentile.
21:11
Speaker 2: Like he's to your point, he's twenty for twenty one
21:14
Speaker 2: in stolen bases, but he's he's held his own very
21:18
Speaker 2: well as the young twenty year old in the in
21:23
Speaker 2: this league, and he hasn't blown people away like he's
21:27
Speaker 2: Weather Holds outperformed Hi mcgonagall's outperformed him overall. And I
21:31
Speaker 2: think this injuries, like for some people who had such
21:35
Speaker 2: high expectations, is going to be like the cap on
21:37
Speaker 2: a disappointing season, and I think that means you can
21:41
Speaker 2: actually buy Connor Griffin in more of a dynasty keeper situation,
21:45
Speaker 2: because yeah, the guy stole bases, but he you can
21:49
Speaker 2: just argue hit for middllion hours, the underlying stats weren't there,
21:52
Speaker 2: didn't hit for the power. But like this is, there's
21:54
Speaker 2: an a ton of talent here and a ton of grit.
21:58
Speaker 2: So yeah, this year, I think, I really think this
22:02
Speaker 2: is relatively season ending to your point, like we are
22:05
Speaker 2: at that point that if you ever start talking eight
22:07
Speaker 2: to nine weeks around the All Star break, that's basically
22:11
Speaker 2: the season when and when you get back, you still
22:13
Speaker 2: need a few to get back to full throttle. So
22:17
Speaker 2: disappointing for this year overall, I'm still full big Connor
22:21
Speaker 2: Griffin fan.
22:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so too, because the other component here
22:24
Speaker 1: too is he flashed all the skills that we needed
22:27
Speaker 1: to see from him. He did not fall on his face.
22:31
Speaker 1: I think everything is right there, and the defense improved
22:35
Speaker 1: as well too, Like that was one mark against him
22:37
Speaker 1: in terms of like something that the Pirates could hold
22:40
Speaker 1: against him to be able to shuttle him back to
22:42
Speaker 1: Triple A to work on something. And I think he
22:45
Speaker 1: proved that that was resolved. And so honestly, like, I'm
22:50
Speaker 1: really in for Connor Griffin and twenty twenty seven because
22:53
Speaker 1: what this also gives him is such a big taste
22:55
Speaker 1: of the day in, day out, just managing your day,
22:59
Speaker 1: going to different hotels, finding your way through the labyrinths
23:03
Speaker 1: of different baseball stadiums, all that kind of soft stuff
23:05
Speaker 1: that we don't think about on the fantasy side as much.
23:08
Speaker 1: But he's gonna be doing that for an entire season,
23:10
Speaker 1: and so on top of it, I would expect, you know,
23:14
Speaker 1: with this injury, he's gonna get lots more time to
23:17
Speaker 1: just kind of be with the big league coaching staff,
23:19
Speaker 1: be with the stars, be with the video room, and
23:23
Speaker 1: just kind of learn. And so, I mean, is it
23:28
Speaker 1: too optimistic? I've been considering maybe kind of Griffin on
23:32
Speaker 1: like the one two turn going into draft season next year,
23:35
Speaker 1: because I mean, if you're talking a guy who probably
23:40
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not the floor, but it's maybe a
23:42
Speaker 1: little bit of Like the one rung up for the
23:44
Speaker 1: floor is probably two seventy twenty fifty with upside. Why
23:50
Speaker 1: wouldn't you be taking that at like the one two turn.
23:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe you'll beat a little aggressive. I might call
23:57
Speaker 2: it there because I think there's better floors out there,
24:03
Speaker 2: just knowing that if he does stumble and they have
24:05
Speaker 2: to restart, there's things like that, So I think that's
24:08
Speaker 2: a little aggressive. But to your point, like this is
24:11
Speaker 2: the kind of like he's in that discussion of these
24:14
Speaker 2: young five tool players, Corbyn Carrol's and who the Rodriguez is,
24:19
Speaker 2: the Fernando Tatist, those kind of guys that can fill
24:22
Speaker 2: a stat sheet and all of those like it's kind
24:25
Speaker 2: of kind of rolling the dice to a degree. So
24:28
Speaker 2: it's not the worst choice. I'd rather be like the
24:31
Speaker 2: two three turn and having that conversation. But it's not
24:37
Speaker 2: too far fetched to like assume an Acuna type season
24:40
Speaker 2: for Connor Griffin. I think he's got to make some
24:43
Speaker 2: adjustments to make that happen with kind of launch angles
24:45
Speaker 2: and fly balls and things like that. But again, the
24:48
Speaker 2: guy's twenty years old. He is He's going to be
24:52
Speaker 2: in this league for a long long time doing dangerous stuff.
24:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, another question, because we are going to be doing
24:58
Speaker 1: our June Player of the Month PC later, one of
25:01
Speaker 1: them is PCA. In dynasty situations, do you want PCA
25:05
Speaker 1: or do you want Connor Griffin at.
25:07
Speaker 2: This point, that's tough. I think I would take Connor Griffin.
25:12
Speaker 2: I honestly would I and I and I want It's
25:16
Speaker 2: probably a little more indictment on PCA, to be frank
25:18
Speaker 2: than it is Connor Griffin Truther. But PCA's approach and
25:23
Speaker 2: the streakiness scares me a little bit. And I just
25:27
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how long that that his his approach
25:30
Speaker 2: free wielding can can last. I think he's he is
25:36
Speaker 2: an amazing player. I think I got a little more
25:39
Speaker 2: faith in Connor Griffin having a longer sustained success.
25:43
Speaker 1: All right, Well, based on those statements, I will enjoy
25:46
Speaker 1: watching you take Connor Griffin on one two turns next
25:49
Speaker 1: year because I think everybody you talked about is right there.
25:54
Speaker 1: So like everybody you can hear him is right there.
25:57
Speaker 1: And I think that's probably well he where he will
26:00
Speaker 1: end up by the end of draft season that like it.
26:03
Speaker 1: I think he will move ahead of Lindor. And so
26:06
Speaker 1: if you're looking for a shortstop after Bobby Witt Junior
26:09
Speaker 1: and Elie de la Cruz, I think you're gonna go
26:11
Speaker 1: Connor Griffin when it comes to twenty twenty seven draft season.
26:14
Speaker 1: So earmarked that one for a couple months when we
26:18
Speaker 1: do do that first round mock draft, probably the way
26:20
Speaker 1: that we typically do. Okay, well, let's talk about another
26:23
Speaker 1: first rounder that's out, because now we've also gotten like
26:28
Speaker 1: what eighty percent of our first rounders have been heard
26:30
Speaker 1: at some point this season. This one is a little
26:33
Speaker 1: bit of a stranger situation for Julio Rodriguez of the
26:36
Speaker 1: Seattle Mariners, because everything was going fine and then he
26:40
Speaker 1: was sliding into second base and got donked on the
26:43
Speaker 1: back of the head by a Nolan Seanuell tossed down
26:46
Speaker 1: to second base, hit the concussion il for seven days
26:50
Speaker 1: things it seems like things are going pretty well that
26:52
Speaker 1: like he should be back later this weekend. Maybe they
26:56
Speaker 1: do just let him rest until the All Star break
26:59
Speaker 1: and through the All Star break, just to give it
27:01
Speaker 1: a little bit time, because you don't want to mess
27:03
Speaker 1: around with concussions very much. It was a pretty standard
27:06
Speaker 1: Julio season before it two fifty nine, three, twenty three, four,
27:10
Speaker 1: twenty four slash line. It's only a one fifteen WRC plus.
27:13
Speaker 1: But June was a little cold for him. He goes
27:15
Speaker 1: hot and cold. I think you've got to be used
27:18
Speaker 1: to it at this point, because at the end of
27:20
Speaker 1: the year, he just has the numbers and he was
27:23
Speaker 1: going to be there again. You know, you stretch the
27:25
Speaker 1: numbers out at a little bit of a sprinkle of
27:27
Speaker 1: like a hot August. For Julio, that always happens, and
27:31
Speaker 1: he was going to be right at his thirty thirty numbers.
27:34
Speaker 1: So what's your concern with Julio for the rest of
27:37
Speaker 1: the year with this concussion and probably even maybe a
27:40
Speaker 1: good trade chip right in terms of someone you might
27:42
Speaker 1: be pursuing.
27:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Julio is divisive just because what you said,
27:47
Speaker 2: like he runs so hot and cold. I've had arguments
27:50
Speaker 2: many times in the comment section of articles of like
27:53
Speaker 2: why are you so high on Julio? And then like
27:56
Speaker 2: a month later, why are you so low on Julio?
27:58
Speaker 2: Like it's just it's it's this guy guy that you know,
28:01
Speaker 2: he goes hot and cold and he plays on the
28:03
Speaker 2: West coast wherever forgets when he's playing type of thing.
28:06
Speaker 2: And so I'm not really worried. I'm actually hoping they
28:08
Speaker 2: keep him out through the All Star break and give
28:09
Speaker 2: him full full recovery from this and then he just
28:12
Speaker 2: comes back. And I mean He's played pretty much every
28:15
Speaker 2: single game this season, and so I'm hopeful that they
28:18
Speaker 2: just give him a little rest and he comes back
28:20
Speaker 2: refreshed in the second half. If anything, I'm looking forward
28:23
Speaker 2: to seeing if my boy Dominic Canzone plays against the
28:26
Speaker 2: lefty in the here coming up, because he's he's started
28:29
Speaker 2: to see a few of those and the guy has
28:30
Speaker 2: been on fire. Just the Mariner's offense is not helping
28:34
Speaker 2: those counting stats by any means, So I'm not too concerned.
28:38
Speaker 2: Give me sign me up for Julio if anybody's scared
28:41
Speaker 2: of this one by him, even if it's like nine
28:44
Speaker 2: nine cents on the dollar, like I'm taking, I'm taking
28:46
Speaker 2: any discount I can get to grab Julio.
28:49
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, next injury, water is wet and Byron Buckston
28:53
Speaker 1: is on the IL. Finally happened, went down with the
28:55
Speaker 1: hip strain. But I mean put up numbers for you
28:58
Speaker 1: before it that it was a two seventy one, three
29:01
Speaker 1: twenty eight, five seventy five slash line one six WRC
29:05
Speaker 1: plus with twenty five bombs and seven stolen bases before
29:09
Speaker 1: hitting the IL here over seventy five games. I mean,
29:16
Speaker 1: I'm torn because like this is if you build around
29:20
Speaker 1: it right and you take this production that you just
29:23
Speaker 1: got over seventy five games of buying Buckston and then
29:26
Speaker 1: you add in a Luis Laura on top of it
29:29
Speaker 1: correctly and you play it correct that's a ton. You're
29:32
Speaker 1: getting a ton of value, an insane amount of value
29:35
Speaker 1: out buying Buston. The problem is getting that played correctly.
29:41
Speaker 1: So I don't have them anywhere because of that, just
29:44
Speaker 1: because like I don't like trying to play that game.
29:46
Speaker 1: I would rather just try to play it straight, and
29:49
Speaker 1: like I will play this game more on the pitching
29:52
Speaker 1: side that like I need to throw my fab dollars
29:54
Speaker 1: at every pitcher and closer I can, and I'm not
29:57
Speaker 1: trying to do it with players replacing my Byron Buxton
30:01
Speaker 1: every once in a while. So I know you're kind
30:03
Speaker 1: of relatively in that boat. But I mean, has this
30:05
Speaker 1: production in twenty twenty six with I mean this is
30:08
Speaker 1: a fifty homer pace. You can do a lot of
30:11
Speaker 1: damage in your roto leagues with somebody like Buxton for
30:14
Speaker 1: where he went and drafts with that and then adding
30:18
Speaker 1: on later. So has it changed your mind going in
30:21
Speaker 1: twenty twenty seven with bucks in at all?
30:24
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna say it's really changed, right, And I'll
30:26
Speaker 2: be honest, I'm so mad because I just posted my
30:28
Speaker 2: top one hundred rankings and I finally moved him up
30:31
Speaker 2: because I've been holding out, like we know this is
30:33
Speaker 2: who he is, and I finally them like, okay, maybe
30:34
Speaker 2: this is the year and then he gets hurt. So
30:37
Speaker 2: I'm just mad about that. But like the thing with
30:40
Speaker 2: Buxton is, it depends on what the value of the
30:43
Speaker 2: market is. I was buying him everywhere into twenty five
30:46
Speaker 2: because he looks so brilliant. To your point, the stats
30:50
Speaker 2: were there, and if you just paid half a season,
30:52
Speaker 2: you were coming out like a bandit because you were
30:54
Speaker 2: getting almost free, and so it was incredible. But now
30:57
Speaker 2: he's had two seasons in a row after that, he's
31:00
Speaker 2: played more, played more, and people are starting like, well, baby,
31:02
Speaker 2: he's he can do this. And then now we got
31:04
Speaker 2: the inverse and I'm a little concerned that. I mean,
31:07
Speaker 2: this is not the type of type of injury that
31:10
Speaker 2: you come back easily from. This feels like naggy. This
31:13
Speaker 2: feels like kind of the kind of things that he
31:14
Speaker 2: struggled with where he ends up spending a lot more
31:16
Speaker 2: time out needing more time rehabing. So you can't deny
31:20
Speaker 2: he's a supremely talented player. You can't deny that he
31:23
Speaker 2: is incredible when he's on the field. He always has been.
31:27
Speaker 2: But I just I don't think that the price is
31:30
Speaker 2: gonna fall to make it worth playing that strategy, right.
31:34
Speaker 2: You can. You can just go back to cam zone.
