Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 158 : 2026 Allen & Ginter Overview And September POTM PC

Transcript

Ep. 158 : 2026 Allen & Ginter Overview And September POTM PC · Cards & Categories

0:17
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome everybody to episode 158 of Cards and Categories.
0:22
Speaker 1: I am Mike Coulard from Baseball Prospectus, joined per usual
0:26
Speaker 1: by my very good friend Jeremy Brewer from Razzball. How
0:29
Speaker 1: you doing tonight, bud? Are you overloaded on playoff baseball yet?
0:33
Speaker 2: I am.
0:33
Speaker 3: First of all, I'm loving it. But it's like oddly
0:36
Speaker 3: having trouble keeping up because the games aren't happening all
0:39
Speaker 3: at the same time. And I feel like every time
0:41
Speaker 3: I check, like something else has happened. It's just it's
0:44
Speaker 3: like it's fantastic to always have something going, something to watch.
0:47
Speaker 3: But I also find it like hard to kind of
0:49
Speaker 3: keep up with away. But like all the series have
0:52
Speaker 3: been pretty, pretty fun. At this point, a few of
0:55
Speaker 3: them felt like they were getting away, but hey, we've
0:57
Speaker 3: got some good ones going on here. So I'm having
1:00
Speaker 3: a blast with playoff baseball. I'm assuming you are as well,
1:02
Speaker 3: especially because your White Sox are making noise. Maybe not
1:06
Speaker 3: so much the good noise today, but making some good
1:09
Speaker 3: noise overall.
1:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, they gave it a good shot. I mean, you
1:13
Speaker 1: had to think that the Guardians were going to get
1:15
Speaker 1: one eventually, and today was the day. We are speaking
1:18
Speaker 1: on October 7th here. We're actually right in the middle
1:21
Speaker 1: of the quadruple header that's happening. For the Division Series,
1:25
Speaker 1: we are about to get to the ninth inning of
1:28
Speaker 1: Dodgers Braves, just to give you context as we start
1:31
Speaker 1: recording this podcast and going further. Also, just an FYI,
1:36
Speaker 1: we record pretty much in line of what you're listening
1:40
Speaker 1: to us. So if you want to hear our reactions
1:42
Speaker 1: to some crazy homer that happens later in the evening,
1:45
Speaker 1: it'll be in a later segment. One of the ones
1:48
Speaker 1: that we're doing for our main segments, it could be
1:51
Speaker 1: top talent and Ginter 2026, or it could be the
1:54
Speaker 1: September 2026 player of the month PC. So we got
1:57
Speaker 1: a double dip on baseball cards here, but it should
2:00
Speaker 1: be a great episode as we are also talking on
2:03
Speaker 1: the evening of Allen and Ginter being released. So keep
2:06
Speaker 1: that in mind as we go over some of these
2:08
Speaker 1: checklist details, things have been a little haywire because all
2:11
Speaker 1: of us baseball card lovers have been wandering through the
2:15
Speaker 1: dark with Beckett.com being down indefinitely for a However long,
2:19
Speaker 1: it's been a little bit of a nightmare and that's
2:21
Speaker 1: been a great source for us. So we're trying to
2:24
Speaker 1: piece things together. But yeah, the playoffs have been absolutely great.
2:28
Speaker 1: You know, lots of fun matchups, lots of great action.
2:31
Speaker 1: Maybe I should have asked you what commercial has just
2:35
Speaker 1: annoyed you and makes you want to never be on
2:38
Speaker 1: this mortal plane again from watching baseball over the past
2:41
Speaker 1: few weeks.
2:42
Speaker 3: Well, so for me, I've been watching on my phone
2:45
Speaker 3: mostly on Hulu and I just completely ignore the commercials.
2:47
Speaker 3: So I haven't been paying attention to any of the commercials.
2:51
Speaker 3: So you don't have to call me out for it.
2:53
Speaker 3: And I've been watching a lot of highlights in between.
2:56
Speaker 3: So like I'm watching one game, something go to the commercial,
2:58
Speaker 3: I'm watching another game. So I don't watch live TV anymore,
3:02
Speaker 3: except for actually right now. Not that I'm not paying
3:07
Speaker 3: attention to our podcast, but hey, the Dodgers Braves game's on.
3:10
Speaker 3: So we got to have some priorities here.
3:12
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I do think that the consensus at large
3:15
Speaker 1: on Blue Sky and other podcasts than the blogosphere seems
3:19
Speaker 1: to be the liberty bibberties are driving everybody wild. My
3:23
Speaker 1: personal demon is the chicken and waffles Chick-fil-A commercial. As
3:29
Speaker 1: I probably said that anybody that's been watching baseball, the
3:32
Speaker 1: jingle just ran right through your head. I like to
3:34
Speaker 1: imagine it as some sort of purgatory that we will
3:37
Speaker 1: be sent to after we all pass. So just hanging
3:40
Speaker 1: out in our pajamas. dancing around and singing about very
3:45
Speaker 1: dry chicken and waffles. It does not look appetizing. So
3:48
Speaker 1: it is driving me nuts, but maybe let's get back
3:50
Speaker 1: to the baseball action. What has stood out to you
3:53
Speaker 1: in terms of watching the game so far, any teams,
3:56
Speaker 1: any highlights, any strategies that you're going to really take
4:00
Speaker 1: away as like, Hey, this is emblematic of 2026 and
4:04
Speaker 1: something that will stick with me from this playoff run
4:06
Speaker 1: so far.
4:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, if you're going to take some things away,
4:10
Speaker 3: I would say it's some of the usual things about
4:13
Speaker 3: the playoffs, like the Dodgers are dodgering type of thing.
4:19
Speaker 3: Milwaukee and Tampa still both look like some of the
4:23
Speaker 3: most complete teams out there, but that also is one
4:26
Speaker 3: of the things that leaves them vulnerable because they're not
4:28
Speaker 3: flashy and exciting. Milwaukee still continuing to– well, they have
4:34
Speaker 3: a 12-game playoff road losing streak somehow.
4:37
Speaker 2: So that's just amazing. We'll see.
4:39
Speaker 3: Maybe they maybe they take care of that tonight. But
4:44
Speaker 3: I would say the one series that's kind of jumped
4:46
Speaker 3: out to me has been the Rays Yankees. And the
4:51
Speaker 3: reason being, because it's like such polar opposites, I feel
4:54
Speaker 3: like every other series, even though the Dodgers might finish
4:56
Speaker 3: up here in the next 15, 20 minutes on the Braves,
5:00
Speaker 3: like that's still been really, really good close games. The
5:03
Speaker 3: White Sox and Guardians have been back and forth. Brewers
5:07
Speaker 3: and Padres have been. The Yankees have looked awful and
5:11
Speaker 3: the Rays have looked really, really good. And so I
5:14
Speaker 3: don't know, like, are those two things going together? or
5:19
Speaker 3: the team's just making it, you know, making it happen.
5:22
Speaker 3: So Drew Rasmussen, absolutely ridiculous game one. He had their
5:26
Speaker 3: eight innings pitch, 10 Ks. And you just have what
5:32
Speaker 3: seems to be a really complete game. And then, you know,
5:36
Speaker 3: the Yankees, unfortunately, I don't remember how many errors they have,
5:38
Speaker 3: like four errors.
5:40
Speaker 2: It always shows up.
5:41
Speaker 1: It's like, it's so absurd. You would think that they
5:44
Speaker 1: would have that figured out after, It was rearing its
5:48
Speaker 1: head in 2024 in that World Series and like was
5:51
Speaker 1: one of the stamps that we remember from the Dodgers
5:53
Speaker 1: blowing out the Yankees. But it's just been kind of
5:57
Speaker 1: their Achilles heel that like it's been something they've overlooked.
6:00
Speaker 1: But I think it's been starting to show in the
6:03
Speaker 1: playoffs because, like you said, the Rays look really good.
6:05
Speaker 1: A lot of it is defense. A lot of it's pitching.
6:08
Speaker 1: A lot of it is also people having no idea
6:10
Speaker 1: who's on the team, as we found out when I
6:13
Speaker 1: quizzed you the other week. Yeah. But same thing with
6:17
Speaker 1: Brewers and Padres. Like they've played really good defense. The
6:21
Speaker 1: Guardians and White Sox have been relatively solid as well.
6:24
Speaker 1: Like the White Sox, it's been a little more up
6:25
Speaker 1: and down, but they've been able to hang in there
6:28
Speaker 1: when they can. And yeah, I think that is going
6:30
Speaker 1: to be something that is going to hold back the Yankees.
6:33
Speaker 1: And we'll see as it goes forward. Obviously, anything can
6:36
Speaker 1: happen in Yankee Stadium. And but like at the end
6:40
Speaker 1: of the day, I'm not going to underestimate the Rays
6:42
Speaker 1: because they do look like they're the cream of the
6:45
Speaker 1: crop from the al right.
6:47
Speaker 3: Now yeah i i think we go back to kind
6:49
Speaker 3: of our predictions of the playoffs and i think both
6:51
Speaker 3: of them probably hold pretty true still at this point
6:53
Speaker 3: like i'm feeling pretty about the rays you know dodgers
6:56
Speaker 3: you know things like that i know you were high
6:58
Speaker 3: in the brewers they look pretty strong they said they
7:00
Speaker 3: do have to win a game uh away at some
7:03
Speaker 3: point so we'll see how that develops but I think
7:07
Speaker 3: that their big opportunity was last night when Mason Miller
7:11
Speaker 3: took a night off, but Michael King was able to
7:13
Speaker 3: come in and make that a non-event. I'll just put
7:18
Speaker 3: it this way. These playoffs have just been fun. There
7:21
Speaker 3: has been action all around. There hasn't been, I'd say,
7:24
Speaker 3: just teams running away with things. The whole thing, you've
7:29
Speaker 3: had good, good baseball all around outside of the Yankees' defense.
7:33
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I mean, I think it's also been just
7:36
Speaker 1: like a series of series that are heavyweight fights. You know,
7:41
Speaker 1: there's lots of punches back and forth. There's lots of
7:44
Speaker 1: boxing matches kind of going on. These teams are all
7:46
Speaker 1: kind of in the same realm where in the regular season,
7:49
Speaker 1: it kind of sucked because like we didn't have like
7:52
Speaker 1: a great team that was really standing out. But, you know,
7:56
Speaker 1: in these playoffs, because they're all so close together, it's
8:00
Speaker 1: created a lot of really interesting and fascinating matchups. But yeah,
8:05
Speaker 1: it'll be, I I'm, I'm intrigued to see going forward
8:08
Speaker 1: where like, there's a lot of maybe over usage in
8:12
Speaker 1: my mind of relievers and like pushing guys into weird
8:15
Speaker 1: scenarios as you know, you're getting Grant Taylor with the
8:19
Speaker 1: four out save obviously, or the four inning save my bad,
8:23
Speaker 1: not four outs. But I mean, he was obviously kind
8:26
Speaker 1: of brought up as a tweener and, guy in terms
8:29
Speaker 1: of maybe he could start, maybe he was going to relieve.
8:32
Speaker 1: And then you've also got, you know, other players like
8:35
Speaker 1: Mason Miller being stretched beyond what they're usually doing as
8:38
Speaker 1: a closer. It works now. I'm just kind of interested
8:42
Speaker 1: to see how it works out the rest of these
8:45
Speaker 1: playoffs for some of the teams that have pushed their
8:48
Speaker 1: highest leverage arms super hard, because like I do understand to,
8:53
Speaker 1: you know, like in situations where it's do or die
8:55
Speaker 1: or go home, like, you know, in these game threes
8:59
Speaker 1: where we've seen some drastic measures. But, like, still, you've
9:02
Speaker 1: got to, like, have a plan going forward. It is
9:05
Speaker 1: one of the things that concerns me with the White
9:06
Speaker 1: Sox is, like, I don't know what they're doing for
9:09
Speaker 1: game four starting pitching-wise or just pitching, period. And I
9:13
Speaker 1: think you're going to get more teams after this round
9:16
Speaker 1: that get into the NLCS, and they're like, wow, man,
9:18
Speaker 1: we've really gassed some of these dudes. And certainly there
9:21
Speaker 1: are more days off, but the cumulative effect on top of, like,
9:26
Speaker 1: Grant Taylor going those four innings, playoff innings are a
9:30
Speaker 1: different beast. They're a different animal, and I think they're
9:32
Speaker 1: going to start wearing down some of these teams. I'll
9:36
Speaker 1: be interested to see how teams navigate that in the
9:40
Speaker 1: CSs and the World Series.
9:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you're right, and I think if I
9:44
Speaker 3: want to put a fantasy spin on this, I feel
9:48
Speaker 3: like this happened last year, and I don't have a
9:50
Speaker 3: player's name to do it, but there's a few I
9:53
Speaker 3: think to already look at this year's that That usage pattern,
9:57
Speaker 3: I think, really carries over for some of these guys
9:59
Speaker 3: into the next.
10:00
Speaker 2: Season.
10:01
Speaker 3: And so Grant Taylor, I think, is a great example. Like,
10:03
Speaker 3: I think you and I both said that he could
10:04
Speaker 3: be a guy that kind of breaks out in the
10:06
Speaker 3: playoffs and became household name and things like that. But
10:09
Speaker 3: I think, you know, getting that additional usage is going
10:13
Speaker 3: to be a challenge. Let's call Drew Rasmussen out. I
10:16
Speaker 3: just mentioned he threw a great game. Do you know
10:17
Speaker 3: how many other times this season he pitched eight innings?
10:20
Speaker 2: None. Not a single game. Not a single game.
10:24
Speaker 3: And so, like, you look at some of the usage patterns,
10:28
Speaker 3: and one thing you can say is, like, they're getting
10:31
Speaker 3: the best of the best guys, and, like, the whole
10:33
Speaker 3: point is to win the game, right?
10:35
Speaker 2: But from a fantasy perspective, like, playoff.
10:37
Speaker 3: Innings don't gain you anything. If anything, the guys that
10:41
Speaker 3: are going deep and pitching well, like, maybe they've jumped
10:44
Speaker 3: the stock price up, but actually... the mileage on their arms,
10:47
Speaker 3: I think there is a longer and harder recovery as
10:49
Speaker 3: they go into the next year. So it's just something
10:51
Speaker 3: I would keep my eye on from a fantasy perspective,
10:54
Speaker 3: mainly on the arms. I'm not, not really the bats.
10:56
Speaker 3: I'm not really worried about that. It's the unique usage
10:59
Speaker 3: of the arms and what that's going to do to,
11:02
Speaker 3: to some of these guys that haven't, haven't gone as
11:04
Speaker 3: deep into games, haven't had four inning saves, you know,
11:08
Speaker 3: that's just a unique play. And it happens one game,
11:11
Speaker 3: two games, not so worried, but teams that go deep
11:14
Speaker 3: and like, do you use a guy in a fireman
11:16
Speaker 3: type role or a unique role? Like Michael King, another one,
11:19
Speaker 3: like I'm, I'm a little concerned of like, they're, they're
11:23
Speaker 3: not caring about next year for Michael King. So what's
11:27
Speaker 3: this going to do? Is this going to put some
11:29
Speaker 3: different wear and tear? Can I kind of throw them
11:31
Speaker 3: out of sync?
11:31
Speaker 2: I don't know.
11:32
Speaker 3: So just little, little public service announcement from a fancy perspective. Let's,
11:37
Speaker 3: let's keep an eye on these pictures and the usage.
11:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the other thing it's really going to
11:42
Speaker 1: push me towards too, is just making sure, I mean,
11:45
Speaker 1: I'm not going to advocate for drafting starting pitching early ever,
11:48
Speaker 1: but I think maybe loading up on it a little
11:52
Speaker 1: bit earlier than I typically have, you know, where like,
11:55
Speaker 1: you know, in the eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 rounds,
12:01
Speaker 1: you know, start taking more pitching because you already saw
12:04
Speaker 1: it happening this year too, where when I was analyzing
12:07
Speaker 1: teams and their rotations for my starting pitching pieces at BP, like,
12:12
Speaker 1: there were multiple teams for long stretches that were running
12:15
Speaker 1: like two, three man rotations and then just bullpenning it
12:18
Speaker 1: the rest of the way. The league is pushing towards
12:21
Speaker 1: that more and more and more. And I think you're
12:23
Speaker 1: seeing that in this playoffs. I think you're especially going
12:26
Speaker 1: to see it, especially if the White Sox can go
12:29
Speaker 1: deep into this playoffs and like make a good ALCS run.
12:34
Speaker 1: You saw how they were able to craft that team
12:37
Speaker 1: with the likes of Hagan Smith and Noah Schultz and
12:41
Speaker 1: Eric Fetty and Davis Martin and Grant Taylor, where they
12:44
Speaker 1: have these kind of nebulous roles and they just kind
12:46
Speaker 1: of count on each dude for three-ish innings. I wouldn't
12:50
Speaker 1: be surprised to see the White Sox and other teams
12:52
Speaker 1: carry a little bit of that over into the regular
12:55
Speaker 1: season next year, even more so than we saw this year.
12:57
Speaker 1: So it's going to push me to make sure that
13:01
Speaker 1: I'm locking in dudes who have shots at wins, shots
13:04
Speaker 1: at quality starts, shots at innings pitched, because it's something
13:09
Speaker 1: where I don't even know how fantasy wise, like from
13:12
Speaker 1: a categories perspective, we even like shift for it because
13:17
Speaker 1: like at some point you can't just like boil it
13:20
Speaker 1: down to pitching war or something like you got to
13:23
Speaker 1: have categories. I guess maybe you can, it shades you
13:26
Speaker 1: more towards points leagues maybe in the, in the future,
13:28
Speaker 1: but what are you scoring points for if it's not
13:31
Speaker 1: wins and quality starts and stuff like that. So it's
13:34
Speaker 1: going to change. I think the actual game of fantasy
13:38
Speaker 1: on us where, You've got to be pretty cognizant of
13:41
Speaker 1: making sure you're walking out of drafts with starting pitchers
13:44
Speaker 1: or have a plan and guys are tarting. They're coming
13:47
Speaker 1: through minor league systems that, you know, can be steadfast
13:51
Speaker 1: every day, every fifth day, I guess, you know, guys
13:54
Speaker 1: that you can put out there. All right. Well, With
13:59
Speaker 1: that playoff talk out of the way, we're also, it
14:01
Speaker 1: does look like the Dodgers, well, they scored another run.
14:04
Speaker 1: The Rays scored a run. So we might see the
14:07
Speaker 1: end of the Yankees by the time we're done with
14:08
Speaker 1: this pod. We've got some baseball card release calendar updates
14:14
Speaker 1: if you're into those show notes. And also, I mean,
14:16
Speaker 1: when you're in the show notes, you can also click
14:18
Speaker 1: on the link that will take you to Ras Ball.
14:20
Speaker 1: You'll be able to see the post that goes with
14:22
Speaker 1: this podcast that has all the pictures of the cards
14:25
Speaker 1: you're going to talk about between Allen and Ginter. So
14:27
Speaker 1: you can see some of the cool inserts. and obviously
14:29
Speaker 1: our Player of the Month PC picks. So that will
14:32
Speaker 1: be on Razzball.com. Also in the show notes, other things
14:36
Speaker 1: that we've talked about, including this baseball card calendar, will
14:38
Speaker 1: be down there. I think the biggest things to highlight
14:42
Speaker 1: are that Cosmic Chrome has an official release date on
14:46
Speaker 1: November 4th. We saw the pushback of Museum Collection from
14:51
Speaker 1: Topps back to November 11th. It was supposed to come
14:53
Speaker 1: out today with Alan and Ginter, but did not make it.
14:57
Speaker 1: Something obviously... happened in terms of the shipments, not terribly surprising.
15:01
Speaker 1: And then we also got Topps Pro Debut 2026 on
15:05
Speaker 1: the schedule as a TBD release, October 19th pre-order. I
15:09
Speaker 1: know that's a set that you've liked over the years
15:12
Speaker 1: and have had good success with. So does that stand
15:16
Speaker 1: out to you from the rest of these on the calendar?
15:18
Speaker 2: It does. If you were to ask me, that was
15:20
Speaker 2: the one I was going to call out as Pro Debut.
15:22
Speaker 3: What it has going for is if you like prospecting,
15:26
Speaker 3: If you like getting multiple autos per your box and
15:29
Speaker 3: you like good price points, that's.
15:30
Speaker 2: What it is. Pro Day Debut, I.
15:34
Speaker 3: Think there may be a little chrome within it, but
15:36
Speaker 3: usually not a whole lot. It's usually paper cards, usually
15:40
Speaker 3: paper color parallels. But I think the autos generally are
15:43
Speaker 3: on card. And so it's a nice set that I like.
15:48
Speaker 3: I don't know what 26 holds as far as the
15:50
Speaker 3: number of autos per box, but I remember a few
15:52
Speaker 3: years ago, there was like four for a hobby box,
15:55
Speaker 3: which was just crazy for like a $ 110 box, something
15:59
Speaker 3: like that. So like, again, you're, you're looking at prospects,
16:02
Speaker 3: you're chasing them, but there's not the high end capability
16:06
Speaker 3: of like a Bowman or something like that, but it
16:08
Speaker 3: is a really, really fun set to learn about the prospects,
16:12
Speaker 3: to collect them, to get in and get a number
16:14
Speaker 3: of autographs and parallels at a relatively low reasonable price point.
16:18
Speaker 3: So it's a very accessible rip and it's just actually
16:20
Speaker 3: a really, really fun set overall. So I'm a big
16:23
Speaker 3: fan of it just because it is kind of for
16:26
Speaker 3: the everyday collector.
16:28
Speaker 2: And if you can't buy a.
16:29
Speaker 3: $ 750 box of Bowman Draft, like you can probably buy
16:33
Speaker 3: seven boxes of Pro Debut for the same price and
16:37
Speaker 3: have a heck of a lot of fun ripping it.
16:39
Speaker 3: So a big fan of Topps Pro Debut. I think
16:41
Speaker 3: it's a great set every year.
16:43
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:43
Speaker 1: And I think it's also, it's a great prospect crop
16:46
Speaker 1: as well so you're going to get a lot of
16:47
Speaker 1: fun names in there and i think a lot of
16:49
Speaker 1: them that will be debuting into 2027 so something to
16:53
Speaker 1: keep in mind in terms of stuff to maybe stash
16:56
Speaker 1: away and autos to chase because those autos will be
16:59
Speaker 1: hot when they get called up that people want a
17:01
Speaker 1: piece of the action no matter what it is so
17:03
Speaker 1: great call out there for pro debut Okay. With that,
17:07
Speaker 1: let's just get right into our 2026 Allen and Ginter preview.
17:10
Speaker 1: So this will be our third time covering it, I believe.
17:16
Speaker 1: And what we're looking at with Allen and Ginter is
17:19
Speaker 1: this is the most eclectic set that I think exists. Well,
17:23
Speaker 1: obviously on the top side, I mean, and if you're
17:25
Speaker 1: talking licensed period, you know, usually they don't do too
17:29
Speaker 1: many gimmicks with licensed products, but with Allen and Ginter,
17:33
Speaker 1: they turn that dial up to 11. So again, What
17:37
Speaker 1: is the premise of Allen & Ginter, you might be asking?
17:40
Speaker 1: Is it flagship? Is it heritage? What we're actually doing
17:44
Speaker 1: is it's a throwback to Allen & Ginter used to
17:46
Speaker 1: be a cigarette card company back at the turn of
17:50
Speaker 1: the last century, the 19th going into the 20th century.
17:55
Speaker 1: When you had the debut of collectible cards and they
18:00
Speaker 1: would be obviously in cigarette packs. And Allen and Ginter,
18:03
Speaker 1: you know, that's why they have what is called cigarette cards.
18:07
Speaker 1: And these appear now in Allen and Ginter as minis.
18:11
Speaker 1: That's essentially what the cigarette card size used to be.
18:14
Speaker 1: Especially if you've ever seen like T206s in person at
18:17
Speaker 1: shows and stuff like that. I'm just throwing that out
18:20
Speaker 1: there because I'm not sure how many people who are
18:23
Speaker 1: listening to our humble pot are holding T206s except for
18:26
Speaker 1: maybe lower grade and lower named ones. But It's that
18:30
Speaker 1: sort of size. And so you have that as a,
18:34
Speaker 1: as a big kind of highlight here for a lot
18:36
Speaker 1: of the inserts, but then you also have regular size
18:38
Speaker 1: baseball cards that, you know, hearken back to those cigarette
18:42
Speaker 1: cards in terms of their design. So you've got something
18:45
Speaker 1: that kind of looks antique-ish in this design where you've
18:48
Speaker 1: got banners and kind of fading as the actual pictures
18:52
Speaker 1: of the players are kind of the highlights of those
18:54
Speaker 1: cards on the back. You actually, it's like stat free,
18:58
Speaker 1: which is, I think interesting for baseball cards. It's usually
19:01
Speaker 1: like a blurb on the player and something about them.
19:04
Speaker 1: And then a little bit of biographical information. The other
19:07
Speaker 1: component here with Allen and Ginter is like I said,
19:09
Speaker 1: it is zany. We've got lots of celebrities included in
19:12
Speaker 1: terms of the cards. We've got lots of people who
19:15
Speaker 1: are celebrities to somebody, but not others. So like lots
19:19
Speaker 1: of reality TV stars, lots of YouTube stars, lots of
19:21
Speaker 1: other kinds of pop culture folks. You're going to see
19:25
Speaker 1: inserts of people that work for tops and fanatics as well.
19:28
Speaker 1: And then you're also going to get inserts that harken
19:31
Speaker 1: back to some of those original cigarette cards. Like they
19:34
Speaker 1: used to have cards of like presidents and animals and
19:38
Speaker 1: different landscapes and things like that. You get that in
19:41
Speaker 1: Allen and Ginter too. So we'll get into some of
19:43
Speaker 1: those inserts. Looking at a 300 card set, which is
19:48
Speaker 1: pretty standard here for Allen and Ginter cards. no sps
19:51
Speaker 1: which is a little bit of a variation but we'll
19:53
Speaker 1: get into maybe a little of that discussion because there's
19:55
Speaker 1: chatter of whether or not there actually are because some
19:58
Speaker 1: of the details have been a little more sparse on
20:00
Speaker 1: allen and ginter than usual this is usually a spring
20:03
Speaker 1: release we're probably roughly what six months behind of when
20:08
Speaker 1: it usually gets released. So things have been a little
20:10
Speaker 1: slower on the Allen and Ginter side than usual. So, uh,
20:14
Speaker 1: brew kind of like in the hierarchy in the galaxy
20:18
Speaker 1: map of baseball card collecting, where does Allen and Ginter
20:21
Speaker 1: sit for you? Is it something that you pursue and rip?
20:23
Speaker 1: Is it something that's fun every once in a while? Uh,
20:27
Speaker 1: or is it something that you're like super diehard about
20:30
Speaker 1: and you want to get as many of these little
20:32
Speaker 1: cards as you can?
20:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's, it's one of those hit or miss products
20:36
Speaker 3: for me. I think it's, I rarely would ever go
20:39
Speaker 3: for like a hobby box or anything like that of
20:41
Speaker 3: Alan Ginter, but it's a great blaster box type of
20:44
Speaker 3: product where you have one or two rip through because it's,
20:48
Speaker 3: It's an interesting rip. And that's what makes it so
20:52
Speaker 3: different from almost anything else you do, because there's so
20:55
Speaker 3: many different variations that you need to kind of, as
20:59
Speaker 3: you go through the cards, try to understand what all
21:01
Speaker 3: there is. If you want to compare it to a
21:04
Speaker 3: heritage to a degree where you have these kind of
21:06
Speaker 3: interesting parallels or unique cards, but you just have this
21:12
Speaker 3: wide variety, like you said, celebrities, mini cards.
21:16
Speaker 2: pictures of buildings, you know, whatever it may be.
21:18
Speaker 3: And there's just, and it is what I would say
21:21
Speaker 3: a set.
21:21
Speaker 2: Collector's dream type of thing, because there's so many mini
21:24
Speaker 2: sets that are true.
21:25
Speaker 3: Like it's fun to put together the mini set and
21:28
Speaker 3: that you can easily get sucked into it and be like, well,
21:30
Speaker 3: I've already got this many of the reptiles or I
21:32
Speaker 3: don't think we have reptiles this year, but like reptiles
21:34
Speaker 3: or whatever it may be. And it's kind of, cool
21:38
Speaker 3: to go after that. Hey, I pulled the car to
21:40
Speaker 3: the Burj Khalif. It's the world's tallest building, right? It's
21:44
Speaker 3: fun to get through that. So to me, it's a
21:47
Speaker 3: product that's really fun to kind of dig through. If
21:49
Speaker 3: you have kids, it's kind of cool and quirky so
21:52
Speaker 3: they can kind of lurk through and like, hey, they
21:55
Speaker 3: might not collect baseball cards and be in all the players,
21:57
Speaker 3: but I know this is one I've roped with my
21:59
Speaker 3: son before and he just finds it interesting because there's
22:02
Speaker 3: other other elements about the set that extend beyond just the,
22:07
Speaker 3: the baseball standard card collecting. And it does appeal to,
22:12
Speaker 3: to others out there. So I think it's a really
22:14
Speaker 3: fun set. You know, it's, it's got some sneaky value
22:18
Speaker 3: here and there because you're always going to find these
22:21
Speaker 3: unique people that you didn't know much about. And somebody does,
22:27
Speaker 3: somebody is really excited to chase them. So, yeah, you
22:31
Speaker 3: got to be careful what you pull because it could
22:32
Speaker 3: be coming cool. And we'll get into a few of
22:34
Speaker 3: the features. There's also just a few little hidden gems,
22:36
Speaker 3: I think, within Alan Ginter that are just so fun
22:40
Speaker 3: that causes headaches for collectors.
22:42
Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's a great set.
22:45
Speaker 3: Let's dive in into some of the variations and some
22:48
Speaker 3: of the options that you got in here.
22:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that is a great insight into the
22:53
Speaker 1: overall set. So like you said, and I've said, there's
22:56
Speaker 1: lots of different details here. I think especially if you're
22:59
Speaker 1: ripping this for the first time, well, first, maybe if you're,
23:03
Speaker 1: if you want to scratch the Allen and Ginter itch
23:06
Speaker 1: and you haven't, because you're a new collector. Cause I
23:09
Speaker 1: do think that it is something you need to experience
23:11
Speaker 1: as a baseball card collector, just to see whether or
23:13
Speaker 1: not this is your jam. Cause I think at first
23:17
Speaker 1: it was kind of my jam as I got back
23:18
Speaker 1: into cards, like in the COVID pandemic, but slowly, but
23:22
Speaker 1: surely Allen and Ginter, like I, you know, I think
23:25
Speaker 1: I'm in the same boat as you were. I'll pick
23:27
Speaker 1: up a blaster box or a fat pack every once
23:29
Speaker 1: in a while, but usually the hits are kind of tough.