31:37
Speaker 2: You can platoon guys and the same kind of strategy
31:40
Speaker 2: for way cheaper than what you would do for having
31:43
Speaker 2: to get bucked in I think, and I think it's
31:46
Speaker 2: gonna be another year or two before that price goes
31:48
Speaker 2: back down. You're gonna be playing in the middle single
31:52
Speaker 2: digit round like that's that's where you're gonna have to play.
31:55
Speaker 2: And I think it's not worth it there. You need
31:57
Speaker 2: to drop back another like you need to be in
31:59
Speaker 2: the in the the double digit routes for the draft
32:02
Speaker 2: for it to makes sense for me.
32:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'm there on a snake draft, especially
32:07
Speaker 1: and especially like a sharp competitive snake draft that it's
32:10
Speaker 1: just gonna be really hard to get what you want.
32:13
Speaker 1: I can see it working in an auction where you
32:16
Speaker 1: can you can plan for it, Yeah, where you can
32:19
Speaker 1: mold your roster a lot better. And you can start
32:21
Speaker 1: kind of like squirreling away dudes properly. And I think
32:25
Speaker 1: in that situation you have a little bit more leeway
32:28
Speaker 1: and a little bit more flexibility to create the roster
32:30
Speaker 1: that you need. But I don't think I'll be doing
32:34
Speaker 1: it just because.
32:35
Speaker 2: I don't know.
32:36
Speaker 1: I none I think about it. It's it's more possible
32:38
Speaker 1: just because, like I mean, you've seen in some of
32:41
Speaker 1: our leagues, like how many draft dollars I've dropped because
32:45
Speaker 1: of injuries of like Trevor's story and I was close
32:49
Speaker 1: with Boba Schet and stuff like that, where like some
32:52
Speaker 1: of those draft dollars feel like they've been more burnable
32:55
Speaker 1: than they have been in the past with new performances.
32:58
Speaker 1: So maybe let's check in next year when we when
33:01
Speaker 1: we get back to our Minnesota Twins discussion, get let
33:04
Speaker 1: me let me stew on it for for seven months
33:06
Speaker 1: or whatever, and then we'll see.
33:08
Speaker 2: It's a hard drug to layoff of.
33:10
Speaker 1: It certainly is because it's tempting when you especially see
33:13
Speaker 1: this level of production, but like we've gotten it like twice,
33:17
Speaker 1: and so it's the number of times it's happens not great,
33:22
Speaker 1: but it would be an interesting kind of pathway to follow. Okay,
33:28
Speaker 1: next to injury, we have Brent Rooker, outfielder for the
33:31
Speaker 1: A's officially done for the season. The knee injury that
33:34
Speaker 1: he went down with the other week, he had surgery
33:36
Speaker 1: on it. It was to repair some of the cartilage
33:39
Speaker 1: and that left knee stinker of a season for Brent Rooker.
33:42
Speaker 1: And this was a pretty high draft pick, probably one
33:45
Speaker 1: of those guys where you spent decent amount of draft
33:48
Speaker 1: dollars and threw him to the waiver wire the way
33:51
Speaker 1: I did in one league for sure, and so two
33:54
Speaker 1: eighty one three, nine eighty two WRC plus it was
33:58
Speaker 1: a brutal year, but he did put up ten homers
34:01
Speaker 1: in the forty eight games. The underlying numbers were still there.
34:04
Speaker 1: Is just that like it was only two hundred played
34:07
Speaker 1: appearances and Rooker didn't get to see kind of like
34:09
Speaker 1: the the EBB come with that downward flow that he
34:14
Speaker 1: suffered through. Didn't get the hottest months of the year
34:17
Speaker 1: in Sacramento. So you can kind of tell through just
34:21
Speaker 1: reading through the tea leaves of what I'm saying there
34:23
Speaker 1: that I'm not out on Brent Rooker, Are you.
34:27
Speaker 2: No, I'm not out in Rooker. I think he clearly
34:30
Speaker 2: had something going on this year, whether it was injury
34:32
Speaker 2: or he just his swing got off. Something was going on,
34:36
Speaker 2: because the power was still there, the bat speed was
34:39
Speaker 2: still there. He just was really struggling at identifying the
34:43
Speaker 2: right pitch and making the contact on the right pitch.
34:44
Speaker 2: He was striking out too much, swinging at the wrong pitches,
34:48
Speaker 2: like it something was just off, and it did feel
34:51
Speaker 2: like he was kind of bat Like. I'm not ruling
34:55
Speaker 2: out that he's been battling injuries all year, and so
34:59
Speaker 2: this is a guy that three streasons, say straight seasons
35:02
Speaker 2: before this he where he's hit thirty plus home runs
35:05
Speaker 2: and you know, stolen a decent number of basis Like
35:09
Speaker 2: he's he's been really really impressive, and so I'm not
35:13
Speaker 2: writing him off after this season. I do think he's
35:17
Speaker 2: gonna drop drop pretty significantly and value and in the
35:21
Speaker 2: mind of the public because it was so so bad
35:24
Speaker 2: this year. Hitting two hundred is not the kind of
35:27
Speaker 2: guy that people want to just naturally, uh, you know,
35:30
Speaker 2: pick up and not. His expecting batting average was two
35:32
Speaker 2: o seven. So it's not like we're talking to it here.
35:34
Speaker 2: But like I, like I said, I don't think he
35:37
Speaker 2: just all of a sudden fell off the face of
35:38
Speaker 2: the earth for a guy that pretty much every since
35:41
Speaker 2: ever since he's been in the majors has hit just fine,
35:45
Speaker 2: and it's just a matter of can he can the
35:47
Speaker 2: batting eye do what it needs to do, and more
35:50
Speaker 2: often than not it has, and so I'm willing to
35:52
Speaker 2: give Rooker another shot. He is the kind of guy
35:55
Speaker 2: you have to be careful with and build your roster
35:57
Speaker 2: on because the batting average is going to be a risk,
36:00
Speaker 2: and that's probably the biggest risk here. But again, if
36:03
Speaker 2: you're sitting here and getting twenty five homers and you know,
36:08
Speaker 2: half a dozen steals, there's a lot of value in
36:12
Speaker 2: That's just know that you can't if your batting average
36:16
Speaker 2: is going to be a risk if you have Rookers,
36:17
Speaker 2: So you have to just draft accordingly.
36:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's fair. I don't actually know
36:22
Speaker 1: if he's going to drop that much, because I think
36:24
Speaker 1: lots of people are still in on him. He only
36:27
Speaker 1: turns thirty two in the off season, and I mean
36:31
Speaker 1: the bad at ball quality has just been so superb
36:33
Speaker 1: that we saw this a little bit with like au
36:37
Speaker 1: Henio Suarez, who kind of like fell off the face
36:39
Speaker 1: of the plan and then came back, but like his
36:42
Speaker 1: draft price did drop. Certainly, I don't know if Rooker
36:45
Speaker 1: is going to quite bottom out to that level because
36:48
Speaker 1: I think especially in like I know, especially like any
36:52
Speaker 1: of my expert leagues, like he's got a many fans
36:56
Speaker 1: in each of those and I think even in most
36:59
Speaker 1: homes you're going to find most people there's gonna be
37:03
Speaker 1: one fan. And on top of it too, I don't
37:06
Speaker 1: think this is going to be a situation where people
37:08
Speaker 1: do jump off ship from like some of the bigger
37:11
Speaker 1: podcasts and writers and stuff out there that like, I
37:14
Speaker 1: think people will hold the line that certainly the price
37:17
Speaker 1: will will drop a little bit because the projections probably
37:20
Speaker 1: will too, But I don't think it's going to really
37:23
Speaker 1: bottom out. So something to consider in Dynasty and keep
37:26
Speaker 1: your situations too. If maybe the Brent Rooker owner there
37:29
Speaker 1: is tired of him, it might be a bit of
37:32
Speaker 1: a buying opportunity next one. This dude I'm out on.
37:36
Speaker 1: I've been out on on him since the shoulder injuries
37:39
Speaker 1: last year, and I mean this is just I think
37:42
Speaker 1: the nail and the coffin for Cole Reagan's from the
37:45
Speaker 1: Kansley Royals underwent a UCL reconstructive surgery, so means not
37:50
Speaker 1: a Tommy John did a one of the BRACE procedures,
37:54
Speaker 1: but this is his third procedure on a UCL, where
37:58
Speaker 1: most dudes don't come back. We will. Actually the al
38:02
Speaker 1: picture of the month has come back from this. But
38:05
Speaker 1: Drew Rasmussen has been in good organizations that I trust,
38:09
Speaker 1: between Tampa and Milwaukee, and even last year, like you
38:13
Speaker 1: were always kind of just waiting for Drew Rasmussen to
38:15
Speaker 1: break and I'm still a little bit, but I feel
38:18
Speaker 1: good that Tampa's on the front edge of figuring out
38:22
Speaker 1: how to work with biomechanics and keep somebody like Rasmussen
38:26
Speaker 1: or Reagan's healthy. The other situation is that Reagan's has
38:30
Speaker 1: just never been healthy. Like that rotator cuff situation last
38:34
Speaker 1: year was scary. This elbow situation is scary. He's getting this.
38:39
Speaker 1: He had the surgery done the first week of July. Honestly,
38:42
Speaker 1: I don't even know if he comes back in twenty
38:44
Speaker 1: twenty seven. I think you look at like the trajectory
38:47
Speaker 1: that Justin Steele went through and with his recovery from
38:51
Speaker 1: elbow surgery, and you can pretty easily see that happening
38:55
Speaker 1: for Cole Reagan's and very similar situations with Steele where
38:58
Speaker 1: Steel was like kind of on that starter reliever borderline
39:03
Speaker 1: and did both and then got transitioned into a starter
39:06
Speaker 1: and blew back out. I could see that happening with Reagan's.
39:09
Speaker 1: I know you've been a Reagan's guy and through thick
39:12
Speaker 1: and thin, but I want to check your temperature here.
39:14
Speaker 1: Are you also out on him?
39:16
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean I love Cole Reagan's. I think he's
39:19
Speaker 2: a fantastic talent, but that's probably where it stops. And
39:24
Speaker 2: I like you justin Steel comp because mine was going
39:27
Speaker 2: to be Chris Medlin and I went a little further
39:31
Speaker 2: too far back, but I think very very similar concept there.
39:36
Speaker 2: And I just I don't think you can invest here
39:39
Speaker 2: and feel comfortable because he's just he's battled so so
39:45
Speaker 2: many of these types of injuries that at some point
39:49
Speaker 2: it's almost like the Striter scenario here, like at some
39:51
Speaker 2: point like it's just taking off of the quality of
39:56
Speaker 2: what he can do, and so that talent becomes eroded.
39:58
Speaker 2: So I'm probably gonna have trouble quitting him, but I'm
40:01
Speaker 2: gonna say, like, do as I say, not as I do.
40:04
Speaker 2: Type of thing here. You should avoid him. You really
40:07
Speaker 2: shouldn't be playing in that pool where I wherever I
40:11
Speaker 2: have him, I've cut him loose if I've needed to,
40:14
Speaker 2: unless it's like a new type of league where my
40:16
Speaker 2: there's nothing. Nope, Actually I think I did come loosely
40:18
Speaker 2: even that one. But like the like, there's there's no
40:21
Speaker 2: point in holding him on to him unless it's like
40:22
Speaker 2: the back of the roster dollar guy, and you know,
40:26
Speaker 2: the talent's there, so like that's probably the only place
40:28
Speaker 2: that I'll play, and even that probably is not the
40:31
Speaker 2: brightest thing, but you know, I can't quite quit this one.
40:34
Speaker 2: So like I said, don't play in the pool. I'll
40:37
Speaker 2: probably dip a toe in every once in a while
40:39
Speaker 2: going going forward. But I'm also the guy still own
40:41
Speaker 2: Spencer Schwellenbach.
40:42
Speaker 1: So yeah. The other thing to consider too, especially if
40:47
Speaker 1: you are thinking like, oh maybe I will snatch him
40:49
Speaker 1: up for cheap and diaster keeper, is that I mean,
40:52
Speaker 1: Justin Steele is going through this right now, is like
40:53
Speaker 1: the Cubs might just use him as a reliever going
40:56
Speaker 1: going forward. Obviously that's only for twenty twenty six, but
40:59
Speaker 1: like it could be long term, and Strider has been
41:01
Speaker 1: in that conversation too, because at some point you do
41:04
Speaker 1: have to just come to the realization that the arm
41:07
Speaker 1: can't withstand a starter's load, but it still has a
41:11
Speaker 1: special arm and you want to get some value out
41:13
Speaker 1: of them, especially you know in the Strider and Raker
41:15
Speaker 1: and situations where there's a contract involved too. That I
41:19
Speaker 1: think you're starting to see this in the big leagues anyway,
41:22
Speaker 1: with pitchers throwing fewer and fewer pitches in a start,
41:26
Speaker 1: just look like Uri Peress this past week in The
41:29
Speaker 1: Perfect Game. But like I think you're going to see
41:31
Speaker 1: a lot more like two, three, four inning guys just
41:35
Speaker 1: across the board. And that is maybe where Reagan's could
41:39
Speaker 1: end up in the future too, because I mean, the
41:42
Speaker 1: Royals have to play them, and if they need to
41:44
Speaker 1: keep them healthy to get their money out of them,
41:46
Speaker 1: that might be the play. Yeah, okay, I mean another
41:49
Speaker 1: guy who might be in this situation but it is
41:52
Speaker 1: not quite so dire right now is Carlos Rodan from
41:55
Speaker 1: the New York Yankees hit the IL with elbow inflammation,
41:59
Speaker 1: and it was relatively solid before hitting the IL, but
42:04
Speaker 1: it was only nine starts because remember he opened the
42:07
Speaker 1: season on the IL because of off season bone spurred
42:11
Speaker 1: like removable injury or surgery, you know, not quite the
42:16
Speaker 1: the Scuball scope here, but like you know what others
42:19
Speaker 1: have been dealing with, like Hunter Green and Edwin Diaz,
42:22
Speaker 1: whars a little bit more significant put up a three
42:25
Speaker 1: thirty ERA in forty six and a third innings with
42:29
Speaker 1: ten point one k per nine. The walks were still,
42:34
Speaker 1: I mean they were precarious because you could tell that
42:37
Speaker 1: the control Wasn't there another guy who's dealt with a
42:39
Speaker 1: lot of elbow injuries and love of elbow issues. So
42:42
Speaker 1: what's your worry and concern for rodin the rest of
42:46
Speaker 1: this year?
42:47
Speaker 2: Well, I mean they're saying that they don't know they'll
42:49
Speaker 2: be back until mid August, and this is definitely one
42:52
Speaker 2: of those Like I wouldn't be surprised next week when
42:54
Speaker 2: they announced the UCL surgery of some type like this
42:57
Speaker 2: has is this is fifty to fifty at this point.
42:59
Speaker 2: For for me, I've never been a Carlos Rodan guy.
43:03
Speaker 2: Which is funny saying how much I just praised Cole
43:06
Speaker 2: Reagan's I recognize the juxtaposition of my commentary, but you know,
43:11
Speaker 2: this is a guy that too many flyballs, too many
43:15
Speaker 2: Walks always had a tough time letting too many guys
43:18
Speaker 2: got on base, so his his whip was actually a detriment.
43:22
Speaker 2: Even though he had a decent era, he actually has
43:24
Speaker 2: hurted you more than you expected because that and the
43:28
Speaker 2: health was just never quite there into the last few seasons.
43:31
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm I'm not a big fan of this,
43:35
Speaker 2: And like I said, I'm worried that, like he's just
43:37
Speaker 2: not going to get back, and he wasn't. The quality
43:39
Speaker 2: wasn't even there when he was pitching. So I'm relatively
43:43
Speaker 2: moving on from Rodin anywhere that i'd have him, and
43:46
Speaker 2: I'm I'm honestly fine cutting him.
43:48
Speaker 1: Yep. I think I'm right there with you. The only
43:50
Speaker 1: spot where I've got him is in the Perts RCL
43:54
Speaker 1: League where he was free at the end of the draft. Yeah,
43:56
Speaker 1: I just stashed him in my eye all until he
43:58
Speaker 1: came back and kept doing that. So yeah, I've never
44:01
Speaker 1: been a big fan for all of the same factors
44:02
Speaker 1: that you've talked about. Another guy who I mean I
44:06
Speaker 1: was starting to buy back in on and I'm kind
44:08
Speaker 1: of sorry that I did. His Brandon woodriff back on
44:10
Speaker 1: the IL with his dead arm again did make one
44:14
Speaker 1: start that looked solid after coming back from this issue.
44:17
Speaker 1: But do you remember he battled thracic outlet syndrome and
44:22
Speaker 1: had the surgery and the bad one, not the Zach
44:24
Speaker 1: Wheeler one. That like, this might honestly be just about
44:30
Speaker 1: the end for Woodriff, right, because I mean, it doesn't
44:33
Speaker 1: seem like he can go more than a couple outings
44:37
Speaker 1: without the arm just getting fatigued and going dead on him.
44:40
Speaker 1: And at some point he's gonna have to maybe make
44:43
Speaker 1: it like a quality of life decision in terms of like, hey,
44:47
Speaker 1: like if I want to have an arm maybe and
44:50
Speaker 1: just be able to enjoy being a person after baseball,
44:55
Speaker 1: I might have to quit here soon. And certainly puts
44:58
Speaker 1: the dot not the Dodgers. The Brewer is behind the
45:01
Speaker 1: eight ball here because Quinn Priester went down with rrascic
45:04
Speaker 1: outlets syndrome too. But I mean, I'm also not terribly
45:07
Speaker 1: worried about the Brewers, like they converted Robert Gasser into
45:11
Speaker 1: like Minnie Missirowski out of nowhere, and they just keep
45:15
Speaker 1: pumping more and more dudes out. But I think this
45:18
Speaker 1: is another situation where if you're running out of il spots,
45:22
Speaker 1: you can probably move on from Woodroff at this point too, right.
45:26
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say, m not quite there. And there's the
45:28
Speaker 2: only reason being, of all these type of guys we
45:31
Speaker 2: talk about with all these injuries, Woodroff is the one
45:34
Speaker 2: that when he's pitching, you can't tell the difference like that.
45:39
Speaker 2: That's the interesting thing is that, like like he comes back,
45:42
Speaker 2: and a lot of guys when they come back from
45:44
Speaker 2: the aisle, I'm like, do I want to pitch him yet?
45:45
Speaker 2: Do you want to see how things get? Like Woodroff,
45:47
Speaker 2: you just plug him play because he's just always good
45:50
Speaker 2: and like even the numbers is last few years have
45:53
Speaker 2: like gotten better, even though he's all of a sudden
45:55
Speaker 2: transformed into a flyball pitcher from a ground ball pitch.
45:58
Speaker 2: Like I don't know what he's doing, but he like
46:00
Speaker 2: keeps adapting, Like I'll like Greg Maddox not in the
46:02
Speaker 2: same realm, I get it, but he seems to just
46:05
Speaker 2: be a really really smart pitcher and doing those things.
46:07
Speaker 2: So I give him a little bit more slack because
46:10
Speaker 2: this is a guy that they say he's healthy tomorrow.
46:12
Speaker 2: I'm plugging him back in because he's still gonna strike
46:15
Speaker 2: out a guy, per I mean he's still gonna give
46:16
Speaker 2: you a little whip. I'm gonna have a three ish
46:19
Speaker 2: era and he's gonna win games for the Brewers. So like,
46:23
Speaker 2: I'm willing to play that gamble with him because of
46:27
Speaker 2: the quality when he is healthy, and I think enough
46:29
Speaker 2: people are so scared of the arm that it's the
46:32
Speaker 2: cost to do that's not unreasonable. So again, not everybody's
46:36
Speaker 2: cup of tea. I'm not gonna argue if you want
46:38
Speaker 2: to cut bait here, but if you've got the ability
46:41
Speaker 2: to hold on to him and kind of whether what
46:44
Speaker 2: this storm is, because even in his commentary has been
46:46
Speaker 2: like very mature, very strong about it, like he's like,
46:50
Speaker 2: this is just my shoulder. This is the problem I got,
46:52
Speaker 2: I know it. I gotta I gotta kind of treat
46:55
Speaker 2: it the right way and then I get back. I'm
46:56
Speaker 2: gonna I'm gonna shove like he like he's got such
47:00
Speaker 2: the right attitude about it. So again, intangibles, but I'm
47:03
Speaker 2: a little bit more sunny side up on Brandon woodriff.
47:07
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I mean I can see that. So it
47:10
Speaker 1: will depend on your situation certainly, that like if you
47:13
Speaker 1: are out of il spots, I don't think it's gonna
47:16
Speaker 1: kill you to like let wooddriff goro, because who knows
47:19
Speaker 1: what the volume will look like. But if you can
47:21
Speaker 1: keep him around, you can stash him, play him almost
47:24
Speaker 1: He's almost like a straight from I L to your
47:27
Speaker 1: lineup streamer when he when he's running. So yeah, I
47:31
Speaker 1: mean I don't I don't doubt him when he's on
47:33
Speaker 1: the mound. It's just like staying on the mound seems
47:35
Speaker 1: like it's getting harder and harder for him each outing.
47:39
Speaker 1: And somebody else who's been in that boat, Ryan Helsley
47:41
Speaker 1: going back to the ie L actually just came out
47:46
Speaker 1: recently that he's getting a second opinion on the elbow
47:48
Speaker 1: that sent him back. I mean, we know where this
47:52
Speaker 1: one's headed.
47:52
Speaker 2: So you could take your victory lab. You've been telling
47:55
Speaker 2: me for years this arm is going to fall off,
47:57
Speaker 2: and I've you've treated him to me a few times
47:59
Speaker 2: because of that, and so like we both were winners
48:02
Speaker 2: here because he took longer than you thought and I
48:06
Speaker 2: got a cheap closer out of you at one point.
48:08
Speaker 2: So like, yeah, this isn't a good news for Elsley.
48:12
Speaker 2: Thenix Felix Bautista has actually said that he's looked great
48:16
Speaker 2: kind of in his rehab. So like, ah, I look,
48:20
Speaker 2: granted this Orioles, I don't know how much I trust
48:22
Speaker 2: of any of that's going on.
48:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not falling for that football, Lucy so I mean,
48:27
Speaker 1: I think that you're gonna get a split here, probably
48:29
Speaker 1: between Rico Garcia yunior Cano and Tyler Wells the rest
48:34
Speaker 1: of the season. I think, because yeah, this is all
48:36
Speaker 1: lining up that we're gonna see Ryan Helsley undergoing the knife,
48:40
Speaker 1: and I believe it is his No, it's actually his first,
48:45
Speaker 1: Tommy john so Er will be when it happens. It's
48:49
Speaker 1: just kind of took forever. And yeah, congrats Baltimore Orioles.
48:53
Speaker 1: Great offseason there between signing Ryan Helsley and pin Alonzo
48:58
Speaker 1: and just really sinking that franchise further than they needed
49:01
Speaker 1: to go. But back to the closer situation. Honestly, Wells
49:05
Speaker 1: is probably the leader in the clubhouse right now. They've
49:07
Speaker 1: been using him more so in closing situations. He was
49:11
Speaker 1: I'd liked him as a starter, and he moved his
49:14
Speaker 1: way all the way from long relief to the tippy
49:16
Speaker 1: top of that bullpen as he's just gained more and
49:19
Speaker 1: more trust. I mean, Garcia is pretty solid, but he's
49:22
Speaker 1: also like guys like Garcia, it's tough for me to
49:26
Speaker 1: always like trust and I think that the Orioles feel
49:29
Speaker 1: that too, because he's just bounced around forever. I mean,
49:32
Speaker 1: you'll pagowten was this for a long time before you
49:34
Speaker 1: finally stuck in Cincinnati? You me your Cano does blow
49:37
Speaker 1: up every once in a while. So, I mean, he
49:39
Speaker 1: does have great stuff and a great change up, but
49:42
Speaker 1: probably is the least trustworthy of the three. But what's
49:47
Speaker 1: your take here, any of these guys that you're pursuing
49:49
Speaker 1: in lieu of Hellsley.
49:51
Speaker 2: I think you're right. I think it's Wells is probably
49:53
Speaker 2: the guy there, and it's more of the process of elimination.
49:57
Speaker 2: Like nothing against Wells, Like he's a uh decent pitcher,
50:02
Speaker 2: he's the he's the I mean, the guy is six eight,
50:03
Speaker 2: two seventy. He's a big guy, and you know he's
50:08
Speaker 2: having he's he's having a good season, but he's he's
50:11
Speaker 2: not what I would call dominant. But he also he
50:15
Speaker 2: doesn't walk guys, He's not he's not gonna blow up
50:19
Speaker 2: on you. Like that's actually kind of what you need
50:21
Speaker 2: to closer these days. And the guys like Cano and
50:24
Speaker 2: Kittridge and everybody else see it in that bullpen, like
50:28
Speaker 2: it it feels a little bit like a roller coaster
50:30
Speaker 2: when they come in, and so like you want to
50:31
Speaker 2: those are the kind of guys you want to pick
50:33
Speaker 2: the spot, like you want the right matchups and the
50:35
Speaker 2: right things to work for them. Whereas well as I
50:37
Speaker 2: feel like you can put him in any spot and
50:38
Speaker 2: he'll he'll be able to execute, and so uh, he's
50:41
Speaker 2: he's my guy at this point. Like I said, maybe
50:43
Speaker 2: a flyer on Batista to see what happens there. I
50:47
Speaker 2: that's a much a flyer, very clear, that's a flyer.
50:51
Speaker 2: But if you're gonna pick one guy the rest of
50:52
Speaker 2: the season, it's it's wells.
50:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so too. And it is like a
50:56
Speaker 1: situation where none of the stuff metrics say that it's
51:00
Speaker 1: like overwhelming stuff, but he's six 's eight and he
51:04
Speaker 1: throws it with a fifty two degree arm angle. It's
51:06
Speaker 1: kind of like Treyya Savage where it's such like an
51:09
Speaker 1: outlier of a release point that especially as a closer,
51:12
Speaker 1: like if a dude's only facing him once a series,
51:16
Speaker 1: it's impossible to pick up. So yeah, I agree. I
51:19
Speaker 1: think that he's got a lot of great attributes to
51:21
Speaker 1: be a pretty solid closer, and the Orioles are in
51:24
Speaker 1: enough games and win in enough games that I think
51:27
Speaker 1: it's going to be a pretty decent source of saves
51:30
Speaker 1: during the second half. Okay, well, let's get into some
51:33
Speaker 1: of those baseball card releases that are on the calendar
51:38
Speaker 1: before we do our June Player of the Month PC picks.
51:41
Speaker 1: Like I said, we're speaking today in July eighth, which
51:44
Speaker 1: is the drop of Top's Finest, where we're not going
51:46
Speaker 1: to do a whole overview unless there's like a big
51:49
Speaker 1: clamoring for it or like the set really breaks out.