23:32
Speaker 1: The inserts and rookie cards are kind of tough to
23:36
Speaker 1: move as well too. Like they don't, unless you're getting
23:39
Speaker 1: an entire set together, people aren't quite as interested in
23:42
Speaker 1: them as you would see for inserts and rookie cards
23:45
Speaker 1: and other sets. And then on top of it, like
23:47
Speaker 1: it's not exactly like one of the premier rookie cards
23:49
Speaker 1: that people are going after. Certainly there are lots of
23:52
Speaker 1: cool hits. That's what we're going to get into. There's
23:54
Speaker 1: lots of really fun hits, but, they're getting harder to
23:57
Speaker 1: hit in this year's product as the fanaticization of products
24:02
Speaker 1: of tops just keeps happening more and more. One of
24:06
Speaker 1: those indicators is, well, last year when we were talking
24:09
Speaker 1: about this, well, last spring is that they had cut
24:11
Speaker 1: the number of hits in a hobby box from three
24:14
Speaker 1: to two, which I think was a real dent in
24:17
Speaker 1: the enthusiasm for Allen and Ginter. Cause that was part
24:19
Speaker 1: of it is that, Hey, I'm opening this. Maybe I'm
24:22
Speaker 1: getting some goofy inserts and stuff, but if I'm getting
24:24
Speaker 1: three hits for my hobby box and, I can deal
24:27
Speaker 1: with it. But when they peel back that second hit,
24:29
Speaker 1: it makes it a little tougher to justify the money
24:32
Speaker 1: that you're spending on the hobby box. Now this year
24:35
Speaker 1: they cut, it used to be 24 packs in your
24:38
Speaker 1: hobby box. It's down to 18, but it's the same price.
24:41
Speaker 1: So they just shaved off a third of the amount
24:44
Speaker 1: of product that used to get. Also frustrating for people
24:47
Speaker 1: who are set collectors out there and trying to build
24:50
Speaker 1: the set that it's going to take you longer to
24:52
Speaker 1: do that with more hobby boxes. So it becomes more
24:55
Speaker 1: expensive in the long run. So if you do have
24:57
Speaker 1: that Alan and Ginter itch because of some of these
24:59
Speaker 1: things I'm talking about, maybe go back to some of
25:03
Speaker 1: the older Alan and Ginter products where they're readily available.
25:06
Speaker 1: They're cheaper than this new release just to get the
25:09
Speaker 1: experience of opening some Alan and Ginter because yeah, 2026
25:14
Speaker 1: might not be the best spot to start because I
25:17
Speaker 1: think your bang for your buck is going to be
25:19
Speaker 1: lower here than if you went back and found a
25:22
Speaker 1: value box or hobby box from 24 or 25 that's
25:24
Speaker 1: been hanging out. and collecting dust on a shelf somewhere.
25:29
Speaker 1: So something to keep in mind. The other component here too,
25:32
Speaker 1: is that we've got a billion different parallels. So when
25:36
Speaker 1: you are ripping it, if you're new to it, honestly,
25:39
Speaker 1: if you're ripping it and are an experienced card ripper,
25:41
Speaker 1: I think you even still need a checklist to be
25:44
Speaker 1: able to try to figure out what you've got. Got
25:46
Speaker 1: to be good at your eBay sleuthing skills to try
25:48
Speaker 1: to put two and two together, because you can see
25:52
Speaker 1: lots of different cards and lots of different designs that
25:55
Speaker 1: as we were looking through eBay before this, trying to
25:57
Speaker 1: see if there were short prints or not, and sleuthing
26:00
Speaker 1: because the front card designs, even themselves, are not consistent
26:03
Speaker 1: across the board from card to card. So something to
26:07
Speaker 1: keep in mind when you're getting through all this. One benefit, though,
26:11
Speaker 1: of Allen & Ginter, because there are so many different
26:14
Speaker 1: inserts and little minis and things like that, is that
26:18
Speaker 1: the actual base card rainbow run is pretty low. We're
26:23
Speaker 1: only looking at 10 parallels. So, I mean, I was
26:26
Speaker 1: giving you a pretty long break to ramp up for
26:28
Speaker 1: that brew, but I'm also going to hit you with
26:30
Speaker 1: some of the other parallel runs because there's different variations
26:33
Speaker 1: of parallels here. Let people know if you're trying to
26:36
Speaker 1: put together just the regular base paper Allen and Ginter
26:40
Speaker 1: parallel run, what are those 10 cards you're looking at?
26:43
Speaker 2: All right.
26:44
Speaker 3: Well, I'm only going to say it one time because
26:46
Speaker 3: they're all nicknamed filigree. As far as the type of design.
26:50
Speaker 3: And I'm not going to try to say that 10
26:51
Speaker 3: times fast. But you do have your silver, which is
26:56
Speaker 3: silver portraits, foil, blue foil out of 150, green foil
27:01
Speaker 3: out of 99, gold foil out of 50, orange foil
27:04
Speaker 3: out of 25, black out of 10, red out of 5.
27:07
Speaker 3: You do have a purple foil out of 1 of
27:10
Speaker 3: 1 and then a glossy 100. So it's very small,
27:13
Speaker 3: but it is the standard what you expect as far
27:15
Speaker 3: as green, gold, orange, black, as far as the numbering
27:18
Speaker 3: in a traditional set, and they're not duplicates. So the
27:21
Speaker 3: one thing I will say, if you get an out
27:22
Speaker 3: of 50 or out of 25, Alan Ginter, it's truly
27:26
Speaker 3: out of 50 or out of 25, unlike other sets
27:28
Speaker 3: that we see anymore. So maybe a little premium on those,
27:32
Speaker 3: but looking at just the pack odds, let's just be
27:36
Speaker 3: a little careful here. Just for grins, your gold foil
27:40
Speaker 3: is one out of 543 hobby packs. So a little
27:43
Speaker 3: difficult to come by.
27:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is quite a few boxes. If you're trying
27:48
Speaker 1: to add up the 16 packs per box to get
27:50
Speaker 1: to that 543, I'm not going to try to do
27:53
Speaker 1: that live. I can almost do the blue foil, which
27:55
Speaker 1: is 181. So that's about 10 hobby boxes to get
27:59
Speaker 1: one blue. So that is some tough odds, some tough
28:02
Speaker 1: sledding there. Those are for all the 300 cards in
28:05
Speaker 1: the base set, like I was talking about baseball cards
28:08
Speaker 1: in terms of current players, legends, lots of rookies. You
28:12
Speaker 1: get the 2026 class and all those parallels, but you
28:16
Speaker 1: also do get the celebrity cards. I think we'll touch
28:18
Speaker 1: on some of those celebrity names more when we get
28:20
Speaker 1: into the autos, because pretty much if you have a
28:22
Speaker 1: celebrity card in this product, you also have an auto
28:26
Speaker 1: that goes with it to both mini and regular size cards.
28:31
Speaker 1: But something to also keep in mind, if you are
28:33
Speaker 1: a fan of any of these celebrity cards, that these
28:37
Speaker 1: are usually pretty good for through the mail autos. What
28:40
Speaker 1: I've seen in terms of social media is that the
28:43
Speaker 1: celebrities included love to get these cards and do through
28:47
Speaker 1: the mail autos for you. So if you can get
28:49
Speaker 1: a hold of them, it does make an easy auto
28:52
Speaker 1: to get yourself and kind of enhances the collecting of them.
28:56
Speaker 1: So you just gave them the base card rundown. There
28:58
Speaker 1: are also minis for each of those 300 cards. So
29:03
Speaker 1: like I said, the minis are the Cigarette, sized ones
29:06
Speaker 1: i guess they're what like one and a half by
29:10
Speaker 1: two or something maybe one by two or something like
29:12
Speaker 1: that there's one by two yeah and so you've got
29:15
Speaker 1: another separate eight parallels there brew what are those.
29:19
Speaker 3: Eight all right so for those um and only a
29:23
Speaker 3: few are technically numbered but you do have uh you
29:26
Speaker 3: know this is pack odds for just a mini is
29:28
Speaker 3: one and two But for parallels, you have gold border parallels.
29:33
Speaker 3: You have an Allen and Ginter back. So the front
29:36
Speaker 3: looks the same, but it has a different back on it.
29:38
Speaker 2: You have a black border. You have a no number parallel.
29:43
Speaker 2: You have a Brooklyn back, which.
29:45
Speaker 3: Is actually out of 25. You have a wood one
29:48
Speaker 3: of one, a glossy one of one, and then your
29:50
Speaker 3: printing plates framed one on one because you have the
29:54
Speaker 3: You have a frame of the mini printing plate.
29:57
Speaker 2: With those as well.
29:58
Speaker 3: So those are a little more helter-skelter as far as
30:01
Speaker 3: knowing exactly what you have and the odds there. But
30:05
Speaker 3: definitely a little bit harder to come by the numbered ones.
30:08
Speaker 3: The gold border, black border are 1 in 10 blasters.
30:11
Speaker 3: 1 in 10 blaster for the gold, 1 in 10
30:13
Speaker 3: hobby for the black. Alligator back is 1 in 5 hobby.
30:16
Speaker 3: The initial parallels are actually relatively available out there, and
30:20
Speaker 3: you'll get a number of those in most of the
30:22
Speaker 3: things you're ripping. But getting a no number, a Brooklyn back,
30:27
Speaker 3: something like that, those are going to be much, much
30:29
Speaker 3: harder to find.
30:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Well, and actually those first few, the gold,
30:34
Speaker 1: A & G, black, and no number actually aren't numbered
30:37
Speaker 1: on the back. They're all just kind of parallels. So
30:40
Speaker 1: that'll be something to keep in mind if you're looking
30:42
Speaker 1: at different minis. And the reason that they're so ubiquitous
30:45
Speaker 1: is that, like, When you're opening these cards, especially if
30:48
Speaker 1: you're familiar with opening like flagship, a regular pack always
30:52
Speaker 1: has like a hit or an insert in it, at
30:54
Speaker 1: least one. And so what they do in an Allen
30:57
Speaker 1: Ginter is the hit or insert can be one of
31:01
Speaker 1: the hits we're talking about soon or one of the
31:03
Speaker 1: inserts we're talking about soon. But most often it's one
31:05
Speaker 1: of these minis is smacked in the middle. So that
31:09
Speaker 1: is considered your hit within the pack. And then those
31:11
Speaker 1: parallels are what's kind of helping you out there as well.
31:15
Speaker 1: the Brooklyn back, the wood and the glossy, I should,
31:18
Speaker 1: I believe should all be hand numbered, which makes them
31:22
Speaker 1: a cool kind of, uh, little treat as well. Uh,
31:26
Speaker 1: we'd love to see the, the cramps in the intern's
31:29
Speaker 1: hand when he was writing of 25s on all.
31:33
Speaker 2: I guess the players wrote those. No, I guess.
31:35
Speaker 1: Yeah. They, I don't know if it's a he or she,
31:37
Speaker 1: but yeah, when that person wrote of 25 on all
31:40
Speaker 1: the Brooklyn backs for all 25 times, 300 cards. So
31:44
Speaker 1: that's a, it's a, fun little afternoon on top of
31:47
Speaker 1: that too. You're also going to get hobby exclusive minis,
31:51
Speaker 1: which I believe I was trying to confirm this. I
31:54
Speaker 1: wasn't able to lock it in, but I believe these
31:56
Speaker 1: are only coming out of the rip cards.
31:58
Speaker 2: They are. They are.
31:59
Speaker 1: So I do think that one thing that has been
32:02
Speaker 1: helpful with this set compared to some of the other ones,
32:06
Speaker 1: sometimes it may correct me if I'm wrong, but I
32:09
Speaker 1: believe that like the minis that you could get out
32:12
Speaker 1: of the packs are were the same as the minis
32:14
Speaker 1: you could get in the rip cards, but they had
32:16
Speaker 1: different serial numbers. And so like you could distinguish which
32:20
Speaker 1: one was which, but if you're trying to buy the
32:22
Speaker 1: rarer one, unless you saw the serial number, it was
32:25
Speaker 1: difficult to track that down. The nice thing here is
32:28
Speaker 1: that the 50 card mini hobby set for the rip
32:32
Speaker 1: cards is separate from the base set. And then you're
32:37
Speaker 1: only going to get three parallels there, but these are
32:39
Speaker 1: some of the bigger chases in the entire product are
32:41
Speaker 1: the metal stained glass, and the wood parallels that come
32:44
Speaker 1: out of those rip cards. The woods are one of ones.
32:48
Speaker 1: The metal and stained glass are really, really short printed.
32:50
Speaker 1: Probably like only a handful of each.
32:54
Speaker 2: I think they're all one of ones.
32:55
Speaker 1: They're all one of ones. Okay.
32:57
Speaker 2: Yeah. If I recall.
32:58
Speaker 3: Yeah.
32:58
Speaker 2: So you're, so no, it's your woods. One of one
33:00
Speaker 2: stained glass. I think there are more.
33:02
Speaker 3: Yeah.
33:02
Speaker 1: But it's only like three. Usually it's like five or fewer.
33:06
Speaker 3: Yeah.
33:06
Speaker 2: It's not big.
33:07
Speaker 1: And same thing with the metal, but those stained glass
33:09
Speaker 1: ones are like, probably the biggest like chases. Everybody loves
33:14
Speaker 1: them because that's kind of, they're a real stained glass
33:17
Speaker 1: mini card. So it's really unique. The metal ones are
33:21
Speaker 1: also infamous because if you get them, if you get
33:23
Speaker 1: a rip card and you get a magnet up to it,
33:26
Speaker 1: the metal will stick and you can feel it like
33:29
Speaker 1: through the rip card. So people do that. And then
33:31
Speaker 1: the woods obviously are very, very popular being one of
33:34
Speaker 1: ones out of the rip cards that, that just also,
33:37
Speaker 1: it creates another level for these, these hobby parallel minis
33:42
Speaker 1: because you know they're coming out of the rip cards,
33:44
Speaker 1: which we might as well talk about now because I
33:47
Speaker 1: keep talking about them a lot because those are one
33:50
Speaker 1: of the major hits out of this product. We will
33:52
Speaker 1: get into the other hits like the variations, autos, and relics.
33:56
Speaker 1: But the rip cards will sit on top of the
33:59
Speaker 1: hobby box when you open it as a box topper.
34:03
Speaker 1: And well, usually, maybe some of them are probably embedded
34:06
Speaker 1: now because they're probably the singles are regular size cards
34:10
Speaker 1: for the most part but the duels will be bigger
34:13
Speaker 1: and sit on top of your your box but it's
34:16
Speaker 1: exactly what it sounds like you've got to make the
34:18
Speaker 1: decision then you don't know what's inside of them you
34:21
Speaker 1: can either rip the card in half and see what's
34:23
Speaker 1: inside and the card's pretty useless or you can keep
34:26
Speaker 1: the rip card intact and try to move it from
34:28
Speaker 1: there so it is the it's like the ultimate kind
34:32
Speaker 1: of gambling within the gambling hobby that we have uh
34:36
Speaker 1: so What team are you on, Brew? Are you Team
34:39
Speaker 1: Rip or are you Team Keep the Rip Card Intact?
34:44
Speaker 2: I'm Team Rip.
34:45
Speaker 3: It's more something to do with my lack of self-control
34:50
Speaker 3: than anything else. But maybe if you get an Otani
34:58
Speaker 3: or something like that of a Rip Card, it might
35:00
Speaker 3: be something to hold on and be like, this is
35:02
Speaker 3: really cool.