51:52
Speaker 1: The one thing I do want to highlight with TOPS
51:54
Speaker 1: Finans this year is that it's hitting retail shelves. So
51:57
Speaker 1: traditionally this has only been a hobby product, where you know,
52:00
Speaker 1: you could only get the hobby boxes, and they were
52:03
Speaker 1: usually like really limited small packs a lot of the
52:05
Speaker 1: time too, where it's like somewhere between like a Tier
52:10
Speaker 1: one and like a TOPS Chrome hobby box. In terms
52:14
Speaker 1: of the number of cards you would get, you wouldn't
52:16
Speaker 1: get that many. But they've pushed it out to retail.
52:20
Speaker 1: I have seen some pictures of it on Reddit. The
52:23
Speaker 1: base cards are god awful. They're terrible. They look like
52:27
Speaker 1: an unfinished design from Saved by the Bell in the
52:31
Speaker 1: base set and on top of it, because there's just
52:34
Speaker 1: so much blank space and it's almost like a mirror card,
52:37
Speaker 1: and the quality looks awful. I think because they had
52:40
Speaker 1: to do the retail side. What's going to make Tops
52:43
Speaker 1: Fine to shine this year is they use that same
52:46
Speaker 1: design even though it looks bland as all get out
52:50
Speaker 1: on the base it pops with every refractor, every kind
52:55
Speaker 1: of like diamond refractor and things like that. Every color
52:59
Speaker 1: that I've seen, it's gonna be great. So I think
53:02
Speaker 1: from that perspective, it'll make Finest kind of almost still
53:06
Speaker 1: like a hobby like product, because it's gonna be a
53:08
Speaker 1: situation where it kind of reminds me a bit of
53:11
Speaker 1: like Panini Prism, where like the base cards of this
53:15
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six Tops Finus are going to be absolute
53:18
Speaker 1: junk or actually like it runs it was in ninety
53:21
Speaker 1: four and ninety five Finest when they did like the
53:24
Speaker 1: different tiers of like bronze, silver, gold cards, and like
53:27
Speaker 1: I've got tons of those bronze cards because I used
53:30
Speaker 1: I thought they used to be rare, the way that
53:31
Speaker 1: Tops Finus used to be priced back in the nineties,
53:35
Speaker 1: and you know, they're worthless and the bronze ones were
53:38
Speaker 1: cut terribly and they're kind of junky. I think we're
53:41
Speaker 1: going to run into that here with twenty twenty six
53:43
Speaker 1: Fine Finesses what it's known for. What's been your take
53:47
Speaker 1: is you've seen kind of this change with finess getting
53:50
Speaker 1: a retail release and also looking pretty sharp honestly in
53:55
Speaker 1: some of the refractors.
53:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I love the fact that makes it
53:59
Speaker 2: a retail releast because Finest over the years has been
54:02
Speaker 2: a desirable set. Unfortunately, it has been desirable even in
54:05
Speaker 2: the base cards a number of years. This year, I'm
54:08
Speaker 2: fully with you this sign like they botched it. They
54:11
Speaker 2: botched that one hard, but it also had Like we
54:14
Speaker 2: talked about the inserts and how rough they are, and
54:15
Speaker 2: some of the flagships products they nail the inserts and
54:19
Speaker 2: finance every single time. It's always been one of my
54:23
Speaker 2: favorite things going back to the nineties and how great
54:24
Speaker 2: those inserts can be, all the Griffis and things like that,
54:28
Speaker 2: Like it's just you can't beat that. And I think
54:30
Speaker 2: having the modern players on that is great, So I
54:33
Speaker 2: love the fact that it's in retail. Disappointed they botched
54:36
Speaker 2: the design, but this is one of those few things
54:39
Speaker 2: where I'm like, yeah, you know, I'm just walking by.
54:41
Speaker 2: I'm more attempted to pick something like this up than
54:44
Speaker 2: a lot of other stuff that's out there these days.
54:45
Speaker 2: So yeah, we're not going to go deep into it,
54:48
Speaker 2: but there's a lot less there's a lot worse options
54:52
Speaker 2: out there.
54:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. And on a couple of other points I want
54:56
Speaker 1: to make is there's also a short print card where honestly,
55:01
Speaker 1: they need to bring back Tops cold label, because that's
55:03
Speaker 1: essentially what the short print card is. It's I've seen
55:06
Speaker 1: the Bobby Wit junior one of one on Reddit where
55:10
Speaker 1: there's the picture in the front ground and then the background,
55:14
Speaker 1: like there's two pictures on the card where you got
55:16
Speaker 1: like a portrait and then an action shot. It's it's
55:19
Speaker 1: Tops gold label, and they need to bring it back
55:21
Speaker 1: because it looks so great and especially like when you
55:23
Speaker 1: start tweaking the designs and stuff, it's perfect. So if
55:28
Speaker 1: anything Tops, maybe this is a learning moment that we
55:30
Speaker 1: need gold label back in our lives. The other element
55:34
Speaker 1: is that it's gonna be funny. Be careful with these
55:38
Speaker 1: zach Nettle cards that you pull out there. Apparently they
55:40
Speaker 1: didn't do any QC on the zach Nettle cards from
55:42
Speaker 1: this set, because it's got an RC stamp on it,
55:45
Speaker 1: and it looks like it's ubiquitous across all the zach
55:47
Speaker 1: Nettle cards, even though his RC Rookie card was back
55:51
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three. You can see how it snuck
55:53
Speaker 1: by because like it's embedded kind of like right in
55:56
Speaker 1: this weird nineties squigglies that I've been talking about on
55:59
Speaker 1: the front of the card and like right underneath the
56:01
Speaker 1: label for the Top's Finest print that like, whoever put
56:05
Speaker 1: the design together, I could have easily missed it, but
56:08
Speaker 1: I don't work in QC at tops. And on top
56:12
Speaker 1: of it, they just printed them all. They just let
56:14
Speaker 1: them all go. So it's gonna be it's not even
56:17
Speaker 1: gonna be like a misprint or an error or anything.
56:19
Speaker 1: It's just gonna be a funny thing to laugh about
56:21
Speaker 1: with those zach natocards it is retailing for it looks
56:26
Speaker 1: like seventy bucks on the finest box, so a little
56:30
Speaker 1: bit more than a Mega. But honestly, based on some
56:33
Speaker 1: of the way that these refractors and inserts look. If
56:35
Speaker 1: you're looking for something that's a little bit more expensive
56:38
Speaker 1: and in a retail environment, this might not be a
56:40
Speaker 1: bad route to go where I think people were having
56:43
Speaker 1: a lot of fun with Tops Chrome Platinum because of that,
56:45
Speaker 1: where it was in a retail environment and it was given.
56:48
Speaker 1: I mean, the value coming back on it was pretty
56:51
Speaker 1: good too. But I think fines is gonna be in
56:54
Speaker 1: the same boat where if you've been sitting out hobby
56:57
Speaker 1: boxes because you've been worried about the pricing, seventy bucks
57:01
Speaker 1: is a lot for a retail box, but I think
57:03
Speaker 1: you can get a little bit of the taste of
57:05
Speaker 1: like what high end cards feel like when you hit
57:09
Speaker 1: some of these finest inserts, and if you get some
57:10
Speaker 1: of these refractors and stuff. Plus I think if you
57:13
Speaker 1: hit a good one, the return in that seventy bucks
57:16
Speaker 1: could be pretty outstanding. Because we're also talking JJ Weatherhole,
57:20
Speaker 1: Connor Griffin, Kevin McGonagall, You've got some pretty Munatakamara comedy,
57:26
Speaker 1: You've got some big rookies in this sex. Yes, so
57:33
Speaker 1: there's gonna be opportunities to make a decent amount of money.
57:36
Speaker 1: But the ROI is probably not going to be fantastic.
57:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, and just you know, going on that
57:42
Speaker 2: Nolan McLain, Jacob Mezowski, Kaglio Owen, like there's this one's
57:47
Speaker 2: loaded with rookies because they this is a once a
57:50
Speaker 2: year set and so they've really just crammed all the
57:53
Speaker 2: best names into it. Like you Savage has rookies in here.
57:58
Speaker 2: It's it's a it's a pretty chocked full checklist that
58:03
Speaker 2: that we're getting here. So there's a you're gonna you're
58:07
Speaker 2: gonna do pretty well here because when you're getting any
58:09
Speaker 2: of those inserts or numbered cards and you're hitting those rookies,
58:12
Speaker 2: it's not your base update type series where you're like,
58:16
Speaker 2: I've never heard of this guy. Almost every rook in
58:19
Speaker 2: here is worth going through. And I'm gonna prove prove
58:22
Speaker 2: my point here. I'm just gonna list ten rookies in
58:24
Speaker 2: a row. Carson Williams, Colson Montgomery, Kazuma, Akamoto, Chase the Lauder,
58:30
Speaker 2: Brandon Sprout, zach Netto, Sal Stewart, Roman Anthony like it's
58:36
Speaker 2: it's that's just the checklist that the whole way through
58:39
Speaker 2: is just big, big names from a rookie perspective, so
58:43
Speaker 2: even when you're ripping these, it's gonna it's gonna look
58:47
Speaker 2: really good.
58:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And I think even in the retail, if
58:51
Speaker 1: you hit just a a veteran two in terms of
58:54
Speaker 1: your refractor, I think it will move okay because they
58:57
Speaker 1: look good enough, and the nineties design just also is
59:00
Speaker 1: very esthetically pleasing to an old head like me that
59:03
Speaker 1: like it really popped. I think anybody in the elder
59:06
Speaker 1: millennial kind of class of collector, which is probably becoming
59:11
Speaker 1: a little bit more of like the majority of collectors
59:15
Speaker 1: out there than not, and so I think that they
59:18
Speaker 1: tried to tee that up accordingly. So keep that in mind.
59:21
Speaker 1: Even if you do hit a veteran that you wouldn't
59:24
Speaker 1: think that the parallel would be worth anything, it might
59:26
Speaker 1: actually still be syllable on eBay because people will just
59:31
Speaker 1: want the card that like certainly of some of my
59:34
Speaker 1: favorite players as vets that if I find it in
59:37
Speaker 1: the in the open, I'll probably scoop it up so
59:41
Speaker 1: that they're cool looking cards. On that calendar, we do
59:44
Speaker 1: have some new releases on there because the other thing
59:47
Speaker 1: we've got tops Chrome set for July twenty second, so
59:51
Speaker 1: in a couple of weeks we will do the bigger
59:53
Speaker 1: overview of that because everybody that you just rattled off
59:56
Speaker 1: from the rookie card perspective should be in that set.
59:59
Speaker 1: That it's going to be a pretty big set across
1:00:02
Speaker 1: the board, very monumental for Tops crow and monumental in
1:00:07
Speaker 1: terms of maybe getting ripped off too, so be careful.
1:00:11
Speaker 1: The other editions we have July sixteenth, we've got Tops
1:00:14
Speaker 1: Cattus Jack coming out, so that is the only being
1:00:16
Speaker 1: at fanatics Fest. Fanatics Fest takes place next weekend in
1:00:20
Speaker 1: New York City. It's gonna be a huge convention of
1:00:23
Speaker 1: all sorts of collectibles, and so there's gonna be all
1:00:25
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff that comes out of that. Something to
1:00:28
Speaker 1: keep in mind as you are maybe scouring eBay or
1:00:30
Speaker 1: you're a team collector or a player collector, that there's
1:00:34
Speaker 1: gonna be a whole new batch of cards that comes
1:00:36
Speaker 1: out of that fanatics Fest. We've also got TOPS Tribute
1:00:39
Speaker 1: now on the calendar on July twenty ninth, and we've
1:00:42
Speaker 1: got Tops and Clause getting cause not Clause Yep, I'm
1:00:47
Speaker 1: an old ed getting together on an MLB set. That's
1:00:50
Speaker 1: I'll be interested to see where this one goes. Cause
1:00:52
Speaker 1: is a if you're not familiar with him, is a
1:00:54
Speaker 1: visual artist where I don't really get it, but it's
1:00:57
Speaker 1: like a play on some of like the Mickey Mouse
1:00:59
Speaker 1: statue and stuff. And whenever you get this kind of
1:01:03
Speaker 1: crossover with like a big kind of pop artist, you
1:01:07
Speaker 1: can see the sets taking off or they could flop.
1:01:10
Speaker 1: So I think it'll be interesting to see how that
1:01:13
Speaker 1: comes together on the pre order on July twentieth, just
1:01:17
Speaker 1: to see like what the demand is and what people
1:01:18
Speaker 1: are feeling on that cause set, because it could be
1:01:21
Speaker 1: a dud or it could be a really big deal
1:01:24
Speaker 1: when it hits the shelves for the hobby.
1:01:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you on the old head here. I'm like,
1:01:29
Speaker 2: I just don't know, but I do like the fanatics
1:01:32
Speaker 2: is trying to kind of merge different classes of collectibles
1:01:36
Speaker 2: in art and things like that. It's an interesting gamble
1:01:39
Speaker 2: to see how it'll pay off.
1:01:42
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, with that, we're going to take a short break.
1:01:44
Speaker 1: We will be back on the other side to talk
1:01:46
Speaker 1: about our picks for the PC for the twenty twenty
1:01:50
Speaker 1: six June Players of the Month. All right, welcome back, everybody.
1:02:12
Speaker 1: We're going to dive right into our main topic, which
1:02:14
Speaker 1: is the PC picks for the June Players of the Month.
1:02:18
Speaker 1: If this is your first time checking out cards and categories, well,
1:02:22
Speaker 1: first thanks welcome, rate and review us wherever you're listening
1:02:25
Speaker 1: to us, we appreciate it. But if you're not familiar
1:02:29
Speaker 1: with what we're doing here, PC stands for Personal collection
1:02:32
Speaker 1: and we have one for the pod. Go into those
1:02:34
Speaker 1: show notes. You will see there's a link to what
1:02:36
Speaker 1: we've done over the years in terms of what cards
1:02:39
Speaker 1: we've picked, and we do this every month. I think
1:02:41
Speaker 1: it's one of our favorite things to do is to
1:02:43
Speaker 1: celebrate the best players of every month that come through
1:02:47
Speaker 1: on the MLB Player of the Month Award winners. And
1:02:50
Speaker 1: what we do is we pick cards one a piece
1:02:54
Speaker 1: for the Batter of the month, the Picture of the Month,
1:02:57
Speaker 1: and the Rookie of the Month. And so we're gonna
1:03:00
Speaker 1: do is go through that process for the June twenty
1:03:03
Speaker 1: twenty six winners. Also, when you're in those show notes,
1:03:06
Speaker 1: just click on the link that will take you to
1:03:07
Speaker 1: Rasball for the corresponding post and you will be able
1:03:10
Speaker 1: to see all of the cards that we're talking about.
1:03:12
Speaker 2: So it's all.
1:03:13
Speaker 1: Linked in the show notes as well, so you can
1:03:15
Speaker 1: get to the eBay auctions we might be talking about
1:03:17
Speaker 1: that we found. But if you just want to see
1:03:19
Speaker 1: all the cards in one place and are tired of
1:03:22
Speaker 1: hearing us trying to describe them and want to see
1:03:25
Speaker 1: it visually, go to rasball dot com and check it
1:03:27
Speaker 1: out there. So with that, let's just get right into
1:03:31
Speaker 1: our June Players of the Month for twenty twenty six,
1:03:33
Speaker 1: because we've got some repeats to the PC list and
1:03:36
Speaker 1: we got some new ones. So first this one I
1:03:40
Speaker 1: had to look up in our PC list before I
1:03:42
Speaker 1: started picking cards because Chris Warren Junior Camonaro from the
1:03:46
Speaker 1: Tampa Bay Rays had been a Player of the Month
1:03:48
Speaker 1: or Rookie of the Month for us over the years,
1:03:50
Speaker 1: but never has so Welcome to the PC Junior Camonaro
1:03:53
Speaker 1: and certainly deserved it. After the month of June. He
1:03:57
Speaker 1: hit four eighty one with eight bombs over the last
1:04:00
Speaker 1: seven games of the month and has just been otherworldly
1:04:03
Speaker 1: from a power perspective. Where he is now in June
1:04:07
Speaker 1: and total put up a three twenty seven batting average
1:04:11
Speaker 1: with ten homers twenty four RBIs and he's gonna be
1:04:14
Speaker 1: in the home run Derby, So that's gonna be fun
1:04:16
Speaker 1: as well, only twenty three. I forget about that all
1:04:20
Speaker 1: the time. This dude is on a Hall of Fame trajectory,
1:04:23
Speaker 1: so people have been starting to scoop up his cards
1:04:26
Speaker 1: all across the board. Where you've been seeing the Junior
1:04:28
Speaker 1: Camanao prices increase throughout the year that I think he's
1:04:32
Speaker 1: probably one of the biggest risers out there in the hobby. So,
1:04:35
Speaker 1: with all that considered, Brew would you pick to put
1:04:38
Speaker 1: in the PC for Junior Camanayo?
1:04:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I had to go a little high end
1:04:42
Speaker 2: because I can, and Junior cameran Air to your point,
1:04:47
Speaker 2: has been amazing, And so I had to grab a
1:04:50
Speaker 2: rookie cards. What went to the twenty twenty four tops
1:04:53
Speaker 2: five star set and what was a jumbo rookie pass,
1:04:56
Speaker 2: But not just any jumbo rookie pass. We went with
1:04:59
Speaker 2: the Jazz Robinson cap patch autograph card. So it's got
1:05:06
Speaker 2: his signature, Junior, please work on your signature. I'm not
1:05:09
Speaker 2: even sure if there's a letter in that. But besides that,
1:05:13
Speaker 2: this is a rookie and it has a very very
1:05:15
Speaker 2: large patch. I'd say it takes up sixty seventy percent
1:05:17
Speaker 2: of the card and it is of the Jackie Robinson
1:05:21
Speaker 2: patch that goes on the ball cap on Jackie Robinson Day,
1:05:25
Speaker 2: and you can see almost the entire patch in this one.
1:05:28
Speaker 2: The patches a home plate, so Jackie Robinson got the
1:05:31
Speaker 2: forty two on there with the MLB logo at the bottom,
1:05:34
Speaker 2: which then gives you a one, two, three four color
1:05:38
Speaker 2: patch option here, which is always great, two different blues
1:05:42
Speaker 2: if you're if you're looking and counting on home'll give
1:05:46
Speaker 2: me the fifth, Okay, So I think this just is
1:05:49
Speaker 2: a standout card. Also a little fun if you are
1:05:52
Speaker 2: a big social media guy. This is actually for selling
1:05:55
Speaker 2: eBay card collector to who's a big YouTube Instagram personality
1:06:00
Speaker 2: the card shop I've leaving in Ohio, so just a
1:06:02
Speaker 2: little a little fun for you. There does have an
1:06:04
Speaker 2: active off run it so if you want to go
1:06:05
Speaker 2: get it, go for it. Out is listed for four
1:06:08
Speaker 2: team thousand, nine nine dollars, nine nine cents, so quite
1:06:12
Speaker 2: the big card. This is a one of one, so
1:06:15
Speaker 2: it's hard to pass up such a quality card of
1:06:17
Speaker 2: such a good player.
1:06:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean just the crossover in terms of
1:06:22
Speaker 1: what you're looking at from junior cam and arrow collectors,
1:06:25
Speaker 1: Rookie collectors, maybe al MVP collectors, Jackie Robinson collectors, sick
1:06:31
Speaker 1: patch collectors. It hits a lot of different boxes MLB
1:06:34
Speaker 1: logo full logo collectors too, because people do like you know,
1:06:38
Speaker 1: logo man PCs and stuff like that, where you don't
1:06:41
Speaker 1: usually get a full MLB logo like this, so great card.
1:06:45
Speaker 1: It is also kind of funny where you've got the
1:06:47
Speaker 1: picture of Junior Camanaro on the top left where he's
1:06:50
Speaker 1: in spring training and you can actually see where the
1:06:53
Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson patch was probably on his hat when he
1:06:57
Speaker 1: wore this, but it's the twenty twenty four spring training
1:07:01
Speaker 1: patch from on the yellow card, And yeah, it's just
1:07:05
Speaker 1: perfect that like whenever you get a sick patch like this,
1:07:09
Speaker 1: you want the patch to shine and almost the rest
1:07:11
Speaker 1: of the card to be a frame around it, and
1:07:14
Speaker 1: this design from twenty twenty four tops five star does
1:07:18
Speaker 1: that maybe better than just about any he said I've
1:07:21
Speaker 1: seen out there.
1:07:22
Speaker 2: Yep, it's an amazing card. So I will never own
1:07:26
Speaker 2: something such, but we're going to add it to our
1:07:28
Speaker 2: PC here on the podcast. So where'd you go with
1:07:31
Speaker 2: mister Camaniero?
1:07:32
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I just kind of went with a
1:07:34
Speaker 1: classic route because it is this first time going into
1:07:36
Speaker 1: the PC, I went with the twenty twenty three Bowman
1:07:39
Speaker 1: Chrome Sapphire of his first Bowman, and I mean it
1:07:44
Speaker 1: is a great first Bowman because it is photoshopped, but
1:07:48
Speaker 1: it's not like heavily photoshopped, which kind of helps. And
1:07:51
Speaker 1: on top of it, like it just gives you the
1:07:53
Speaker 1: junior Camanaro vibe with the giant sunglasses which your card
1:07:57
Speaker 1: has too, and just all of the chain, just all
1:08:00
Speaker 1: of the chains and the open shirt, and he just
1:08:05
Speaker 1: looks ready to feel the ball. So like it's a
1:08:07
Speaker 1: great little card for that. I also put it in
1:08:10
Speaker 1: because recently my little list brother Joe picked this up.
1:08:14
Speaker 1: He's a Rais and junior kmon Naro fan and so
1:08:16
Speaker 1: put the ten GM ten of this into his PC recently.
1:08:21
Speaker 1: So I figured I'd put this pete into our PC
1:08:23
Speaker 1: in honor of Joe. He's also out there ripping cards.
1:08:28
Speaker 1: Follow him on Instagram at Collecto Cards with a K
1:08:32
Speaker 1: on the Collecto Dot Cards with a Z. They're ripping stuff.
1:08:37
Speaker 1: They're also opening fire dude, like they've been. They hit
1:08:40
Speaker 1: a giant Otani short print out of Bowman. They hit
1:08:44
Speaker 1: Nick Kurtz of ten Black Atops chrome. He just recently
1:08:49
Speaker 1: hit over the weekend Murakami Independence Day parallel out of
1:08:54
Speaker 1: just series two, so like they're doing great work. I
1:08:58
Speaker 1: had to put this card in for my brother. And
1:09:00
Speaker 1: it's also just like, if you want a Junior Camano card,
1:09:05
Speaker 1: this is probably you can't go wrong with just the
1:09:08
Speaker 1: Sapphire base. It's currently it's relatively affordable too. It should
1:09:11
Speaker 1: run you about fifty ish dollars raw, But now's the
1:09:15
Speaker 1: time to jump because this thing's about to shoot through
1:09:17
Speaker 1: the roof the way that Junior Cameronio's career is shaping
1:09:21
Speaker 1: up right.
1:09:21
Speaker 2: Now, there's never anything wrong with a Sapphire card. Okay,
1:09:26
Speaker 2: I think that's just I we should count how many
1:09:28
Speaker 2: Sapphire cards are now now in the PC over here
1:09:31
Speaker 2: because they hit well. Any any team with blue as
1:09:36
Speaker 2: one of their team colors, it's you're gonna have a
1:09:39
Speaker 2: Sapphire cards because they they hit well. And honestly in
1:09:42
Speaker 2: the parallels and different colors always always do amazing color matches.
1:09:46
Speaker 2: And to your point, like this doesn't feel photoshopped. It
1:09:49
Speaker 2: looks like Junior Camanio one of the few guys on
1:09:51
Speaker 2: the Bowman first that actually looks like the guy when
1:09:53
Speaker 2: he makes into the majors. Now, he wasn't the miners
1:09:55
Speaker 2: that long, so it works out. But yeah, this is
1:09:59
Speaker 2: a BEAUTI the card. Nothing wrong with it, all right.
1:10:04
Speaker 1: Well, let's go to the n L side where the
1:10:06
Speaker 1: player of the month from the hitting side was Pete
1:10:09
Speaker 1: Crow Armstrong, who alluded to earlier was an insane month
1:10:14
Speaker 1: of June. Just I mean, he hit two taters to
1:10:18
Speaker 1: night too, like he's on a bender. He's great that, like,
1:10:23
Speaker 1: I mean, he's kind of in that Julio discussion too
1:10:26
Speaker 1: in terms of streakiness from production from a fantasy perspective,
1:10:30
Speaker 1: and he turned it on in June eleven homers three
1:10:33
Speaker 1: eight one batting average now sits at the top of
1:10:37
Speaker 1: Fangraft's War leaderboard by like a lot. He's coming into tonight.
1:10:42
Speaker 1: It was five point five War second place Bobby wit
1:10:45
Speaker 1: Junior at four point seven. I think actually Otani might
1:10:49
Speaker 1: be technically number one when you combine the pitching and
1:10:51
Speaker 1: the hitting. But if you're just looking at a regular
1:10:54
Speaker 1: dude who isn't a god like Otani at PCA is
1:10:58
Speaker 1: the king of Major League Baseball right now. And he's
1:11:01
Speaker 1: walking now too, which that was one of the things
1:11:04
Speaker 1: in his profile where I was, I was just waiting
1:11:08
Speaker 1: for it to happen because you could see that he
1:11:10
Speaker 1: loves to chase the ball of the zone. You knew
1:11:12
Speaker 1: that eventually he would start growing into knowing the zone
1:11:15
Speaker 1: and taking his walks and PCA is really taken off.
1:11:19
Speaker 1: So we'll see where the rest of the summer goes.
1:11:22
Speaker 1: Second time that he's been in our PC, and what
1:11:25
Speaker 1: is your pick for Pete cro Armstrong?
1:11:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, So for Pete Crow, I'm going with a type
1:11:31
Speaker 2: of card I've always wanted to add to my PC,
1:11:35
Speaker 2: it just haven't had an opportunity to do so. And
1:11:37
Speaker 2: I'm going to Top's inception going twenty twenty four version.
1:11:43
Speaker 2: Here for an inception first milestones card For those that
1:11:47
Speaker 2: don't know, first milestone cards represent game used material from
1:11:52
Speaker 2: a key milestone. So this is from his debut Season
1:11:57
Speaker 2: four twenty five, twenty four game, which is first career hit,
1:12:01
Speaker 2: which was a home run, and we have a piece
1:12:04
Speaker 2: I believe it's a piece of the base and there.
1:12:06
Speaker 2: I actually tried to follow it up on MLB authentication
1:12:09
Speaker 2: and all it says is go to a different authentication
1:12:10
Speaker 2: and just like sends you in a circle. So it's authenticated.
1:12:13
Speaker 2: It's hard to tell you do you actually have the
1:12:15
Speaker 2: authentication sticker on the back tells you what website to
1:12:18
Speaker 2: go to to use it. But it's this is a
1:12:22
Speaker 2: blue color match, has his autograph on card in blue sharpie.