35:03
Speaker 2: But.
35:04
Speaker 3: the allure of the possibility of what could be in there.
35:08
Speaker 3: And that's what makes Alan Ginter so interesting is they
35:11
Speaker 3: insert mini auto cards and things like that. And so
35:15
Speaker 3: like you could have an Otani, like one of one
35:18
Speaker 3: auto inside your, I don't know, I got a player
35:22
Speaker 3: I'm going to call out here, but inside just a
35:23
Speaker 3: basic everyday player card that's not numbered. And you're like,
35:28
Speaker 3: I'm going to hold this thing. I'm going to sell
35:29
Speaker 3: it for a hundred bucks or whatever, because people love
35:31
Speaker 3: the the gamble of it, and inside is this $ 10, 000 card, right?
35:36
Speaker 3: It's just, and unlike a lot of other things, like
35:38
Speaker 3: you said, there's the magnet trick, there's things like that,
35:40
Speaker 3: but in general, outside of the metal ones, it's really,
35:44
Speaker 3: there is not a way to know.
35:46
Speaker 2: Like, you can't, like, hold up a flashlight to these things, like...
35:48
Speaker 2: You don't know. And the only only.
35:52
Speaker 3: True way to get these cards out, I guess there's
35:54
Speaker 3: really two things here is one. If you get an
35:57
Speaker 3: actual hit, you have to destroy the card to get
36:00
Speaker 3: the actual hit out. Like you have to take the
36:01
Speaker 3: entire back off of the card.
36:03
Speaker 2: If you get like a.
36:05
Speaker 3: A base uh one of the ones that's quasi quote-unquote
36:08
Speaker 3: base does have a higher numbering um you could be
36:11
Speaker 3: a little more strategic if you want to kind of
36:12
Speaker 3: try to save the card i've seen people do that
36:14
Speaker 3: with like some of the numbered rip cards were like
36:16
Speaker 3: hey i'm going to still maintain this because people do
36:18
Speaker 3: collect the ripped versions too because you might get like
36:20
Speaker 3: i said an itani out of 50 rip card and
36:23
Speaker 3: it got ripped well it's still an itani out of
36:24
Speaker 3: 50 and somebody still would like that for their collection
36:28
Speaker 3: um but it's it's just such a dangerous game because
36:32
Speaker 3: you could rip this Otani out of 50 rip card
36:35
Speaker 3: that I don't know what the price would be on
36:36
Speaker 3: the open market, but we're talking hundreds of dollars and
36:39
Speaker 3: you could pull out Sal Stewart base card, right? And yeah,
36:44
Speaker 3: No offense to Sal Stewart, I think the Otani Unripped
36:47
Speaker 3: was much more appealing in that scenario. So it is
36:52
Speaker 3: a divisive card, I think. If you hit one of them,
36:57
Speaker 3: especially right away, maybe you do want to try to
37:00
Speaker 3: list it and try to get a good premium out
37:01
Speaker 3: of it. But these hold value. I actually went back
37:04
Speaker 3: and looked at 2025 cards, and they're still, the Unripped
37:08
Speaker 3: versions are selling for $ 150 for a standard base player
37:12
Speaker 3: like these cards. these hold value because that gambling aspect
37:16
Speaker 3: and it's kind of like, uh, you don't know what's
37:19
Speaker 3: still out there because a lot of people don't rip them.
37:23
Speaker 3: They want to just hold onto it and maybe come
37:25
Speaker 3: back later. So I love the rip cards. Um, I
37:28
Speaker 3: can't own any of them because I will rip them.
37:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. They are dangerous if you just love opening
37:35
Speaker 1: everything you got, but you, I mean, just go for it.
37:38
Speaker 1: Like whatever. That's what I would encourage you. It's not
37:42
Speaker 1: going to actually work out usually too often, but if
37:46
Speaker 1: there ever is a stained glass in there, it will
37:48
Speaker 1: blow your mind. And I do think that on this
37:52
Speaker 1: one too, honestly, in some of the past products, you
37:55
Speaker 1: could sometimes get a flashlight through them and kind of
37:57
Speaker 1: see like the stained glass. But this one from the
38:02
Speaker 1: few that I've seen ripped is, they look pretty thick.
38:05
Speaker 1: So I think, I think tops is getting onto it.
38:08
Speaker 1: They're trying to make sure that there's not any way
38:11
Speaker 1: that you can kind of look into it and then
38:13
Speaker 1: move on from it from there so that it does
38:17
Speaker 1: create a little more evenness across the board with these.
38:20
Speaker 1: All right. Well, we didn't even cover. There's one more
38:24
Speaker 1: set of parallels and variations. We've got to cover because
38:28
Speaker 1: they did this a few years ago where they actually
38:31
Speaker 1: did a full test. Alan and Ginter Chrome set. Now,
38:35
Speaker 1: instead of it being its own separate set, it is
38:37
Speaker 1: a parallel within the actual set of the base cards itself.
38:42
Speaker 1: So this is a limited checklist where everything else that
38:46
Speaker 1: we've talked about in terms of the base cards, they
38:50
Speaker 1: had all 300 in the other rainbows that we were
38:54
Speaker 1: talking about for the filigrees and those minis. On these chromes,
39:00
Speaker 1: you're only going to get 100. So they've really whittled
39:02
Speaker 1: it down to the best of the best. And with
39:04
Speaker 1: that brew, it's a pretty short parallel list here. You're
39:08
Speaker 1: only looking at nine. What have you got? Yep.
39:11
Speaker 2: So we have the refractors on here. We have the
39:14
Speaker 2: X fractors. Then from a number perspective, it's what you expected.
39:18
Speaker 2: We have the blues out.
39:19
Speaker 3: Of 150, greens out of 99, purples out of 75,
39:22
Speaker 3: golds out of 50, oranges out of 25, reds out
39:26
Speaker 3: of five, and the super fractures.
39:28
Speaker 1: Out of one of one yes and that is also
39:31
Speaker 1: all baseball players too there are no celebrities in these
39:34
Speaker 1: chrome sets so that's a kind of another distinguishing factor
39:38
Speaker 1: then on top of it you got to do the
39:40
Speaker 1: mini chromes as well too so there's only four of those.
39:43
Speaker 3: Brew over to them all right For the base Mini Chromes,
39:47
Speaker 3: you have Gold Refractors out of 50, Orange Refractors out
39:49
Speaker 3: of 25, Reds out of 5, and the Super Fractors,
39:52
Speaker 3: one of one. Overall pack odds for the base Chrome
39:55
Speaker 3: Mini is one in 24, Hobby, which in theory is
40:00
Speaker 3: one per Hobby box. We're not quite sure if it's
40:02
Speaker 3: 18 packs or 24 packs. I just saw a report
40:04
Speaker 3: online that somebody did get one, and.
40:05
Speaker 2: It was 24 packs, so... We have no idea what's
40:08
Speaker 2: actually happening with Ellen and Ginter here.
40:10
Speaker 1: It definitely released and said 18.
40:14
Speaker 3: The checklist when it first came out said 24. The
40:17
Speaker 3: Topps website said 18. I just saw something on Reddit
40:19
Speaker 3: that said that they bought two and there was 24
40:20
Speaker 3: in each of them.
40:21
Speaker 2: So I don't really know. We might have to do
40:25
Speaker 2: some market research later. Yeah.
40:27
Speaker 1: Maybe they like started printing it in the spring for
40:30
Speaker 1: the spring run and they realized like they didn't have
40:32
Speaker 1: it all together. Who knows? That is chaotic.
40:34
Speaker 2: But it stops like that's, that's normal.
40:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's even better. Uh, but yes, that is going
40:39
Speaker 1: to be quite the, the high odds to get those,
40:43
Speaker 1: especially the lower numbered ones are nuts. That's where you're
40:46
Speaker 1: starting to get into some pretty long odds as the
40:49
Speaker 1: super factor for the minis are one in every 82,000
40:52
Speaker 1: hobby packs.
40:52
Speaker 3: So, um, And keep in mind for these Chrome variation checklists,
40:59
Speaker 3: like you said, there's a hundred cards for each of them. However,
41:02
Speaker 3: they didn't renumber the cards. And so it jumps through
41:05
Speaker 3: and you're like, I got number four, Lou Gehrig, number six,
41:08
Speaker 3: Owen Casey, number seven, Mickey Mantle, number nine, Ted Williams.
41:11
Speaker 2: You're just going to skip around.
41:13
Speaker 3: And so don't get caught up trying to collect the
41:15
Speaker 3: three full 300 card Chrome set because you can't, but
41:19
Speaker 3: it'll serve as heck feel like it because you have
41:22
Speaker 3: one and 300 in there.
41:23
Speaker 2: You're sure as heck going to believe you can do it.
41:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is an oddity, certainly, of Allen and Ginter,
41:28
Speaker 1: which is why it is nice that they did the
41:31
Speaker 1: renumbering for those rip cards, because that helps you distinguish
41:35
Speaker 1: it just period without having to look at the actual
41:38
Speaker 1: serial numbers, too. With that, let's move into some of
41:41
Speaker 1: the hits. So the first kind of hits that we're
41:44
Speaker 1: going to have are really just variations of the actual
41:47
Speaker 1: Allen and Ginter cards themselves. So you've got three types here.
41:51
Speaker 1: Deguero-type redemptions, which is actually, this is a 100-card set.
41:56
Speaker 1: where it's actually like an old timey sort of picture
42:01
Speaker 1: like way of making, I'm really describing it poorly because
42:04
Speaker 1: it is not my wheelhouse in terms of old timey photography,
42:09
Speaker 1: but it is like a little bit of like a
42:11
Speaker 1: booklet and like, you'll get like a frame to it.
42:13
Speaker 1: And that's why it's a redemption because they couldn't squeeze
42:16
Speaker 1: it into the hobby boxes. You're also going to get
42:18
Speaker 1: tin types, which is it's an actual like tin card
42:22
Speaker 1: that with the printing of the base Allen and Ginter
42:26
Speaker 1: on it. That's also just a hundred card set, but again,
42:29
Speaker 1: a kind of an old timey Westerny feel almost gives
42:33
Speaker 1: me like vibes of like when you go to like
42:34
Speaker 1: six flags and they have like the little like picture
42:37
Speaker 1: booth where you can dress as old timey Cowboys. And like,
42:40
Speaker 1: that's what it would look like. Then you also have,
42:43
Speaker 1: base mini metal and stained glass which is 150 cards
42:47
Speaker 1: set which is this is different from those rip cards
42:51
Speaker 1: where it's actually just the stained glass and metal cards
42:55
Speaker 1: of the regular cards that aren't in that exclusive hobby
42:59
Speaker 1: list but now they're in the middle of your pack
43:02
Speaker 1: so there should be most players i believe should have
43:08
Speaker 1: stained glasses and many metals but I didn't go through
43:11
Speaker 1: and tease out the entire checklist because as you can tell,
43:15
Speaker 1: we're already what, like 20 minutes into discussing this thing.
43:18
Speaker 1: We're barely into all the different parallels. There's a lot
43:22
Speaker 1: going on in Allen and Ginter. So brew, what do
43:25
Speaker 1: you think about these hits? And in comparison to the
43:28
Speaker 1: other hits that we're going to talk about with autos
43:30
Speaker 1: and relics and those rip cards, where's this rank for
43:33
Speaker 1: you in terms of getting some of these different variations
43:37
Speaker 1: of how cards are printed?
43:39
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, it, Some of them are, they're, they're interesting. Uh,
43:42
Speaker 3: the Deguero, I'm not going to even try to get
43:44
Speaker 3: that right. Uh, the 10 cards, like they are old timey.
43:48
Speaker 3: Like some of them do look like they were on grandmother's, uh,
43:50
Speaker 3: you know, chest in there. Like this is, uh, her
43:54
Speaker 3: photo frame type of thing. If anything, I think they're confusing.
43:57
Speaker 3: It's just like, what is this thing that I just
43:59
Speaker 3: acquired to a degree? I do think, back to your point,
44:03
Speaker 3: the stained glass, I think those are generally out of 25,
44:06
Speaker 3: are just, I mean, they're just cool cards. They're just
44:08
Speaker 3: absolutely cool cards. That's what makes that one fun. But
44:12
Speaker 3: I do like the fact that you have this really
44:13
Speaker 3: interesting variation of hits, and it is part of the
44:17
Speaker 3: quirkiness of Alan Ginter, which makes it special. So I'm
44:21
Speaker 3: not going to say that I absolutely love all those
44:23
Speaker 3: cards outside of the stained glass. I think those ones
44:24
Speaker 3: are just cool, and also probably really hard from a
44:28
Speaker 3: condition perspective, but the others are just really, really unique.
44:31
Speaker 3: If you pull one of them, it's just really cool
44:33
Speaker 3: that you pulled this really interesting, unique kit, and it's
44:36
Speaker 3: the only place you're going to find this 10 card
44:38
Speaker 3: or something like that.
44:39
Speaker 2: I like them.
44:41
Speaker 3: It's not something I'm necessarily chasing, but from a ripping perspective,
44:44
Speaker 3: they're really cool to find.
44:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So let's get into the autos, because that's
44:48
Speaker 1: where you're going to get a lot of fun hits here.
44:51
Speaker 1: We have celebrity autos, so Directly from a lot of
44:55
Speaker 1: those celebrities that had base cards. They've also got big
44:59
Speaker 1: time autos and some of these will be really significant hits.
45:03
Speaker 1: So some of the bigger names we have are like
45:05
Speaker 1: Anne Hathaway, David Spade, Gina Davis, Jesse Eisenberg, Colin Jost.
45:10
Speaker 1: Moby Megan Fox of the brand new row commercials that
45:14
Speaker 1: everybody's been inundated with during the playoffs. Nelly Rob Lowe,
45:18
Speaker 1: Steve Aoki, Patrick Stewart, Mark Morrison from return of the
45:22
Speaker 1: Mac has an auto in here. We have Maria Taylor
45:25
Speaker 1: from NBC sports, uh, lots of survivor folks. It's usually
45:30
Speaker 1: there's a lot of like reality stars and survivor people
45:33
Speaker 1: in these sets, but they really amped it up this year.
45:36
Speaker 1: They've got Rob's sister, sister Nino, um, Parvati. I don't actually,
45:42
Speaker 1: how do you pronounce it? I've only ever read it.
45:44
Speaker 2: Parvati.
45:45
Speaker 1: Parvati. Parvati. Because I know you've watched a lot more
45:48
Speaker 1: Survivor than I have. I've only gotten into it like
45:50
Speaker 1: more recently.
45:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I started with season one. I've got a problem.
45:53
Speaker 3: We've got to finish up this podcast. So I've got
45:55
Speaker 3: to go watch.
45:57
Speaker 1: And then some of the newer folks like Ava Erickson
45:59
Speaker 1: and one of the winners, Kyle Frazier. I think there's
46:01
Speaker 1: more in the checklist, but I didn't recognize the names
46:04
Speaker 1: that popped out. You've also got dual autos, which is,
46:07
Speaker 1: these are a little bit disappointing. I will say, usually
46:09
Speaker 1: it's much cooler than this from the celebrities. It's Tori
46:13
Speaker 1: Deal and Devin Walker who are part of the challenge,
46:16
Speaker 1: which is, I had no clue. I had to look
46:19
Speaker 1: that up. The bands are also a little bit disappointing.