1:12:27
Speaker 2: And what the sneaky thing I love about this card
1:12:31
Speaker 2: is the way they've captured the side of the base
1:12:34
Speaker 2: on this one is almost identical to those pose the
1:12:39
Speaker 2: PCA is on the card, and so you've got the
1:12:41
Speaker 2: like MLB logo man kind of pose and then PCA
1:12:45
Speaker 2: his picture is the almost exact same pose, like it's
1:12:48
Speaker 2: him as the logo man. So it's just a wonderful card.
1:12:52
Speaker 2: It's hard for me to say that about a Cubs player,
1:12:54
Speaker 2: but I am again out of five blue color match
1:12:58
Speaker 2: exception first milestone. You can have a today for five
1:13:02
Speaker 2: thousand dollars if you would like.
1:13:03
Speaker 1: Ok, well your bill's up to twenty k already after
1:13:06
Speaker 1: two players.
1:13:08
Speaker 2: Don't worry, I'll cut it down later.
1:13:11
Speaker 1: But yeah, this is I mean, yeah, this is the
1:13:14
Speaker 1: card that you've got to put into a PCA just
1:13:18
Speaker 1: like PC overall that like these things are great. This
1:13:22
Speaker 1: is maybe like if there's I think Inception has got
1:13:26
Speaker 1: a little bit overplayed over the past couple of years.
1:13:29
Speaker 1: It just recently came out. But if there's one thing
1:13:31
Speaker 1: that they do right, it's these milestone cards because you're
1:13:33
Speaker 1: getting authentic game used memorabilia that's been authenticated. And I
1:13:40
Speaker 1: also like the touch here where they put the authentication
1:13:42
Speaker 1: patch on the back so you can just bask in
1:13:45
Speaker 1: the glory of the of the MLB logo from the
1:13:47
Speaker 1: base just pops all the blue all the way across
1:13:51
Speaker 1: the board. Fantastic pick. I have no faults with this.
1:13:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I did finally get the authentication goes third base.
1:14:00
Speaker 2: It's the third base from Innan's five through nine in
1:14:02
Speaker 2: that game. Wow, So I think the downfalls. I'm pretty
1:14:05
Speaker 2: sure that he hit the homer in the Actually I
1:14:09
Speaker 2: think he hit in the sixth inning. So actually the
1:14:11
Speaker 2: base that he touched while he hit that that first homer,
1:14:14
Speaker 2: So yeah, it actually works.
1:14:18
Speaker 1: That's actually yeah, and that's even cool. Well let me look,
1:14:21
Speaker 1: let's see it looks like he did yep, hit the
1:14:24
Speaker 1: homer off of Brian A. Bradw so PCA on his
1:14:26
Speaker 1: first one round touched the base that went to this card.
1:14:29
Speaker 1: That is super extra cool. Yeah, all right, where'd you
1:14:33
Speaker 1: go with PCA. I know, being the Chicago native here,
1:14:36
Speaker 1: you had to have a good pick. Yeah, I mean
1:14:39
Speaker 1: there's a lot of great cards of PCA, and I
1:14:42
Speaker 1: mean I think it went with something that's relatively simple
1:14:44
Speaker 1: because this is another market where I mean, good luck
1:14:49
Speaker 1: getting your hands on a good PCA card at a
1:14:52
Speaker 1: reasonable cost. At this point that the Cubs fandom has
1:14:55
Speaker 1: gone bananas for him, So if you want an autograph
1:14:58
Speaker 1: of him, I'm I'm really digging the twenty twenty five
1:15:02
Speaker 1: Top series to nineteen ninety Baseball thirty fifth anniversary design
1:15:07
Speaker 1: with the on card auto. I think part of it
1:15:10
Speaker 1: too is one of my first cards when I was
1:15:14
Speaker 1: collecting cards was the nineteen ninety Tops Paul Asenmacher for
1:15:18
Speaker 1: the Cubs. So like, there's just something about the nineteen
1:15:21
Speaker 1: ninety Tops design with a Cubs player with like that
1:15:25
Speaker 1: orangish border but with the hints of blue and red
1:15:29
Speaker 1: that I'm just a sucker for, and so getting it
1:15:32
Speaker 1: with PCA, I think it looks fantastic. It just it
1:15:36
Speaker 1: just screams nineteen ninety Tops, and it's I think it's
1:15:39
Speaker 1: a perfect fit for PCA, where like he's kind of
1:15:42
Speaker 1: got that skateboarder nineties vibe to him a bit sometimes,
1:15:46
Speaker 1: and especially the thing that put this one over the
1:15:49
Speaker 1: top for me is I don't know if it's necessarily
1:15:52
Speaker 1: the most attractive card of PCA. And my wife Jess
1:15:56
Speaker 1: is maybe the greatest peak Crow Armstrong hater out there
1:15:58
Speaker 1: in the world, targ Cardinals fan, and it is constantly
1:16:03
Speaker 1: annoyed by PCA, so I knew that she would appreciate
1:16:06
Speaker 1: me putting in a card for him that it does
1:16:08
Speaker 1: not make him look the betdest, the best, and most
1:16:11
Speaker 1: handsome and most most hardcore, but I mean that's also
1:16:15
Speaker 1: who he is, Like pc is not actly like gonna
1:16:18
Speaker 1: win any beauty contests out there, especially with his bleach
1:16:22
Speaker 1: bond hair and stars. I like it. I like the swagger,
1:16:25
Speaker 1: I like the punk rock kind of streak, and because
1:16:28
Speaker 1: of all that, that's why I chose this card of
1:16:31
Speaker 1: PCA going in.
1:16:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, if this doesn't have Henry Roengarder vibes with the
1:16:37
Speaker 2: blue pin stripes in the nineties like this is this
1:16:40
Speaker 2: is This is a good card, and I agree with you,
1:16:43
Speaker 2: like it's it doesn't do him any favors, but that's
1:16:46
Speaker 2: who PCA is and I'll give him credit again another
1:16:50
Speaker 2: on card auto his auto compared to like Kevi and
1:16:53
Speaker 2: Arrow again you can't read either of them. Be last,
1:16:54
Speaker 2: he's got a few more squiggles on it.
1:16:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. It's actually like it. It's a fun
1:17:00
Speaker 1: and you do recognize that right off the bat that
1:17:02
Speaker 1: it's so many squiggles because he's got the so many
1:17:06
Speaker 1: letters in his name that you know, famous for it
1:17:09
Speaker 1: on the jersey that it barely fits. Okay, let's get
1:17:12
Speaker 1: into the pictures. On the al side, we've got a
1:17:15
Speaker 1: another raise winner with Drew Rasmussen put up thirty three
1:17:19
Speaker 1: innings with allowing just three runs. It's a point eight
1:17:22
Speaker 1: two ERA, a point six y' one whip, and he
1:17:26
Speaker 1: put up a career high thirteen strikeouts in the game
1:17:28
Speaker 1: on June tenth against the Red Sox. We haven't talked
1:17:32
Speaker 1: much about him from a fans perspective, but like he's crazy,
1:17:36
Speaker 1: just like crazy, especially for value of the pick that
1:17:40
Speaker 1: he's a solid number one back end number one because
1:17:44
Speaker 1: I don't know if the strikeouts will keep out, but
1:17:46
Speaker 1: like man, he's been fantastic, So certainly somebody to target
1:17:51
Speaker 1: if you're looking for an upgrade and pitching at the
1:17:53
Speaker 1: Fantasy trade deadlines, but first inclusion for Drew Rasmussen in
1:17:57
Speaker 1: our PC Where'd you go?
1:18:00
Speaker 2: Yeah? So, uh, there's decent amount of options out there,
1:18:03
Speaker 2: but raston, since he's bounced around a little bit, it
1:18:06
Speaker 2: was kind of hard to like, who is Drew Raspison?
1:18:08
Speaker 2: Who do I want him to be? In the in
1:18:09
Speaker 2: the in the PC collection here? And I stumbled across
1:18:13
Speaker 2: his twenty twenty five Tops Update series card and this
1:18:18
Speaker 2: was when they were their throwby back Devil Rays jerseys,
1:18:22
Speaker 2: and so I had to have one of those because
1:18:24
Speaker 2: you and I both love the Devil Rays back in
1:18:26
Speaker 2: the day, the crazy colors, all of that, and I'm
1:18:32
Speaker 2: I'm reeling back here from a price point going to
1:18:34
Speaker 2: one hundred dollars card, which is the one of one
1:18:36
Speaker 2: printing plate for this one. This is the Cyan version,
1:18:42
Speaker 2: and I again, I just absolutely love the Devil Rays.
1:18:45
Speaker 2: You can see the entire logo because he's reared back
1:18:48
Speaker 2: throwing the pitch, got the the pure just ray on
1:18:52
Speaker 2: the hat, just all it is is not the TV
1:18:53
Speaker 2: from for Tampa Bay. It is the full on you
1:18:56
Speaker 2: know on color as you can imagine ray for it.
1:18:58
Speaker 2: So even the bait card here is a brilliant card.
1:19:01
Speaker 2: So add to one to one printing plate. I'm a
1:19:04
Speaker 2: big fan of printing plates, so it's the collection. There's
1:19:07
Speaker 2: just something about having that card that was used to
1:19:09
Speaker 2: produce everything else and for whatever reason unappreciated printing plates
1:19:13
Speaker 2: to a certain degree in the hobby. So going with
1:19:16
Speaker 2: that one, Devil Rays put over the top for me.
1:19:19
Speaker 1: Yep, I think this is a great card. Get a
1:19:21
Speaker 1: little bit of the color match actually because of the
1:19:23
Speaker 1: cim that like it is in that light blue, and yeah,
1:19:27
Speaker 1: it's a great card, great action shot of Drew Rasmussen.
1:19:30
Speaker 1: And you also get the memorialization because I'm pretty sure
1:19:33
Speaker 1: the photo is from twenty twenty four even though it's
1:19:35
Speaker 1: a twenty twenty five card. Yeah, you can still remember
1:19:38
Speaker 1: that the pants were see through even on the printing plate,
1:19:40
Speaker 1: because you can see that very clearly, see like short's
1:19:44
Speaker 1: coming through.
1:19:44
Speaker 2: I wasn't gonna go there, but yeah, yeah you can see.
1:19:46
Speaker 1: It is great. But yeah, cheap card also might not
1:19:51
Speaker 1: make it past this pod getting posted that my brother
1:19:54
Speaker 1: Joe might be scooping this one.
1:19:59
Speaker 2: All right, where'd you go? Rasmussen?
1:20:01
Speaker 1: Okay, well, so the unfortunate thing is that if you
1:20:04
Speaker 1: want to go for Drew Rasmussen rookie card, you're not
1:20:06
Speaker 1: going to get in a raised jersey. He because all
1:20:09
Speaker 1: of them came out in twenty twenty one when he
1:20:11
Speaker 1: was a member of the Brewers. Thankfully, I found a
1:20:14
Speaker 1: really killer one. So twenty twenty one's Top Stadium Club.
1:20:18
Speaker 1: They put together rookie autos during that set where they
1:20:23
Speaker 1: use the old school early nineties, first nineteen ninety one
1:20:27
Speaker 1: design from Stadium Club where if you're not familiar with
1:20:31
Speaker 1: what it is, it was just kind of like the
1:20:34
Speaker 1: Stadium Club logo design where it's got the kind of
1:20:37
Speaker 1: circular stadium and then just a couple of lines that
1:20:40
Speaker 1: just says, you know, in very small font Drew Rasmussen.
1:20:43
Speaker 1: That's the way the ninety one Stadium Clubs first came out.
1:20:45
Speaker 1: And the beauty of it, it gives you so much
1:20:48
Speaker 1: card of the picture where it's almost like a true
1:20:51
Speaker 1: photo variation, and you got the autograph version of twenty five,
1:20:56
Speaker 1: a great action shot of Drew Rasmussen pitching. Like I said,
1:21:00
Speaker 1: fortunately it's in a Breweris jersey. But I mean, if
1:21:02
Speaker 1: you're one of a Drew Rasmussen signed rookie card, I
1:21:05
Speaker 1: don't think you can do better than this one because
1:21:07
Speaker 1: he wasn't necessarily like a huge hot name when he
1:21:10
Speaker 1: came out in twenty twenty one and was coming up
1:21:12
Speaker 1: through the Brewer system. So getting a nice one like this,
1:21:16
Speaker 1: you know, he's not going to be in Inception or
1:21:18
Speaker 1: Dynasty or anything like that that this might be one
1:21:21
Speaker 1: of the nicest ones out there. So on top of it,
1:21:25
Speaker 1: the the just chrome design from that year is not great,
1:21:28
Speaker 1: So I went with this card over the others. I
1:21:31
Speaker 1: love Stadium Club and it's another Stadium Club card in
1:21:34
Speaker 1: the PC.
1:21:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the funny thing to me is this one
1:21:38
Speaker 2: is it makes me feel like, how do the Brewers
1:21:40
Speaker 2: miss Drew Rasmussen, Like that's their kind of guy and
1:21:45
Speaker 2: they didn't get the most out of my you know.
1:21:47
Speaker 2: Also they shy away from anybody that has any injury history,
1:21:49
Speaker 2: so that's probably what goes into it. But this, this
1:21:53
Speaker 2: is such a cool design variation to your point, Like
1:21:55
Speaker 2: it is kind of like that true photo but brings
1:21:57
Speaker 2: in the old school stadium Club logo Like, yeah, it's
1:22:00
Speaker 2: great and satame club autos if I believe, I think
1:22:04
Speaker 2: it's on card from what it looks like. So that's
1:22:08
Speaker 2: always a big hit for me. So great, great pick.
1:22:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is on card, and I mean also, you
1:22:13
Speaker 1: can't fault them. They traded him for William Domas, so
1:22:16
Speaker 1: like it's not like they trade him for peanuts. That
1:22:20
Speaker 1: they brought back a starting shortstop for multiple years. So
1:22:24
Speaker 1: that's that's what they thought of Rasmus than even back then. Okay,
1:22:28
Speaker 1: let's go to the NL side on the pitching where
1:22:30
Speaker 1: Logan Web from the Giants not a great outing today,
1:22:33
Speaker 1: but if you watched it, he dominated except for like
1:22:35
Speaker 1: a couple of bloops and a blast from actually our
1:22:39
Speaker 1: ale rookie of the month Cozma Kazuma Okamoto. Outside that
1:22:45
Speaker 1: he dominated again today and he was stellar in June.
1:22:49
Speaker 1: Back on the bandwagon for Logan Web and June it
1:22:53
Speaker 1: was a point seven, one point six to one whip
1:22:56
Speaker 1: in thirty eight innings. Uh, and just it's like utterly
1:23:00
Speaker 1: dominant if you were watching any of them. Where when
1:23:03
Speaker 1: Logan Webb is pitching, well, I think he might be
1:23:06
Speaker 1: my favorite one to watch in Major League Baseball right
1:23:09
Speaker 1: now because it's crafty, where like Miszowski is fun to
1:23:13
Speaker 1: watch because he's just blowing everybody away. But like there's
1:23:17
Speaker 1: only so much fun with that, where like Web is
1:23:20
Speaker 1: duncan and diving and cutting sinkers and sliders and throwing
1:23:26
Speaker 1: batters off that it's crafty and I love it so
1:23:29
Speaker 1: first time for Logan Web in the PC, which is
1:23:31
Speaker 1: also surprising given his longevity and talent. So where'd you go?
1:23:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think this is gonna be my
1:23:39
Speaker 2: downfall of an adding any Giants players to the PCs.
1:23:44
Speaker 2: I think I forgot the same same card every time.
1:23:47
Speaker 2: So I'm continuing to go down to the price ladder.
1:23:50
Speaker 2: And I've landed with a twenty dollars card here, and
1:23:53
Speaker 2: that's only because it's an on card auto like in person.
1:23:56
Speaker 2: But I'm going with the twenty nineteen Grandstand Richmond Flying
1:24:04
Speaker 2: Squirrels card. There's just the team card given out at
1:24:08
Speaker 2: the minor league stadiums that Webbs did sign, a nice
1:24:12
Speaker 2: blue sharpie there, and actually a pretty gush durn sharp
1:24:15
Speaker 2: card overall. And again I can't pass up the fact
1:24:20
Speaker 2: that they still have the Flying Squirrels as a minor
1:24:22
Speaker 2: league team, and so I'm gonna continue to pick that up.
1:24:25
Speaker 2: So this is just a fun, fun little thing. It's
1:24:29
Speaker 2: you know, got some great numbers on the back talks
1:24:33
Speaker 2: you know, talks about how well he was raised with
1:24:34
Speaker 2: the best curve on the system, all those and it
1:24:37
Speaker 2: all came to fruition. So nothing exciting, nothing, nothing sexy
1:24:41
Speaker 2: about this card is just really cool and logan web. Actually,
1:24:45
Speaker 2: I feel like the hobby has not done him the best.
1:24:47
Speaker 2: Like there's not a big array of cards out there,
1:24:49
Speaker 2: so I feel like there's really two paths to go,
1:24:51
Speaker 2: which is something like this or maybe the path that
1:24:54
Speaker 2: you went from a from a certain holl that you
1:24:55
Speaker 2: talk about it. But there's only a few paths to
1:24:58
Speaker 2: goes I think with Giants car so it's a simple one,
1:25:02
Speaker 2: but I think it absolutely fits into the pantheon of
1:25:04
Speaker 2: all my Giants collections.
1:25:06
Speaker 1: Yes, I totally agree that, Like, yeah, you can't beat
1:25:10
Speaker 1: a great flying Squirrels card. And I mean, we'll have
1:25:13
Speaker 1: to go back through that PC list and see how
1:25:14
Speaker 1: many flying Squirrels cards you put in, because I know
1:25:16
Speaker 1: you did it for Tyler Fitzgerald as well. Tyler Fitzgerald
1:25:19
Speaker 1: is in there. And yeah, maybe it's gonna have to
1:25:22
Speaker 1: also have to be just like a great theme that
1:25:24
Speaker 1: we carry through anytime that a Giants player or former
1:25:27
Speaker 1: Giants player comes through. You've got to get a Flying
1:25:29
Speaker 1: Squirrels PC card. Also. I love this because, like I mean,
1:25:34
Speaker 1: we'll actually get into it on one of the upcoming
1:25:37
Speaker 1: PC cards, but so many minor league cards like it
1:25:40
Speaker 1: does not look like the dude whatsoever. This is very
1:25:43
Speaker 1: distinctly like Logan Web. You're like, that's the Web.
1:25:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no question about it. So it is a
1:25:48
Speaker 2: very very well done. And maybe it's just because Logan
1:25:51
Speaker 2: Web when he was what like nineteen years old or
1:25:53
Speaker 2: twenty years old, looked like a full thrown thirty five
1:25:56
Speaker 2: year old man, so might have something to do with it.
1:25:58
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, well you alluded to my card, and
1:26:03
Speaker 1: I mean when you're going into the PC first, I
1:26:06
Speaker 1: think we always just like kind of the classic Sapphire
1:26:09
Speaker 1: card with Junior Caman Narrow. You also can't go wrong
1:26:11
Speaker 1: with a color matched Rookie Tops Chrome and that's where
1:26:15
Speaker 1: I went, because there's one available right now on eBay.
1:26:19
Speaker 1: It's actually just under four in or bucks. It's pretty
1:26:21
Speaker 1: reasonable for an orange San Francisco Giants of twenty five
1:26:26
Speaker 1: Orange Wave Card of twenty twenty tops Chrome, which is
1:26:29
Speaker 1: also kind of it's underrated that Logan Web is in
1:26:32
Speaker 1: twenty twenty tops, cause I mean at this point too,
1:26:36
Speaker 1: we're looking he's twenty nine, twenty six and a half
1:26:41
Speaker 1: Fangrafts work. He's gonna get close to Hall of Fame numbers,
1:26:45
Speaker 1: and so I mean that's something to consider that the
1:26:48
Speaker 1: twenty twenty top set not exactly like the biggest banger
1:26:51
Speaker 1: out there, but Logan Web might be one of the
1:26:53
Speaker 1: guys that turns it around. Jordan's also in that set too,
1:26:56
Speaker 1: so something to consider if you've got any of those
1:26:58
Speaker 1: twenty twenty cards sitting around. Nothing really too crazy about
1:27:02
Speaker 1: this card. I do appreciate the twenty twenty design more
1:27:06
Speaker 1: and more as like we've gone on that, Like.
1:27:08
Speaker 2: There was a crezzy sign.
1:27:09
Speaker 1: It was pretty clean, and it gave you like the
1:27:12
Speaker 1: right amount of information and design on the card and
1:27:16
Speaker 1: like was futuristic but not in a gimmicky way. And
1:27:21
Speaker 1: on top of it, like it just creates a lot
1:27:23
Speaker 1: of space for the photo to shine, which this one does.
1:27:28
Speaker 1: He's starting to morph a little bit more into looking
1:27:30
Speaker 1: like Jesse Plemmons as he's gotten older, So you're starting
1:27:33
Speaker 1: to get into the is this Jesse Plemons or is
1:27:36
Speaker 1: this Logan Web question? When you're looking at this card,
1:27:38
Speaker 1: but it's just him getting ready to pitch on the
1:27:41
Speaker 1: mound and you've got the classic logan web signature right
1:27:44
Speaker 1: there where it actually like almost exactly matches the one
1:27:49
Speaker 1: from your on card Auto, which is good vouches for
1:27:52
Speaker 1: your on card Auto. But yeah, you can't go wrong
1:27:55
Speaker 1: with the colored matched rookie card from tops Chrome you can.
1:27:58
Speaker 2: And I think this is also the where because this
1:28:00
Speaker 2: is a orange wave refractor that the wave was actually
1:28:04
Speaker 2: kind of a cool thing because it wasn't like it
1:28:05
Speaker 2: was the one variation that we'd had in these sets
1:28:08
Speaker 2: where it's like you have the true orange refractor and
1:28:11
Speaker 2: then you had the wave refractor. You didn't have all
1:28:14
Speaker 2: these other geometric designs and things like that. It was
1:28:16
Speaker 2: just like the wave or the base. And that mean
1:28:20
Speaker 2: the wave was actually somewhat desirable because it was kind
1:28:22
Speaker 2: of unique in that aspect and so and it absolutely
1:28:25
Speaker 2: works on this card. The wave refractors have always been
1:28:28
Speaker 2: really really strong shower. So yeah, like I said that,
1:28:31
Speaker 2: to me, it was either go minor league card for
1:28:33
Speaker 2: the Giants or you go the orange color match, Like
1:28:36
Speaker 2: those are your two options here for the Giants, And
1:28:39
Speaker 2: this is this is a great card.
1:28:42
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's get into those rookies, because on
1:28:44
Speaker 1: the al side, the winner this month was Kazuma Okamoto
1:28:48
Speaker 1: from the Blue Jays, where he put up a great
1:28:51
Speaker 1: month of June, just edged out Kevin McGonagall here with
1:28:54
Speaker 1: a month that had seven homers twenty rbi a nine
1:28:58
Speaker 1: to thirteen ops plus, And I mean, honestly, he's also
1:29:03
Speaker 1: starting to close in a little bit on McGonagall and
1:29:05
Speaker 1: Murakami and Tristan Peters, who is in the race, which
1:29:10
Speaker 1: is crazy, But I mean Okamoto has starting to show
1:29:13
Speaker 1: some life up to twenty bombs. The batting average is
1:29:16
Speaker 1: still a little bit low and the k's are a
1:29:18
Speaker 1: little bit high in the Murakami mold, but he's certainly
1:29:21
Speaker 1: holding his own in the big league so far. So
1:29:24
Speaker 1: you're our Japanese card expert. I knew you'd be finding
1:29:27
Speaker 1: a good one for us. What'd you pick?
1:29:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, you absolutely know, And you know I love the
1:29:32
Speaker 2: Japanese card market and it's just a fun mark to
1:29:34
Speaker 2: play in. So I think we forget Akimoto has been around.
1:29:39
Speaker 2: He's been around a while playing over there. So I
1:29:42
Speaker 2: went back to twenty fifteen to find a rookie card
1:29:46
Speaker 2: of a Kamoto and we're going to the BBM Genesis set,
1:29:51
Speaker 2: Genesis being kind of the higher end set from the
1:29:57
Speaker 2: Japanese side of things, and we're going with a bat
1:30:01
Speaker 2: relic card game used relic out of eighty. And the
1:30:07
Speaker 2: thing I like about these cards is, I mean it's
1:30:09
Speaker 2: old school, it's got the the old school. You're a
1:30:12
Speaker 2: kerme giants on it, and I mean it looks like
1:30:15
Speaker 2: he's playing the nineties. Here, great great photo on the card,
1:30:20
Speaker 2: great large piece of a bat. And what's also interested
1:30:25
Speaker 2: in these They don't mess with stats, they don't do
1:30:27
Speaker 2: anything else. You look at the back of the cards,
1:30:28
Speaker 2: who's like, you got this? This is from the Rookie
1:30:31
Speaker 2: Premium edition. It's out of eighty, it's put on by
1:30:34
Speaker 2: it's there is produced by Basil Magazine, there BBM out
1:30:39
Speaker 2: in Japan. And it's nothing. There's no other details. There's
1:30:42
Speaker 2: not a name on the back, there's not stats, there's
1:30:44
Speaker 2: not there's not even a number. It's just out of eighty.
1:30:46
Speaker 2: And that's what it is. And that's actually part of
1:30:48
Speaker 2: the delight of these Genesis cards is they are just pure.
1:30:53
Speaker 2: It is what you get is what you what you
1:30:55
Speaker 2: see is what you get. So I really like this card.
1:30:58
Speaker 2: It it really goes back and getting a young Kusa
1:31:03
Speaker 2: Kazuma Akamoto is something you can't pass up. Is no
1:31:07
Speaker 2: longer available. It was taken off eBay, but it was
1:31:09
Speaker 2: listed back in May time frame around three hundred dollars.
1:31:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean this is it's a great card.
1:31:16
Speaker 1: It's so clean too. It's just a great photo of
1:31:18
Speaker 1: him swinging as hard as he can. And it's a
1:31:22
Speaker 1: great big old piece of the bat cross section with
1:31:25
Speaker 1: a little bit of texture too, Like I love that. Yeah,
1:31:28
Speaker 1: it does remind me of like an early two thousands
1:31:32
Speaker 1: relic card that you would get out of like upper
1:31:34
Speaker 1: deck or something where they were the same way. You know,
1:31:38
Speaker 1: you'd flip them over on the back and it would
1:31:39
Speaker 1: just be like, yep, you got a relic card. Congratulations.
1:31:42
Speaker 1: This the way this one is and you feel a
1:31:45
Speaker 1: little bit better about it being a real game used
1:31:48
Speaker 1: bat because it's just like the simplicity of it just
1:31:51
Speaker 1: makes it feel even more real. And I actually have
1:31:53
Speaker 1: a little bit more trust in some of these kind
1:31:56
Speaker 1: of smaller print runs and stuff. And also back in
1:31:58
Speaker 1: those early two thousand and one where I think they
1:32:01
Speaker 1: put a lot more scrutiny into making sure you got
1:32:04
Speaker 1: the right game, news, bats, and everything, so it can't
1:32:07
Speaker 1: go wrong. Also, like Okamoto is going to be kind
1:32:10
Speaker 1: of expensive if you're getting any of the Japanese cards,
1:32:12
Speaker 1: because the Giants are a huge deal over in Japan
1:32:16
Speaker 1: and he was the star there for a long time
1:32:18
Speaker 1: before he came over. So great pick for the PC.