46:21
Speaker 1: Usually they're cooler than this. You have Linkin Park, which
46:24
Speaker 1: would be cool, but like, It's the new Lincoln park with,
46:28
Speaker 1: with their current lineup, which is not exactly the most
46:31
Speaker 1: popular one. And the main, I don't even, I've never
46:35
Speaker 1: heard of the main. So yeah, that's over your head too.
46:38
Speaker 1: But you do, this is where they redeem it. There's
46:40
Speaker 1: auto patch redemptions for Miley Cyrus, Seth Meyers, and Tony Hawk.
46:45
Speaker 1: So that you're getting a relic and an auto for them,
46:48
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. Especially those Tony Hawk ones are
46:52
Speaker 1: going to be really sought after. I haven't, found any yet,
46:56
Speaker 1: but I think it would be cool if they were
46:58
Speaker 1: the skateboards. I don't know if they are, if they're
47:00
Speaker 1: a piece of clothing, but they can go a bunch
47:03
Speaker 1: of different ways with that. Lots of celebrities caked into
47:06
Speaker 1: this set. Brew, which of these celebrities stands out for
47:10
Speaker 1: you the most, or maybe even one that I looked
47:12
Speaker 1: over that you want to call out?
47:14
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, if you said them, I apologize because
47:17
Speaker 3: I was having fun looking at too many of the cards,
47:19
Speaker 3: but if you're into your 90s rap, you got your
47:22
Speaker 3: Nelly and Xzibit in there, uh, which are obviously.
47:25
Speaker 2: Some, some great ones.
47:26
Speaker 3: If you're into some of the comedy, Matt Rife is
47:28
Speaker 3: a big comedian right now. So he's in there is,
47:32
Speaker 3: is well, um, but for, for me, like I said,
47:34
Speaker 3: I'm a big survivor fan, a big Erickson fan. Um,
47:38
Speaker 3: if you don't know, she was on survivor, but also
47:40
Speaker 3: plays a men's college hockey. So, uh, really, really cool
47:44
Speaker 3: story there. So, uh, those are the cool ones. Uh,
47:46
Speaker 3: I do think, uh, this is just a, from a,
47:49
Speaker 3: like a, a, baseball, uh, social media perspective, Bob Nightingale. Um,
47:56
Speaker 3: he just gets ripped everywhere for everything. And so I
48:00
Speaker 3: think that's just hilarious to have.
48:01
Speaker 2: Him in this set.
48:03
Speaker 3: Um, and so it's just, again, it is a really
48:05
Speaker 3: cool set. You got a lot of, uh, fun folks
48:07
Speaker 3: in there. And as I look through there, there's a
48:10
Speaker 3: little bit of some, something for everybody. Um, and it
48:14
Speaker 3: also makes me realize how much I've missed of modern
48:17
Speaker 3: pop culture sometimes because I'm like, who is this?
48:20
Speaker 2: What are they?
48:21
Speaker 3: And they're like, Oh, I recognize them. Or like, I
48:23
Speaker 3: feel like I should have known this guy, uh, something
48:27
Speaker 3: like that. So, uh, Rich Eisen from sports caster, uh,
48:30
Speaker 3: you know, we can't, we can't not love him, uh,
48:33
Speaker 3: for us, uh, with, uh, grew up in the, in the,
48:36
Speaker 3: 90s um so yeah it's a it's a really cool
48:39
Speaker 3: cool set a lot of good uh individual guys that
48:43
Speaker 3: i would want to chase and uh this is what
48:47
Speaker 3: makes it uh collectible across uh kind of hobbies because
48:51
Speaker 3: people love to chase these types of things so i
48:53
Speaker 3: think you're going to see um some really really collectible
48:56
Speaker 3: cards coming out especially any of the auto versions of
49:00
Speaker 3: almost everybody within this one Yeah.
49:03
Speaker 1: And I mean, the other component, not only us getting
49:05
Speaker 1: old and being more pop culture, is that like I
49:09
Speaker 1: think they have also turned up the dial a little
49:11
Speaker 1: bit on like making sure that they get people with
49:14
Speaker 1: big social media followings to do some of these cards.
49:16
Speaker 1: And then it creates easy marketing and advertising for Allen
49:21
Speaker 1: and Ginter out there so that's another component but also
49:24
Speaker 1: I mean brings more people into the baseball card collecting
49:26
Speaker 1: game that might not have been into it and gets
49:29
Speaker 1: them buying some Allen and Ginter which is great on
49:32
Speaker 1: the baseball side we've got lots of baseball autos here
49:35
Speaker 1: too you've got mini framed autos you've got these are
49:39
Speaker 1: going to be pretty big is the next one. The full,
49:41
Speaker 1: the full size red ink autos, number 10 of Barry Bonds,
49:45
Speaker 1: Kirk Gibson and Reggie Jackson. It's a little bit of
49:48
Speaker 1: like a, uh, the, the like dragon meme. I mean,
49:52
Speaker 1: Kirk Gibson is well collected, but if you're going to
49:55
Speaker 1: talk to me about which player I'd rather have of
49:58
Speaker 1: those three or which I would put at the bottom
50:01
Speaker 1: of the list, Kirk Gibson, obviously quite a few tiers
50:04
Speaker 1: below Barry Bonds and Reggie Jackson there. You've also got
50:06
Speaker 1: one called Carta de Vista, which is another kind of
50:10
Speaker 1: twist on like what we're talking about with the daguerreotypes
50:14
Speaker 1: and tintypes. But this one's also got an auto on it.
50:17
Speaker 1: You've got lineup cards, which was just introduced last year, maybe,
50:21
Speaker 1: or it was more recent. But with that, you're actually
50:24
Speaker 1: going to get. a chunk of the lineup card with
50:27
Speaker 1: the auto on it too, with the player's name, which
50:30
Speaker 1: is really, really cool. It's a game use lineup card.
50:33
Speaker 1: You're also going to get relic autos, which are, you know,
50:37
Speaker 1: they could be anything from a beautiful multicolor patch to
50:40
Speaker 1: just a little napkin piece with the auto on there.
50:44
Speaker 1: You've also got dual autos. So you've got a big
50:47
Speaker 1: gamut of baseball autos here too, which will also kind
50:51
Speaker 1: of range in terms of current stars and current rookies,
50:56
Speaker 1: some kind of lesser stars, and then legends as well.
51:00
Speaker 1: So lots of fun autos. Anything there that really stands
51:03
Speaker 1: out for you in terms of the baseball card autos?
51:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, first of all, any red ink auto is just
51:09
Speaker 3: always amazing. I don't know why, but we just love
51:11
Speaker 3: red ink autos, so we'll leave that there. But I
51:13
Speaker 3: agree with you. There's a kind of a chasm within
51:15
Speaker 3: the collectability of those. The other one for me is
51:19
Speaker 3: the lineup cards.
51:20
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think those did come out for
51:21
Speaker 2: the first time last year. I think so.
51:24
Speaker 3: But this is just such a cool dynamic. I've seen
51:27
Speaker 3: these have popped up in... different card types over the year.
51:30
Speaker 3: Remember Upper Deck used to do a version of this
51:33
Speaker 3: where you'd get a piece of a lineup card or
51:36
Speaker 3: a news article or something like that from a player's
51:40
Speaker 3: debut or something like that.
51:42
Speaker 2: So I just like.
51:43
Speaker 3: That uniqueness to a different kind of relic than what
51:47
Speaker 3: you normally see.
51:48
Speaker 2: So those ones jump out to me.
51:50
Speaker 3: The mini frames are cool, but also one more in
51:54
Speaker 3: the mini frames, like it's a mini card in a frame.
51:56
Speaker 3: those things can shake around in there. They can get
51:58
Speaker 3: beat up. And if you're a little OCD like me,
52:02
Speaker 3: that card knee not straight in there bothers the bejesus
52:05
Speaker 3: out of me. It's impossible to keep those things looking
52:08
Speaker 3: nice if you want to display them. So they're definitely
52:12
Speaker 3: hard to get. And I think there's some really good
52:16
Speaker 3: auto options out there for everybody here, whether you're looking
52:19
Speaker 3: at historical, whether you're looking... uh, celebrity, whether you're just
52:23
Speaker 3: looking through the ball players, you do have a really,
52:25
Speaker 3: really great array.
52:27
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then the last set of autos that we
52:30
Speaker 1: have are cut signatures. So this is another thing that
52:33
Speaker 1: Alan Ginter is really big on. And if you're not
52:36
Speaker 1: familiar with what a cut signature is, is it's, I'm
52:40
Speaker 1: trying to think if I've ever seen one in baseball
52:43
Speaker 1: card products for somebody that isn't deceased. I don't think so. Obviously,
52:48
Speaker 1: you can do it for people that aren't deceased, but
52:50
Speaker 1: that is why they do it is that they find
52:53
Speaker 1: an autograph of a deceased person, you know, through auction
52:57
Speaker 1: sites or collections and stuff like that. Cut out the
53:01
Speaker 1: autograph from whatever it was originally on and then put
53:04
Speaker 1: it into this card. So, like I said, Alan and
53:07
Speaker 1: Ginter has always been big on this. And this year,
53:11
Speaker 1: I do think that these are another level above. The
53:15
Speaker 1: other problem though, is that they're all one of ones
53:18
Speaker 1: because they're deceased people. And you're looking at one in
53:24
Speaker 1: every 89,221 hobby packs. But I mean, you've got some
53:29
Speaker 1: obviously like hall of fame names that you'd expect, like
53:32
Speaker 1: Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron and Honus Wagner and Lou
53:36
Speaker 1: Gehrig and Roberto Clemente, Walter Johnson, Yogi Berra, some really
53:40
Speaker 1: big names. But I think on the, the like, celebrity
53:46
Speaker 1: slash politician side, they've really kind of cranked it up
53:49
Speaker 1: a couple notches here compared to other years. You've got
53:51
Speaker 1: an Abraham Lincoln. You've got John Wayne. You've got Marlon Brando.
53:55
Speaker 1: You unfortunately have Ronald Reagan. You have Vin Scully. You
53:58
Speaker 1: have Winston Churchill. You've got a lot of big names
54:02
Speaker 1: in this set where these are going to be the
54:06
Speaker 1: chase card. These are the ones that people are going after.
54:09
Speaker 1: Some of these are going to go for big bucks,
54:10
Speaker 1: especially the Abraham Lincoln one. I think it's probably like
54:14
Speaker 1: the probably chase card of the entire set uh with
54:18
Speaker 1: maybe the babe ruth up there as well so uh
54:21
Speaker 1: also i mean you've also got ty cobb satchel page
54:23
Speaker 1: stand mutual like it's a really impressive list of cut
54:27
Speaker 1: signatures 51 names long uh good luck hitting them but
54:32
Speaker 1: if you do hit them uh enjoy your new car.
54:37
Speaker 3: You're absolutely right there this this is an amazing uh
54:40
Speaker 3: checklist there's only a few like you pull this and
54:43
Speaker 3: that's all you got type of thing.
54:45
Speaker 2: Like, I feel for you to pull Al Lopez from
54:48
Speaker 2: the Dodgers. Early win. Early win, yeah. Phil Necro, like, ah, man.
54:54
Speaker 3: But in general, like, you just have some all-time ballplayers here.
54:59
Speaker 3: You're Ted Williams, you're Mickey Mayles, Babe Ruth, you know,
55:02
Speaker 3: Ernie Banks. Like, you just have some amazing, amazing Hall
55:05
Speaker 3: of Famers here. And to your point, like, Abraham Lincoln,
55:09
Speaker 3: Winston Churchill, like... that's just ridiculous. Like, that's just ridiculous.
55:15
Speaker 3: I do, as much as we give Tops a hard time,
55:19
Speaker 3: I'm waiting for the behind-the-scenes video or walkthrough or, like,
55:23
Speaker 3: what does it take to go into producing that card?
55:26
Speaker 2: What did they buy?
55:28
Speaker 3: What historical document did they buy that Abraham Lincoln sold
55:31
Speaker 3: that they then cut up and put it.
55:32
Speaker 2: On a trading card?
55:33
Speaker 3: Like, the controversy that they had to probably go through
55:37
Speaker 3: to create this, like, that card itself, it's, like, was
55:40
Speaker 3: probably worth $ 20, 000 to start. And now it's in a
55:45
Speaker 3: baseball card and it's, it's unbelievably more, um, which is
55:48
Speaker 3: just kind of funny to think about, uh, destroying a
55:50
Speaker 3: historical document and then, uh, creating value out of it
55:53
Speaker 3: by putting it in cardboard.
55:55
Speaker 2: So, um, that's what the savvy is.
55:56
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's a little quirky and fun, but yeah, these,
55:59
Speaker 3: these one-on-one, the cut one-on-ones like that, if you pull that,
56:02
Speaker 3: like that's, that's the, the, the cherry.
56:05
Speaker 2: On top for anything, Alan and Ginter.
56:07
Speaker 3: Yeah.
56:08
Speaker 1: And then you've also got relic cut signatures, uh, as well,
56:12
Speaker 1: which is a, it's another tier up. These are actually
56:14
Speaker 1: one of ones that are one in every 379,000, 188
56:19
Speaker 1: hobby packs. This reminds me of like back in the
56:23
Speaker 1: day when you would sometimes look at like the products
56:25
Speaker 1: that you couldn't afford and like seeing the hit rates
56:28
Speaker 1: on them when you're reading Beckett magazine, that's what.
56:30
Speaker 2: Like these are.
56:31
Speaker 1: They're also going to be big chase cards, 11 of them.
56:34
Speaker 1: I have no idea what they look like because I
56:37
Speaker 1: don't know if we've ever seen something kind of like this,
56:39
Speaker 1: where the cut signatures are, Usually it's just like a
56:42
Speaker 1: piece of the paper and they put it in. It
56:44
Speaker 1: sounds like these will have either like the signatures on
56:48
Speaker 1: a relic or there's a relic attached. None have been
56:52
Speaker 1: hit yet. So I've got no pictures to see how
56:55
Speaker 1: they'll work out. It is a little bit of a
56:57
Speaker 1: tear down. You know, there's no like Babe Ruth and
56:59
Speaker 1: Ty Cobb in here, but it's 11 pretty good ballplayers
57:02
Speaker 1: are all in the Hall of Fame. So another good
57:04
Speaker 1: checklist there. Now that we talked up all of those autos,
57:09
Speaker 1: you're never going to hit them if you open Alan Ginter,
57:11
Speaker 1: which you're actually going to hit are a bunch of
57:12
Speaker 1: these relics. So there are relics galore in this product.
57:17
Speaker 1: And this is usually what is going to be one
57:19
Speaker 1: of your two hits. Well, both of your hits in
57:22
Speaker 1: your hobby box is you've got just the regular relics
57:25
Speaker 1: of like your normal napkin patches where you're going to
57:29
Speaker 1: feel like crap when you buy this almost $ 200 hobby
57:32
Speaker 1: box and you get two $ 5 relics. out of it,
57:35
Speaker 1: but that is probably the route that you're setting yourself
57:38
Speaker 1: up for. You've also got framed mini relics, which is
57:41
Speaker 1: just the same napkin patch, but in the smaller version.