1:32:22
Speaker 2: All right, where'd you go, talk, amot? Did you follow
1:32:24
Speaker 2: me to the japan market or did you stay here?
1:32:26
Speaker 1: No? I figured i'd let you find the best card
1:32:28
Speaker 1: you could from the from the Japanese ones, I'm sticking
1:32:32
Speaker 1: to the Blue Jays cards, and he was featured in
1:32:35
Speaker 1: the Bowman set and also you know he peppered and
1:32:40
Speaker 1: other ones. But I'm going with the Bowman Chrome Red
1:32:43
Speaker 1: Rookie variation, the red RC variation because if you recall,
1:32:48
Speaker 1: this is the one that's up for redemption. So you know,
1:32:51
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything terribly special about this card.
1:32:54
Speaker 1: You know, it's a pretty standard Bowman chrome refractor in
1:32:57
Speaker 1: the standard Roman chrome, like somewhere between art framing and
1:33:03
Speaker 1: futurism with Okamoto at bat. Thankfully, again, the photoshopping here
1:33:09
Speaker 1: isn't awful, although the Blue jay on. The helmet is
1:33:12
Speaker 1: a little small, so you got that going for it.
1:33:15
Speaker 1: And you can clearly tell it's in Japan because there's
1:33:18
Speaker 1: like just the background the billboards behind him are very Japanese,
1:33:23
Speaker 1: and so also his shoes. Now that I look at it,
1:33:27
Speaker 1: I should maybe given this more scrutiny. I think he's
1:33:29
Speaker 1: also got orange of black shoes on, so remember of
1:33:34
Speaker 1: the giants in this picture. But I'm also calling this
1:33:37
Speaker 1: card out because when I was introducing Okamoto, I was
1:33:39
Speaker 1: kind of hinting at it. He's making the AL Rookie
1:33:43
Speaker 1: of the Year race a little bit tighter, I think,
1:33:46
Speaker 1: especially on the surface level stats. When you see the
1:33:48
Speaker 1: twenty homers pop out, you know he's caught up to
1:33:51
Speaker 1: Murakami in that respect. If you recall, these red RC
1:33:55
Speaker 1: cards are the redemption ones from Bowman, so if he
1:33:59
Speaker 1: wins Rookie Year, it is one hundred dollars redemption with
1:34:03
Speaker 1: tops and fanatics. Right now, you can get it for
1:34:05
Speaker 1: roughly twenty five ish dollars on eBay. So if you're
1:34:09
Speaker 1: a gambling person and you're you're into four to one
1:34:13
Speaker 1: odds on Kazumo Okamotive winning the Rookie of the Year
1:34:17
Speaker 1: This is a good way to put your money where
1:34:19
Speaker 1: your mouth is, because twenty five bucks might be getting
1:34:22
Speaker 1: you one hundred dollars in Fanatics cash at the end
1:34:25
Speaker 1: of the year if everything breaks right for Okamoda over
1:34:27
Speaker 1: the next couple of months.
1:34:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is a good card. Like you said,
1:34:31
Speaker 2: it's just it's clean. I like it. And there's this.
1:34:35
Speaker 2: As much as you and I have kind of hated
1:34:37
Speaker 2: on the rookie redemptions from Bowman, there's still is like
1:34:40
Speaker 2: a lure to try to chase it, even though you
1:34:42
Speaker 2: know it's probably a bad life decision. So if you
1:34:45
Speaker 2: can add to the PC like this, it's not your
1:34:48
Speaker 2: such a bad choice. I don't know what your redemption
1:34:50
Speaker 2: is if you added the PC in a theoretical podcast list,
1:34:53
Speaker 2: but hey, I guess I'll give you a theoretical hundred
1:34:55
Speaker 2: bucks the end of the season. If it's right, I'll
1:34:57
Speaker 2: take it.
1:34:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll take it. I've gotta get some money after
1:35:00
Speaker 1: you've been blown off of our pod budget this month.
1:35:03
Speaker 2: Very true.
1:35:05
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go to the NL side. We're repeating Baby TJ. Rumfield,
1:35:09
Speaker 1: come on down again. June Player of the Month for
1:35:12
Speaker 1: the rookies. It's been great. It's been a great breakout
1:35:17
Speaker 1: for him. He's a twenty six year old on the
1:35:19
Speaker 1: Rockies and June was another solid month, three sixteen batting average,
1:35:24
Speaker 1: five homers, and he is just chugging along man like
1:35:30
Speaker 1: it's a little bit like CJ. Cron, only like he's
1:35:33
Speaker 1: younger and got more upside and it's just nuts that
1:35:36
Speaker 1: he was buried in the Yankee system and came across
1:35:41
Speaker 1: in this opportunity with Colorado. Is making every use of
1:35:45
Speaker 1: it that he can. So we picked two cards for
1:35:49
Speaker 1: Rumfield last month, and if you recall from that pod,
1:35:53
Speaker 1: if you listen to it, we joked that we only
1:35:56
Speaker 1: had a few choices. I think we at this point
1:35:58
Speaker 1: we've drained the entire pool unless we started picking different
1:36:02
Speaker 1: parallels of the same card out there. So Brew, give
1:36:06
Speaker 1: me the one other card that you could have picked
1:36:09
Speaker 1: that's available on the market for T. J. Rumfield, because,
1:36:12
Speaker 1: like I said, was not a herald of prospect. Never
1:36:15
Speaker 1: got any cards until Bowman twenty twenty six this year,
1:36:19
Speaker 1: from like an official license standpoint, as his first Bowman
1:36:23
Speaker 1: did not get one whall these drafted or any point
1:36:25
Speaker 1: during the miners, So we're relying on some pretty thin,
1:36:29
Speaker 1: shaky populations of TJ. Rumfield cards out there. What'd you pick?
1:36:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I went with the choice twenty fifteen TJ.
1:36:40
Speaker 2: Rumfield card for the real writers with Scranton real Writers.
1:36:45
Speaker 2: I want to say, it's the connection with the office
1:36:47
Speaker 2: or something like that. Like literally, it's the only card
1:36:50
Speaker 2: I could find that we didn't have in the DC,
1:36:53
Speaker 2: and so that was that was the choice here that
1:36:56
Speaker 2: I had. Don't know Pun intended with the choice twenty
1:36:58
Speaker 2: fenty five production here. We talked about this kind of
1:37:01
Speaker 2: card before. With the twenty twenty five you got the
1:37:03
Speaker 2: career stats on that they have to QR code. You
1:37:05
Speaker 2: can scan on the back to get his career stats.
1:37:07
Speaker 2: It actually doesn't work, just takes you to the mL
1:37:10
Speaker 2: Minor League i LB website, so it doesn't really do
1:37:13
Speaker 2: anything for you. But there's not a whole lot to
1:37:17
Speaker 2: say because it was just my only choice. It is
1:37:20
Speaker 2: it is Rumfield looks like he probably just got a
1:37:22
Speaker 2: double or something signaling to the dugout I'm number one
1:37:25
Speaker 2: or whatever, you know, the celebrations that they have playing
1:37:30
Speaker 2: against Syracuse in the background there. Honestly, it just looks
1:37:33
Speaker 2: like they're in the field like in a spring training
1:37:35
Speaker 2: complex type type of thing in the in the background here.
1:37:38
Speaker 2: But yeah, Rumfield has just kind of come out of
1:37:40
Speaker 2: nowhere to such a degree that it's either some variation
1:37:43
Speaker 2: of his Bowman card or this. So it's it's a tough,
1:37:49
Speaker 2: tough choice, but hey, like I said, I kept the
1:37:51
Speaker 2: budget under control of these back ones. Four dollars or
1:37:54
Speaker 2: best offer for shup.
1:37:56
Speaker 1: I mean, there's just lots of things to like about
1:37:58
Speaker 1: this pick between Honestly, it's probably the best photo of TJ.
1:38:02
Speaker 1: Rumfield that is out there, and the card that you
1:38:06
Speaker 1: picked last month is still showing in my similar items
1:38:09
Speaker 1: below where it's the ongar auto of him from Hudson Valley.
1:38:13
Speaker 1: In both of those cards, he's wearing the double flat helmet,
1:38:17
Speaker 1: which is like, so minor leagues, he's only a lefty,
1:38:20
Speaker 1: Like he's not a switch hitter, and so I don't
1:38:22
Speaker 1: you know, it's just what happens in the minors. As
1:38:26
Speaker 1: well as the listing you found is actually for like
1:38:28
Speaker 1: the card company that involves Jimmy Hart WWE Wrestling Legend,
1:38:35
Speaker 1: and so you get a little video of him introducing
1:38:39
Speaker 1: his card company along with yeah, pictures of just like
1:38:44
Speaker 1: all sorts of other wrestlers and models and stuff on
1:38:48
Speaker 1: this listing. It's a great eBay listing. Check it out.
1:38:51
Speaker 1: I don't know if I didn't even know you could
1:38:52
Speaker 1: embed videos in your eBay listing, Now I know. Thanks
1:38:56
Speaker 1: Jimmy Hart. Great pick for the PC.
1:39:00
Speaker 2: All right, where did you go?
1:39:02
Speaker 1: All right?
1:39:03
Speaker 2: I didn't leave you a choice. The swords you go.
1:39:05
Speaker 1: I went to the future. So if you're in, if
1:39:07
Speaker 1: you're on rasball dot com right now and you're looking
1:39:10
Speaker 1: and you're like, wait a second, there should be a
1:39:13
Speaker 1: total of twelve cards picked. Why is there only eleven? Well,
1:39:19
Speaker 1: the card that I picked for t J. Rumfield hasn't
1:39:21
Speaker 1: come out yet. It's twenty twenty six Tops Chrome, his
1:39:24
Speaker 1: rookie card. That is gonna be like he just had
1:39:27
Speaker 1: his Bowman first in Bowman and he got included in
1:39:30
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six tops Chrome. We don't know what it
1:39:33
Speaker 1: looks like, but it's on the checklist. Go out there,
1:39:36
Speaker 1: buy some breaking spots for TJ. Rumfield. I guess if
1:39:40
Speaker 1: you want any TJ. Rumfield rookie cards out of tops Chrome,
1:39:44
Speaker 1: because he will be included there and so that as
1:39:47
Speaker 1: well as all the parallels. I guess if I had
1:39:48
Speaker 1: to pick a parallel would have been the purple one
1:39:51
Speaker 1: for the Rockies, but we don't know what the card
1:39:53
Speaker 1: looks like. I assume it looks like TJ. Rumfield swinging
1:39:56
Speaker 1: a bat.
1:39:57
Speaker 2: So hey, I mean you probably should sell this from
1:39:59
Speaker 2: our PC already because you got it earlier than anybody else.
1:40:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, give that listing up. Get the ten dollars back
1:40:04
Speaker 1: on eBay for a TJ. Rumfield rookie card. So there's
1:40:07
Speaker 1: gonna be no link to eBay on it. And now
1:40:10
Speaker 1: I'm not even gonna build it in on the back end,
1:40:12
Speaker 1: like I'm just gonna let it live, like it's gonna
1:40:14
Speaker 1: be way more fun that we future picked the TJ.
1:40:17
Speaker 1: Rumfield Tops Chrome Rookie card. So number one eighty one,
1:40:21
Speaker 1: look out for it.
1:40:23
Speaker 2: At least you get the number, right, Okay, Well with that,
1:40:27
Speaker 2: that's gonna wrap.
1:40:28
Speaker 1: Us up for this week. Brew Let everybody know where
1:40:30
Speaker 1: they can reach you on socials and read your work.
1:40:32
Speaker 2: Yep, find me on Twitter ex Blue sky Ja Brewer
1:40:35
Speaker 2: one seven. Find me writing on Saturday's top one hundred
1:40:38
Speaker 2: hitter rankings or hitter profiles over on ras ball Coolly,
1:40:41
Speaker 2: where can folks find you?
1:40:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can read my work on Baseball Perspectus where
1:40:46
Speaker 1: I am doing starting pitching coverage, and you can find
1:40:50
Speaker 1: me on socials at M cool seven cool spelled co
1:40:53
Speaker 1: O U I L L. And you can find the
1:40:56
Speaker 1: podcast on Blue Sky at cards categories, email the podcast
1:41:00
Speaker 1: at cards credit cards categories at gmail dot com. And
1:41:06
Speaker 1: since you've been down the show notes, you've probably found
1:41:09
Speaker 1: the links to our gear in a store down there.
1:41:12
Speaker 1: You can get some hats, t shirts, anything else with
1:41:14
Speaker 1: the cards and categories logo. You can also click on
1:41:17
Speaker 1: the link for Rasball subscriptions. They're gonna be crucial to
1:41:21
Speaker 1: help you win those fantasy leagues. They're certainly helping me
1:41:23
Speaker 1: when you're trying to figure out who to stream for
1:41:26
Speaker 1: those injury replacements that you've got to be put lugging
1:41:29
Speaker 1: in every week and even every day. At this point,
1:41:31
Speaker 1: it seems like, so check those tools out. They will
1:41:34
Speaker 1: help you win leagues. I absolutely guarantee it. I sound
1:41:38
Speaker 1: like I'm from men's warehouse, but that's okay. And with that,
1:41:41
Speaker 1: we're gonna wrap it up for this week. Thanks everybody
1:41:43
Speaker 1: for checking us out, and we will be back, same time,
1:41:46
Speaker 1: same place next week. E