57:45
Speaker 1: And then you've also got lineup cards without the autograph
57:48
Speaker 1: on it as well. So that will be a nice,
57:50
Speaker 1: nice little tear up on the relic cards. But like
57:53
Speaker 1: I said, you can pretty much guarantee that you're going
57:55
Speaker 1: to hit one of these regular relics for your, both
57:59
Speaker 1: of your hits. Because, you know, pack odds, one in
58:02
Speaker 1: every 37 hobby packs. So these things are ubiquitous. The
58:07
Speaker 1: nice little twist here is you do get some of
58:09
Speaker 1: those celebrities included too. So something to keep in mind
58:12
Speaker 1: is that those celebrities will be buried in here. You
58:16
Speaker 1: could get a piece of Jesse Eisenberg's shirt. You can
58:19
Speaker 1: get a piece of Xzibit's shirt. But maybe it's a
58:22
Speaker 1: piece of Xzibit's car. Sometimes they do mix it up where, like,
58:26
Speaker 1: if a celebrity has, like, a famous... stick, like a
58:29
Speaker 1: tie or a bow tie that will be inside their relic,
58:32
Speaker 1: like a piece of their tie. So it is a
58:35
Speaker 1: nice little twist, but like I said, that's probably where
58:37
Speaker 1: you're going to end up. Uh, you can see these
58:40
Speaker 1: relics for all sorts of Allen and Ginter's in all
58:44
Speaker 1: sorts of dollar boxes. If you go to any baseball
58:46
Speaker 1: card show. So they are ubiquitous. They will be a
58:50
Speaker 1: part of your collection. If you're open ripping Allen and Ginter,
58:53
Speaker 1: cause they'll pop out of blasters pretty, pretty often too. So, uh,
58:57
Speaker 1: am I denigrating these Allen and Ginter relics too much
59:00
Speaker 1: for you brew?
59:02
Speaker 3: Uh, maybe a little, just because there is one little
59:05
Speaker 3: quirk in here. They do have a full-size relic um
59:08
Speaker 3: which if you think uh like tier one or something
59:11
Speaker 3: like that where there is a it's still a napkin
59:14
Speaker 3: patch but it's like the big napkin patch and so
59:17
Speaker 3: Those are a little bit cooler. Some of them actually
59:19
Speaker 3: have bat relics in those as well. And so those
59:23
Speaker 3: ones to me are a little bit cooler. The lineup
59:27
Speaker 3: card ones, like I said, are really, really cool for
59:30
Speaker 3: the auto perspective. A little bit less so from the
59:34
Speaker 3: actual just card perspective because, you know, how much are
59:40
Speaker 3: you looking for like an actual jersey portion versus the
59:44
Speaker 3: actual genuine lineup card? It still looks really cool. There's
59:48
Speaker 3: the one-on-ones on those. So again, those are really fun cards.
59:51
Speaker 3: But if you're looking for the jersey, those will offset
59:54
Speaker 3: them as well. So like I said, I'll go with
59:57
Speaker 3: the jumbo relics are cool just because I'm a big.
1:00:00
Speaker 2: Patch kind of guy.
1:00:02
Speaker 3: But beyond that, it's going to be a little harder
1:00:04
Speaker 3: to find because you're not going to hit those very often.
1:00:06
Speaker 3: You're basically going to hit the little napkin patches, which
1:00:09
Speaker 3: are cool looking, but that's going to be probably 98%
1:00:12
Speaker 3: of what you're pulling in these boxes for hits.
1:00:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I mean, the other consideration too, is obviously
1:00:19
Speaker 1: if you start getting some of the parallels, you're going
1:00:20
Speaker 1: to get cooler patches, like multicolor patches. That is just
1:00:24
Speaker 1: the way that tops lines that up so that, you know,
1:00:27
Speaker 1: usually the one of one of the patch is like
1:00:30
Speaker 1: a pretty cool patch. So like, but at the same time,
1:00:33
Speaker 1: that is one in every 84,264 hobby packs. So they're
1:00:35
Speaker 1: pretty hard to hit. Even the up fifties is one
1:00:37
Speaker 1: in every 1500 hobby packs. So yeah, It's a lot
1:00:45
Speaker 1: of base relics that are floating around out there in
1:00:48
Speaker 1: this product. Last but not least, the inserts. So, I mean,
1:00:54
Speaker 1: maybe least in comparison to other A & G products
1:00:56
Speaker 1: for me, because I will say that the oddities here
1:00:59
Speaker 1: are a little lacking. You know, usually you get some
1:01:02
Speaker 1: sort of like food set or goofy animals or like
1:01:08
Speaker 1: gross looking animals or something like that. I think because
1:01:12
Speaker 1: of what we were talking about in terms of the
1:01:14
Speaker 1: production issues, where usually this is the spring set got
1:01:17
Speaker 1: delayed quite a bit and it's really kind of caused
1:01:20
Speaker 1: chaos in the rest of the fanatic schedule, as well
1:01:23
Speaker 1: as maybe some of the other things that we've encountered,
1:01:26
Speaker 1: like you uncovering some 24 pack hobby boxes out there.
1:01:30
Speaker 1: There's only two weirdo inserts this year, which is kind
1:01:34
Speaker 1: of strange. Usually you get like half a dozen, but
1:01:37
Speaker 1: you've only got, 50 ways to say hello minis and
1:01:41
Speaker 1: musical method minis. So the 50 ways to say hello,
1:01:45
Speaker 1: it's just 50 cards that have a greeting or how
1:01:48
Speaker 1: to say hello in a different language on the card.
1:01:51
Speaker 1: And that's it. Musical methods mini is different instruments and
1:01:56
Speaker 1: different kind of ways of making music. That's it. Kind
1:02:00
Speaker 1: of disappointing.
1:02:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, a little disappointing.
1:02:02
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, give me my jukebox or my gramophones
1:02:05
Speaker 3: or whatever it's going to be. Like, yeah, they're interesting,
1:02:09
Speaker 3: but like, yeah, they're kind of disappointing at the end
1:02:11
Speaker 3: of the day. So yeah, nothing too much there. And
1:02:16
Speaker 3: I mean, who's really going to collect the 50 ways
1:02:18
Speaker 3: to say hello set? Like, just doesn't feel like it's
1:02:21
Speaker 3: that exciting.
1:02:23
Speaker 1: No, not as exciting as putting together like, you know,
1:02:25
Speaker 1: the 50 state birds or something like that, where there's,
1:02:27
Speaker 1: you know, there's like a tangible kind of, collection that
1:02:31
Speaker 1: you're working towards as opposed to 50 random countries you
1:02:35
Speaker 1: know yeah or languages i guess not countries uh on
1:02:40
Speaker 1: the baseball side again it's actually a very limited number
1:02:44
Speaker 1: of of inserts we've got career 250 which is a
1:02:49
Speaker 1: kind of a strange insert set name but it's really
1:02:52
Speaker 1: just like it's a lot like significant statistics from flagship
1:02:57
Speaker 1: but in allen and ginter it just has players who
1:03:01
Speaker 1: have had put up famous numbers and that's the card. Uh,
1:03:05
Speaker 1: you've got variations of the mini. So you've got an
1:03:07
Speaker 1: N 34 and N 43 and rookie design variations. So
1:03:11
Speaker 1: that's another kind of parallel on top of the ones
1:03:14
Speaker 1: that we're talking about. Technically they're an insert set and
1:03:17
Speaker 1: the rookie ones, they do pop out cause they will
1:03:20
Speaker 1: look a little bit different. They actually look traditionally like
1:03:23
Speaker 1: they're more old timey looking than even the regular minis
1:03:26
Speaker 1: because they're The regular minis have like the flags and
1:03:29
Speaker 1: kind of banners from the normal Alan and Ginter set.
1:03:32
Speaker 1: The rookie design variations, the way that Alan and Ginter
1:03:36
Speaker 1: usually designs them is it almost makes them look like dead,
1:03:39
Speaker 1: like they're in heaven, like it's all white around them.
1:03:41
Speaker 1: So something to keep your eyes out for. You also
1:03:45
Speaker 1: will have uniform countdown. This continues on from other sets.
1:03:48
Speaker 1: So that will be an interesting chase for collectors out
1:03:51
Speaker 1: there that were trying to put together the uniform countdown set.
1:03:56
Speaker 1: Nothing pretty, nothing fancy there where each number as it
1:03:59
Speaker 1: goes on matches a player's uniform number from real life.
1:04:04
Speaker 1: And then the number of cards of the pair for
1:04:07
Speaker 1: the number of like serial number parallels matches that as well.
1:04:11
Speaker 1: And then you've also got wicked power, which this builds
1:04:15
Speaker 1: on wicked curve was the one last year. It's actually
1:04:18
Speaker 1: got a little bit like a wicked tie in, but
1:04:20
Speaker 1: it's also kind of like straying away from that at
1:04:23
Speaker 1: the same time. It's not trying to connect it too much.
1:04:26
Speaker 1: But it's just a design of like a normal looking
1:04:30
Speaker 1: insert that says wicked power on it with a bunch
1:04:32
Speaker 1: of power hitters. So once again, like I said, this
1:04:35
Speaker 1: is a pretty disappointing insert kind of list. But I mean,
1:04:40
Speaker 1: there's so many other things that are in the rest
1:04:42
Speaker 1: of the product. You can see where they focus their
1:04:44
Speaker 1: time and effort in 2026 A & G.
1:04:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'm looking for like a silver lining
1:04:49
Speaker 3: on all these inserts, but there really isn't one. Like
1:04:53
Speaker 3: even the uniform countdowns, like it's a really cool concept.
1:04:56
Speaker 3: And we've seen this with other products where they do
1:04:57
Speaker 3: like the uniform player and things like that. But the
1:05:00
Speaker 3: design is just pretty, pretty rough. Um, at the end
1:05:03
Speaker 3: of the day. So like, yeah, maybe the mini variations
1:05:06
Speaker 3: of like a rookie or something like that, which is
1:05:08
Speaker 3: kind of clean. That might be the one that I'm like, yeah,
1:05:11
Speaker 3: that'd be kind of cool to get like a Murakami
1:05:13
Speaker 3: or something like that. But at the end of the day,
1:05:15
Speaker 3: it's yeah, it's going to be pretty rough on the
1:05:18
Speaker 3: overall inserts. So, uh, kind of a nothing to see
1:05:20
Speaker 3: here and go back to collecting your jukeboxes.
1:05:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So that will wrap us up for
1:05:26
Speaker 1: 20 and 26 Allen and Ginter. I mean, even though
1:05:30
Speaker 1: there's flaws in it, I think it's still a fun
1:05:32
Speaker 1: set and certainly we'll uncover a lot of cool cards.
1:05:36
Speaker 1: I'm interested to see some of these cut signatures, what
1:05:39
Speaker 1: they look like simply because they are one of ones
1:05:42
Speaker 1: and you don't see pictures of them outside of some
1:05:45
Speaker 1: of the promo materials until they get ripped. So lots
1:05:49
Speaker 1: of fun things, lots of things that probably could unfold
1:05:51
Speaker 1: as well too. So keep that in mind. If you're
1:05:53
Speaker 1: listening to this in the future, We talked about this
1:05:56
Speaker 1: on release date. We didn't know if there were other
1:05:58
Speaker 1: short prints and kind of random hits or other things
1:06:02
Speaker 1: that have cropped up production wise. So with that, we're
1:06:05
Speaker 1: going to wrap up the Allen and Ginter segment and
1:06:09
Speaker 1: we will take a break. Going to return on the
1:06:11
Speaker 1: other side to talk the September player of the month
1:06:13
Speaker 1: PC picks.
1:06:31
Speaker 2: All right.
1:06:31
Speaker 1: Welcome back, everybody. We're going to get into our September
1:06:34
Speaker 1: Player of the Month PC picks. If you are not
1:06:37
Speaker 1: familiar with this, what we do every month after the
1:06:41
Speaker 1: Players of the Month for MLB are announced is go
1:06:44
Speaker 1: through and induct into our pod PC, our personal collection,
1:06:48
Speaker 1: which is ultimately just a running list of fun cards
1:06:51
Speaker 1: that we like for each of the winners from the pitcher,
1:06:55
Speaker 1: the batter, and the rookie. So, Usually that results obviously
1:07:00
Speaker 1: in six. If you can multiply three times two, this
1:07:04
Speaker 1: time we're only going to have five players because we
1:07:05
Speaker 1: had a double dip. We'll get into that as we
1:07:08
Speaker 1: explain some of the players here. And if you are
1:07:11
Speaker 1: listening to this, go into the show notes, go into
1:07:14
Speaker 1: those details, click on the link that is in there.
1:07:18
Speaker 1: We'll get to the Ras ball post because even if
1:07:21
Speaker 1: you were familiar with Allen and Ginter and you could
1:07:23
Speaker 1: envision all of the great descriptions we were given to
1:07:26
Speaker 1: you at these cards, You're going to need it, I think,
1:07:28
Speaker 1: especially for these PC picks, because it just kind of
1:07:31
Speaker 1: adds another layer of seeing the card, because we've also
1:07:34
Speaker 1: got some fun picks, I think, this month. We've got
1:07:36
Speaker 1: a few oddballs. September, I feel like September and April
1:07:39
Speaker 1: are always the oddest ball months in terms of what
1:07:43
Speaker 1: we're looking at, because between September performances being strange, and
1:07:49
Speaker 1: in April, people not quite knowing the full story arc
1:07:53
Speaker 1: of the season, they'll do Ildemar Vargas gets a player
1:07:56
Speaker 1: of the month, for example, back in April. So for September,
1:08:01
Speaker 1: we've got some fun names. Let's start with the AL
1:08:03
Speaker 1: side first. The player of the month and the rookie
1:08:06
Speaker 1: of the month, Carter Jensen from the Kansas City Royals,
1:08:09
Speaker 1: who I victory lapped last week because of the number
1:08:13
Speaker 1: of homers that he put up. Really, I was saved
1:08:16
Speaker 1: by Carter Jensen in September because he put up 19
1:08:20
Speaker 1: extra base hits with 8 homers and batted 338 in
1:08:23
Speaker 1: 21 games and 1194 OPS. It was a really big
1:08:27
Speaker 1: breakout month for the 23-year-old. I think it's going to
1:08:30
Speaker 1: put lots of people onto him as we get into
1:08:33
Speaker 1: draft season, as we talked about last week when we
1:08:36
Speaker 1: were doing our Fantasy Picks recap. But we're looking at
1:08:39
Speaker 1: some cards for him. His first time going to the PC,
1:08:42
Speaker 1: he did not win Rookie of the Month or Player
1:08:44
Speaker 1: of the Month at any other point this season. So,
1:08:48
Speaker 1: Fresh name, Brew, where are you going to put a
1:08:50
Speaker 1: card in for Carter Jensen?
1:08:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, so for Carter Jensen, there's a decent number of
1:08:55
Speaker 3: options out there, but like i felt like i had
1:08:57
Speaker 3: to go to one of our like sweet spots with
1:09:00
Speaker 3: uh carter jensen and i'm going to go with his
1:09:02
Speaker 3: 2026 tops chrome rookie Blue refractor color match out of 150.
1:09:09
Speaker 3: The one that's actually linked in the show notes is
1:09:11
Speaker 3: 150 out of 150. So it's the old eBay one-of-one,
1:09:16
Speaker 3: as people like to call it. But it is the
1:09:18
Speaker 3: last on-print of the card. But what I love about
1:09:21
Speaker 3: this card is the color match of it is just
1:09:24
Speaker 3: all over. You've got the royal blue border. You have
1:09:29
Speaker 3: the gold, which is the top of the Kansas City
1:09:31
Speaker 3: royal logo, is kind of the... the patch, if you may,
1:09:37
Speaker 3: on the card design, which I know we've talked about
1:09:39
Speaker 3: this card design, maybe not our favorite, but it works here.
1:09:42
Speaker 3: But not only that, everything behind him is at the
1:09:46
Speaker 3: Royal Stadium at Coffin Stadium is blue. He has the
1:09:49
Speaker 3: blue pen signature. And so it just all works perfectly together.
1:09:54
Speaker 3: And we kind of trash on some of the signatures here.
1:09:59
Speaker 3: Carter Jensen's got a pretty nice signature. And it's not
1:10:02
Speaker 3: like it's over the top or it's not like it's
1:10:05
Speaker 3: like a Randy Rose Arena type signature where you can
1:10:07
Speaker 3: read the whole thing. He's got a very distinct C,
1:10:09
Speaker 3: a very distinct J, and it just looks clean and complete.
1:10:13
Speaker 3: And so I absolutely love the signature. And even this card,
1:10:16
Speaker 3: the way it works is on a lot of those
1:10:18
Speaker 3: auto cards, there's kind of like a white space to it.
1:10:21
Speaker 3: It just works perfectly because it's where his white pants are.
1:10:24
Speaker 3: And so it looks just made for that blue signature there.
1:10:27
Speaker 3: So this one just stuck out to me. Available on
1:10:30
Speaker 3: eBay right now if you would like it for $ 200.
1:10:33
Speaker 2: Maybe a little.
1:10:33
Speaker 3: Pricey for a Carter Jensen rookie auto, but at the
1:10:38
Speaker 3: end of the day, it is a really, really beautiful card.
1:10:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, well, you're getting that one 50 of
1:10:42
Speaker 1: one 50. So you're going to have to pay the
1:10:43
Speaker 1: premium there. Yeah. Great choice. I don't think you could
1:10:47
Speaker 1: go wrong with the blue color matches for the Royals
1:10:50
Speaker 1: are just like something else, man. It would be also
1:10:54
Speaker 1: like a great team to PC because you get much
1:10:57
Speaker 1: easier to find one fifties than Cardinals red of fives.
1:11:01
Speaker 1: And so, It's a nice little niche if you're into it.
1:11:05
Speaker 1: It does look beautiful. Great, great choice.
1:11:08
Speaker 3: All right, where did you go with Carter Jensen? How
1:11:11
Speaker 3: do you upstage my blue refractor auto?
1:11:15
Speaker 1: All right, well, I'm also going with the 2026 card,
1:11:18
Speaker 1: but I'm going from Top Series 2. I'm going with
1:11:21
Speaker 1: the Major League Materials of 10 Black Parallel and.
1:11:29
Speaker 1: This card is ridiculous. This is one where you definitely
1:11:31
Speaker 1: should go to the show notes and look at it
1:11:33
Speaker 1: because first they did our boy wrong because Carter Jensen
1:11:39
Speaker 1: wears a hat for a reason. That hairline is whack.
1:11:43
Speaker 1: Even though he's 23 years old, he's probably like 22
1:11:45
Speaker 1: in this picture is a rough hairline. My man that
1:11:49
Speaker 1: like I can understand why you're wearing a hat all
1:11:53
Speaker 1: the time, but he is running out of the box.
1:11:56
Speaker 1: So he's got no helmet on. flying off. You can
1:11:58
Speaker 1: see where the comb over kind of starts, which is
1:12:02
Speaker 1: kind of brutal, but it's a beautiful blue and white
1:12:04
Speaker 1: patch on this thing. Again, you get the great signature.
1:12:07
Speaker 1: And then I actually, I have this on because I
1:12:10
Speaker 1: have an MLM card like this of Jordan Walker. The
1:12:14
Speaker 1: MLM cards, when you've got the bigger patches and nicer
1:12:17
Speaker 1: patches in them with the auto, the plasticky part that
1:12:23
Speaker 1: is the gloss on the front phrased from the card
1:12:26
Speaker 1: a lot and it's happening here on this carter jensen
1:12:28
Speaker 1: card which is unfortunate i would not pay 300 for
1:12:31
Speaker 1: this sucker because of that uh even though it is
1:12:33
Speaker 1: beautiful you can see it on the top of the
1:12:35
Speaker 1: damage of like the the plastic front starting to peel
1:12:38
Speaker 1: away from the card just kind of also adds to
1:12:41
Speaker 1: the ugly slash cool slash beautiful dichotomy of this card
1:12:46
Speaker 1: it's got everything going on can't go wrong with a
1:12:50
Speaker 1: nice little patch auto for carter jensen Yeah, this is.
1:12:54
Speaker 2: A great pick.
1:12:55
Speaker 3: It's a, it's a good patch. I actually love this
1:12:57
Speaker 3: from really clear stitching on the patch. And as much
1:13:00
Speaker 3: as you're giving him a hard time about the hairline,
1:13:02
Speaker 3: which is a hundred percent deserved. Um, I also just
1:13:05
Speaker 3: love the hustle in of the photo. Like I just
1:13:07
Speaker 3: love the fact that he is like booking it. Uh,
1:13:10
Speaker 3: it does look like he probably just slipped out of
1:13:11
Speaker 3: the batter box and started to do everything he can, but, um,
1:13:14
Speaker 3: it is a really great photo, uh, only downfalls the
1:13:18
Speaker 3: sticker auto aspect of it, but Hey, Beggars can't be choosers. Otherwise,
1:13:21
Speaker 3: this is a fantastic card. The one thing I'm still
1:13:23
Speaker 3: trying to figure out is like, there's so little black
1:13:25
Speaker 3: on this. It's the black out of 10 parallel. There's
1:13:28
Speaker 3: like the smallest hint of black on this one because
1:13:31
Speaker 3: you got so much else going on with this design.
1:13:33
Speaker 3: But they've done a really good job with these Relic
1:13:38
Speaker 3: Autos with some of the newer series.
1:13:41
Speaker 2: This is a series two.
1:13:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's actually, it's like the black shadow around the
1:13:46
Speaker 1: rhombus at the top of the card. Yeah, you can
1:13:49
Speaker 1: only notice it when you're actually looking at like the
1:13:52
Speaker 1: orange parallels of these. You can really tell the black.
1:13:55
Speaker 1: It does not show as well. But yeah, if anything,
1:13:57
Speaker 1: it's kind of nice because then you don't have to
1:13:59
Speaker 1: worry about the clash too much that the the black
1:14:02
Speaker 1: works well with the rest of the card. OK, we're
1:14:06
Speaker 1: going to go over to the NL side. We where
1:14:08
Speaker 1: we are going to talk. Ellie Dilla Cruz of the
1:14:11
Speaker 1: Cincinnati Reds won the September player of the month. posted
1:14:15
Speaker 1: a three 48, four 37, seven 19 slash line and
1:14:19
Speaker 1: hit nine homers while stealing six spaces, uh, as well
1:14:24
Speaker 1: as getting up to a 30, 30 season. So nice
1:14:28
Speaker 1: little cap to the season overall from Ellie. And I
1:14:31
Speaker 1: believe this is actually our first time that we're putting
1:14:34
Speaker 1: Ellie into the PC. So it is bananas that it
1:14:38
Speaker 1: took us this long considering he was such a hot
1:14:43
Speaker 1: player and, for so many years. And with that, the oyster,
1:14:48
Speaker 1: the world is your oyster here, Brew, in terms of
1:14:52
Speaker 1: LA Dilla Cruise cards. Which one are you picking?
1:14:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it was. There are so many options out there.
1:14:58
Speaker 3: I did feel like I should go after like the
1:15:00
Speaker 3: Bowman First LA Auto or something like that. Like that
1:15:03
Speaker 3: was such an iconic card when it came out. It
1:15:06
Speaker 3: was such a big, big chase because it did come
1:15:09
Speaker 3: out later after he'd kind of already made his mark
1:15:12
Speaker 3: as a huge prospect. But I found one that I
1:15:15
Speaker 3: just couldn't resist, and I do have a tendency at
1:15:17
Speaker 3: times to kind of cheat the PC here, and I'm
1:15:20
Speaker 3: owning that. I'm definitely cheating the PC a little here,
1:15:22
Speaker 3: but we're going to go with the 2026 Topps Chrome
1:15:26
Speaker 3: Dual Auto.
1:15:27
Speaker 2: So we got Eli De.
1:15:28
Speaker 3: La Cruz in his Reds jersey, and we got another superstar,
1:15:33
Speaker 3: Ken Griffey Jr., in his Cincinnati Reds jersey here. This
1:15:37
Speaker 3: is the one-of-one Super Fracture. Both appear to be, I'm
1:15:41
Speaker 3: looking at the pictures, appear to be on-card autos. Um,
1:15:45
Speaker 3: and both guys look absolutely great in the, in the
1:15:48
Speaker 3: photos here, both of them holding, uh, holding their bats
1:15:51
Speaker 3: in their sensei jerseys. Uh, the super fractor absolutely pops. And, uh,
1:15:55
Speaker 3: the King Griffey jr. Signature is bar none. One of
1:15:58
Speaker 3: the best as always Ellie's signature.
1:16:01
Speaker 2: I always say you.
1:16:02
Speaker 3: Need a little work, uh, Ellie on that one, but that's,
1:16:04
Speaker 3: that's okay. Uh, but it is an absolutely stunning card.
1:16:08
Speaker 3: I also love the fact that, uh, it has kind
1:16:09
Speaker 3: of a red border around the signatures, the same on
1:16:12
Speaker 3: the back of the red. So, There's a little bit
1:16:14
Speaker 3: of a color match playing as well. But, again, I'm
1:16:17
Speaker 3: cheating the PC. Anytime I can get a King Griffey Jr.
1:16:20
Speaker 3: signature into the PC, I'm going to take advantage of it.
1:16:24
Speaker 2: This one's available. You want it, only $ 20, 000 on eBay.
1:16:28
Speaker 2: Right now, it's available. Better hurry up.
1:16:30
Speaker 1: It's in one cart.
1:16:34
Speaker 3: I it's, it's probably a Mike Hart. I'm going to get,
1:16:37
Speaker 3: I'm going to get offers on this later tonight.
1:16:40
Speaker 1: We both are. That is because yeah, low key, like
1:16:43
Speaker 1: one of the crazier parts of when we do these
1:16:45
Speaker 1: podcasts is like all of the random eBay offers that
1:16:48
Speaker 1: get sent to you because of like all the tracking
1:16:51
Speaker 1: mechanisms that allow people to like, then send coupons out
1:16:55
Speaker 1: through eBay that this one that you've signed us up for,
1:16:57
Speaker 1: for 20 grand on the podcast. I'm looking forward to
1:17:00
Speaker 1: when I get a $ 50 off coupon tomorrow morning, from
1:17:05
Speaker 1: us pup too so uh yeah great pick way to
1:17:09
Speaker 1: way to backdoor ken griffey jr auto into our pc
1:17:12
Speaker 1: uh couldn't have done it any better way though.
1:17:15
Speaker 3: Just you wait i'm not done for the night so
1:17:16
Speaker 3: i'm coming back later i'm back for another one so
1:17:19
Speaker 3: where did you go with ellie there's a lot of options.
1:17:21
Speaker 1: Yeah i mean because of that i mean i i
1:17:23
Speaker 1: went upper end too so i'm looking at the 2024
1:17:26
Speaker 1: tops chrome cosmic Red Flare Auto. So I wanted to
1:17:33
Speaker 1: do a red auto. Obviously, it's of five. And I
1:17:37
Speaker 1: don't think any of the Topps Chrome ones from 2024
1:17:40
Speaker 1: really like floating around. I poked around. They're all tucked away.
1:17:44
Speaker 1: They've been picked up by the biggest LE collectors out there,
1:17:47
Speaker 1: most likely. And on top of it, too, like, as
1:17:50
Speaker 1: you know, 2024 was not my favorite design, even though
1:17:54
Speaker 1: the LE card I liked. But like the actual auto
1:17:58
Speaker 1: of it is a different photo than it is on
1:18:01
Speaker 1: his base card design. So it's, it's not quite as
1:18:04
Speaker 1: good as the action shot. You actually get that photo
1:18:07
Speaker 1: from his flagship card back on this cosmic Chrome card,
1:18:12
Speaker 1: I believe. Then you get to add all sorts of
1:18:14
Speaker 1: cool planets and zigzags and X's and it's a red card.
1:18:19
Speaker 1: You get the famous LA Dilla Cruz E and a
1:18:23
Speaker 1: bunch of scribbles going on to it. it's just a
1:18:26
Speaker 1: it's a beautiful card only it's only a nine so
1:18:29
Speaker 1: the one that i found is in case it's an
1:18:31
Speaker 1: only a nine because that only three grand uh or
1:18:35
Speaker 1: at least that was the best accepted offer on it
1:18:37
Speaker 1: much cheaper than your card but i figured you can't
1:18:40
Speaker 1: go wrong with a nice little rookie card color match
1:18:43
Speaker 1: auto for ellie de la cruz going into the PC.
1:18:46
Speaker 3: I mean, I have to give tops credit cosmic Chrome
1:18:48
Speaker 3: when it came out a few years ago, I think
1:18:50
Speaker 3: we both kind of scoffed at a little because they
1:18:51
Speaker 3: also went overboard and tried to do like Sonic and
1:18:53
Speaker 3: all these other things that just didn't work. But cosmic
1:18:56
Speaker 3: Chrome's worked continues to work.
1:18:58
Speaker 2: It's just, it's cool.
1:19:00
Speaker 3: I it's the designs just can be going. And the
1:19:02
Speaker 3: amount of red on this is just insane. So the
1:19:06
Speaker 3: color match is just so, so strong. Again, Ellie, please
1:19:10
Speaker 3: work on your signature. I got an E and a scribble.
1:19:13
Speaker 3: Work on that, and we'll give you a little bit
1:19:15
Speaker 3: higher grade next time.
1:19:16
Speaker 2: But, yeah, this is a great pick.
1:19:20
Speaker 1: All right. Well, let's get into the pitchers. On the
1:19:22
Speaker 1: AL side, our pitcher of the month was Freddy Peralta,
1:19:24
Speaker 1: who never saw this coming because he was so awful
1:19:28
Speaker 1: for the Mets to where, like, I wrote about him.
1:19:30
Speaker 1: I thought he was just injured. Apparently, the Mets just
1:19:33
Speaker 1: had some awful coaching for him because, The Rays have
1:19:36
Speaker 1: turned Freddy Peralta around and it showed in September. He
1:19:40
Speaker 1: had five starts and 28 innings and a ERA of, well,
1:19:46
Speaker 1: they didn't calculate the ERA for me on this article.
1:19:48
Speaker 1: It's three earned runs in those 28 innings. That's mean MLB.com
1:19:52
Speaker 1: to not calculate the ERA. The whip was 0.89 and
1:19:56
Speaker 1: he just like absolutely dominated. He looked great for the Rays.
1:19:59
Speaker 1: He turned Not only his season around, but like his
1:20:02
Speaker 1: free agency in the offseason, I think is going to
1:20:05
Speaker 1: be totally different now that he had this month, two
1:20:10
Speaker 1: months with the Rays to show that like he's not hurt.
1:20:13
Speaker 1: It's just that whatever the Mets were whispering in Freddy
1:20:15
Speaker 1: Peralta's ear was awful for four months out of the year. Actually,
1:20:20
Speaker 1: the second time that Freddy Peralta is going into the PC.
1:20:22
Speaker 1: So we've got to go not with our initial choices here.
1:20:25
Speaker 1: We got to go a little bit deeper. Where'd you
1:20:27
Speaker 1: go for Freddy Peralta for the PC?
1:20:30
Speaker 3: Well, this is dangerous because we both know that I'm
1:20:32
Speaker 3: really bad at checking what we've already put in the PC, which.
1:20:34
Speaker 2: Is 100% honest.
1:20:36
Speaker 3: The same exact problem with my actual PC. It has
1:20:42
Speaker 3: happened way too many times where I'm like, I love
1:20:44
Speaker 3: this card. I buy it and I go to put
1:20:45
Speaker 3: it like everybody has their organization. So I'll go to
1:20:47
Speaker 3: put it with my player and I have my PC
1:20:49
Speaker 3: players buy like autos and relics and numbered cards. And
1:20:52
Speaker 3: I go to put it in and I find like
1:20:53
Speaker 3: the exact same card. I'm like, All right, which one
1:20:55
Speaker 3: looks a little better?
1:20:56
Speaker 2: And then I put it in.
1:20:57
Speaker 3: I have to resell it because I just bought it.
1:20:59
Speaker 3: So it happened a few times. So I don't think
1:21:01
Speaker 3: I did it this time because I love what I found.
1:21:03
Speaker 3: But I went to 2019 Stadium Club. So one of
1:21:09
Speaker 3: our favorite sets. And 2019 Stadium Club is a strong
1:21:12
Speaker 3: one as well. Went with his auto red out of 50.
1:21:17
Speaker 2: And this is Peralta.
1:21:19
Speaker 3: Absolutely gunning one in. This is from a center field shot.
1:21:23
Speaker 3: Peralta's got the massive leg kick going on. I'm just
1:21:27
Speaker 3: going to say he's striking out Max Muncy. You can't
1:21:31
Speaker 3: actually tell if it's a strike. Muncy's not swinging, but
1:21:34
Speaker 3: there's a great framing there. I don't remember who the
1:21:39
Speaker 3: catcher was for the Brewers in 2019. I can't quite tell,
1:21:45
Speaker 3: so maybe you'll figure that out by the time I
1:21:46
Speaker 3: finish explaining this.
1:21:48
Speaker 2: Um, but the other great thing about.
1:21:50
Speaker 3: This, uh, besides it being out of 50, it's stadium
1:21:53
Speaker 3: club is such a clean, it's basically. No borders on
1:21:56
Speaker 3: the card. And it is an on-card auto yet again
1:22:00
Speaker 3: with the wonderful blue ink on this one. So, absolutely
1:22:04
Speaker 3: a fun card. Obviously, great angle. Like, this is not
1:22:09
Speaker 3: a photo angle that you see on almost any card. So,
1:22:12
Speaker 3: I think it's absolutely a great one to have on
1:22:15
Speaker 3: the PC. And if you want to add it to
1:22:17
Speaker 3: your PC, it's completely reasonable. $ 55 or best offer on
1:22:21
Speaker 3: eBay right now.
1:22:22
Speaker 2: And so.
1:22:23
Speaker 3: If you want Freddie Peralta in your PC with a really,
1:22:26
Speaker 3: really cool Stadium Club card, you can do it.
1:22:29
Speaker 1: All right. We've got a couple of options from when
1:22:32
Speaker 1: this card is a photo of. He was, let's see,
1:22:38
Speaker 1: back in 2018, he pitched against the Dodgers. And it was,
1:22:47
Speaker 1: I think this is probably the game, actually, because, yep,
1:22:50
Speaker 1: there's Max Muncy with two Ks. It looks like it's
1:22:53
Speaker 1: Manny Pina.
1:22:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
1:22:56
Speaker 3: I'm zooming in on the picture. Yeah, I would buy that.
1:23:00
Speaker 3: The little that you can see through the face max,
1:23:02
Speaker 3: I could buy that.
1:23:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, not Peralta's greatest outing. Four innings, four walks, six Ks,
1:23:08
Speaker 1: one earned run.
1:23:09
Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's maybe leave that part aside. The photo's cool, though.
1:23:12
Speaker 2: It is a cool photo. I like it.
1:23:14
Speaker 1: It's also, it's really unique. Like, usually you don't get
1:23:17
Speaker 1: photos like this where, like, the players a little bit
1:23:20
Speaker 1: out of focus and like not exactly the main portion
1:23:23
Speaker 1: of the shot where like it almost looks a little
1:23:26
Speaker 1: bit more like a umpire or Max Muncy card, but
1:23:29
Speaker 1: I think that's cool. And then Freddie Peralta honestly took
1:23:31
Speaker 1: this to another tier. Cause it, he made it look
1:23:34
Speaker 1: like he's farting out his signature. Like there's no other
1:23:36
Speaker 1: better way to say it. It's coming like right out
1:23:39
Speaker 1: of his butt. It is perfect. And he's got the
1:23:42
Speaker 1: perfect angle of his leg up in the air for
1:23:44
Speaker 1: him to place that in there. I hope that's what
1:23:46
Speaker 1: his thought was when that's when he, why he dropped the,
1:23:49
Speaker 1: the auto there.
1:23:52
Speaker 2: Not at all. I picked it, but I can't unsee
1:23:54
Speaker 2: it now. I'm sorry. All right. Bring us back to
1:23:59
Speaker 2: earth here with Freddie Peralta.
1:24:01
Speaker 1: Okay. Well, I think I just went with a trident
1:24:03
Speaker 1: true classic here, 2017 Bowman. It is his chrome Bowman
1:24:08
Speaker 1: first auto refractor of four 99 and I mean, the
1:24:13
Speaker 1: other component of Freddy Peralta, when I was looking at
1:24:15
Speaker 1: his cards, he's actually got a pretty good signature. It's
1:24:20
Speaker 1: better in his early days, and you can see that
1:24:23
Speaker 1: evolution from when, in my card in 2017, to years,
1:24:28
Speaker 1: a couple years later, you can see where it started like,
1:24:31
Speaker 1: you know, he's got to get it a little quicker.
1:24:32
Speaker 1: He took his time in 2017 signing his first Bowman Autos.
1:24:37
Speaker 1: The one that I linked to is around $ 50, but I,
1:24:40
Speaker 1: this card has been all over the place, especially over
1:24:42
Speaker 1: the summer. It dipped down until like $ 8. Like, but
1:24:46
Speaker 1: it has popped back as people have seen the good
1:24:49
Speaker 1: month and with the rays going into the, the playoffs,
1:24:52
Speaker 1: but Freddie Peralta is not exactly like a hot name
1:24:54
Speaker 1: in the, in the hobby either. I had to put
1:24:57
Speaker 1: this in because we talk about it every once in
1:24:59
Speaker 1: a while about like Bowman going through like a, an
1:25:03
Speaker 1: identity crisis from like 2015 to 2019. And it, the
1:25:10
Speaker 1: cards were just kind of dark and like weirdly futuristic
1:25:14
Speaker 1: and like really into like, I don't know, metal music
1:25:18
Speaker 1: or something. And then this is a good emblematic of that.
1:25:21
Speaker 1: I don't even know what's going on in terms of
1:25:23
Speaker 1: like the design is impossible to describe. It's like, uh,
1:25:28
Speaker 1: metallic and mechanical. And there's like a diamond gem and
1:25:34
Speaker 1: there's no border to it. It's borderless Bowman, which is
1:25:38
Speaker 1: kind of weird. Uh, it's a mess, uh, but I
1:25:40
Speaker 1: think it's going to go down in terms of like
1:25:43
Speaker 1: the way that like some of the messy designs of
1:25:47
Speaker 1: like the nineties and the eighties. And you kind of
1:25:50
Speaker 1: think of big, the big colors in the nineties. I
1:25:53
Speaker 1: think this will stand out in terms of like peak 2010s,
1:25:58
Speaker 1: just design in terms of like more is more.
1:26:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. This is like high tech and Bowman got together
1:26:05
Speaker 2: and had a baby.
1:26:06
Speaker 3: So like that's, that's what the, like, and it's, It's
1:26:10
Speaker 3: just funny that it's all the logo for the Brewers
1:26:13
Speaker 3: on this one. The rest of the cards isn't too bad.
1:26:16
Speaker 3: And all of a sudden you get the logo and
1:26:17
Speaker 3: you're like, what is happening here? It's like part of
1:26:19
Speaker 3: a spinning wheel or something. I don't quite know.
1:26:22
Speaker 2: But this is a good card.
1:26:24
Speaker 3: To your point, Peralta Signers was better early on. Always
1:26:28
Speaker 3: got to love a first Bowman Refractor as well. So
1:26:31
Speaker 3: this is a good pick. And I do tend to like,
1:26:35
Speaker 3: for these guys that end up bouncing around for a
1:26:37
Speaker 3: few teams on short deals... and things like that. I
1:26:39
Speaker 3: kind of like to get their original jersey. And we
1:26:43
Speaker 3: know this is photoshopped, but it's actually a really, really
1:26:45
Speaker 3: good job doing it. So this is a good pick.
1:26:49
Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into the NL pitcher of the month.
1:26:52
Speaker 1: And it was Pittsburgh Pirates' Jared Jones, which honestly, this
1:26:55
Speaker 1: one kind of blew me away because I had written
1:26:57
Speaker 1: him off like midway through the season when it was
1:27:00
Speaker 1: not looking good. And then he turned it on in
1:27:03
Speaker 1: the second half, came out with a new vengeance in
1:27:07
Speaker 1: post-All-Star break, And September was crazy good in five outings.
1:27:13
Speaker 1: He went 3-0, 29 innings, 40 Ks to four walks.
1:27:18
Speaker 1: That is good for, or it was good for a.
1:27:22
Speaker 1: 86 FIP and a. 93 ERA. Honestly, took him from
1:27:28
Speaker 1: somebody I was not considering into 2027 to somebody where
1:27:31
Speaker 1: like borderline ace, maybe like where like, it was everything
1:27:36
Speaker 1: you wanted to see from Jared Jones. And he went
1:27:39
Speaker 1: like good long outings before September. He had the longest outing.
1:27:44
Speaker 1: He had the season was six innings, which he did
1:27:47
Speaker 1: three times. Uh, he went six innings three times in
1:27:52
Speaker 1: September and want seven twice. I mean, seven is in
1:27:57
Speaker 1: that six that I talked about. If you're trying to
1:27:59
Speaker 1: do all the math and stuff, but look fantastic as well.
1:28:02
Speaker 1: So great month from Jared Jones. If you were off,
1:28:05
Speaker 1: him at some point during the season because he was
1:28:08
Speaker 1: sloppy and the velo wasn't there he refound it down
1:28:12
Speaker 1: the stretch so somebody that i think in 2027 i'm
1:28:15
Speaker 1: moving up my board for sure first time for him
1:28:18
Speaker 1: going to the pc what's your choice here bro so
1:28:21
Speaker 1: before we.
1:28:22
Speaker 3: Get to this just one of the fun intricacies of
1:28:25
Speaker 3: when we you and i build out our plans for
1:28:28
Speaker 3: the podcast here is whenever we do the player of
1:28:30
Speaker 3: the month you always put together uh kind of the
1:28:32
Speaker 3: the rundown the details, the players, and then, you know,
1:28:35
Speaker 3: let me know, hey, it's available. And then there's this
1:28:38
Speaker 3: this kind of like quasi, like unplanned race to who's
1:28:42
Speaker 3: going to pick out their cards first. And a lot
1:28:44
Speaker 3: of times, like, you know, there's like a one overlap.
1:28:46
Speaker 2: I'll get there first.
1:28:47
Speaker 3: And you'll be like, ah, I saw that, but you
1:28:49
Speaker 3: picked a great card or vice versa. And every once
1:28:52
Speaker 3: in a while you get there first. And then you
1:28:54
Speaker 3: see the second card and you go, Oh my God,
1:28:58
Speaker 3: That is amazing.
1:29:00
Speaker 2: How did I miss that?
1:29:00
Speaker 3: So I'm giving you the early win, even though I
1:29:03
Speaker 3: still think my card's awesome. I'm giving you the.
1:29:06
Speaker 2: Early win on this one. You can talk about it
1:29:08
Speaker 2: in a second. But anyway, I'm going with mine.
1:29:11
Speaker 3: This is my second cheat of the night here. 2025
1:29:15
Speaker 3: Tops dual auto, dual game used relic patch of Mr.
1:29:22
Speaker 3: Jared Jones and somebody known as Paul Skeens out of 10. card,
1:29:27
Speaker 3: and I believe it is the black parallel, and what's
1:29:32
Speaker 3: fantastic is it's also black jersey patches for both of those.
1:29:36
Speaker 3: This is a sticker auto, so a little disappointing on
1:29:40
Speaker 3: that aspect, and both signatures didn't do the best. Jones
1:29:43
Speaker 3: couldn't even stay on the sticker, and Skeens couldn't quite
1:29:46
Speaker 3: keep the pin down, so a little disappointing, but I
1:29:50
Speaker 3: wanted a chance to get a Paul Skeen's auto in
1:29:53
Speaker 3: there with a Jared Jones. And Jones did not have
1:29:55
Speaker 3: as many cards out there as I was expected that
1:29:57
Speaker 3: really kind of jumped out. It was a little bit
1:30:00
Speaker 3: vanilla on there. Again, I'm giving you credit here.
1:30:02
Speaker 2: You win.
1:30:04
Speaker 3: But I thought this was just a fantastic card. And
1:30:08
Speaker 3: I didn't realize how good of a job Topps did
1:30:11
Speaker 3: with the dual autos here. And the other thing I
1:30:14
Speaker 3: love is they are both in almost the exact same
1:30:18
Speaker 3: photo pitching. Um, like their body position are both just
1:30:23
Speaker 3: delivered a pitch in the same Jersey, the same shoes,
1:30:26
Speaker 3: the same look. Um, it, it just, the whole thing
1:30:29
Speaker 3: flows together. So, uh, just don't read the back of
1:30:32
Speaker 3: the card where then it tells you that these are
1:30:33
Speaker 3: game used. And from some random game, we have no
1:30:35
Speaker 3: idea where, um, that brings it down a little bit,
1:30:38
Speaker 3: but available 650 bucks.
1:30:40
Speaker 2: If you'd like it today. Yeah.
1:30:42
Speaker 1: Especially if you're a pirates fan, like this has got
1:30:44
Speaker 1: to be a big PC chase. And yeah, this is
1:30:47
Speaker 1: really kind of like, goes back to my Carter Jensen
1:30:49
Speaker 1: card too, is that like, I think because the major
1:30:53
Speaker 1: league materials where you're getting into the dual autos and
1:30:56
Speaker 1: the lower parallels are so rare that you don't see
1:30:59
Speaker 1: them very often. Tops has been doing really well with
1:31:02
Speaker 1: those the past couple of years compared to like, I mean,
1:31:04
Speaker 1: major league materials regular has been kind of blah. But
1:31:09
Speaker 1: like when you're, when they're giving you a hit, they're
1:31:12
Speaker 1: giving you a hit. And so, yeah, there's just a
1:31:14
Speaker 1: nice little symmetry to this card. It almost looks like
1:31:17
Speaker 1: you could like fold it in half or cut it
1:31:19
Speaker 1: in half. Do you remember those from like upper deck
1:31:23
Speaker 1: collector's choice back in the day where it was like
1:31:25
Speaker 1: the three cards in one and you could like rip them?
1:31:28
Speaker 2: Yes.
1:31:29
Speaker 1: I remember mostly for basketball, but it kind of looks
1:31:31
Speaker 1: like that with just the two, like a Twix or something.
1:31:35
Speaker 1: So great choice.
1:31:36
Speaker 2: All right. I've already told you how amazing your card is.
1:31:39
Speaker 2: So tell the folks at home. What did you find?
1:31:43
Speaker 1: You've got to go to Razzball.com and check out this card.
1:31:47
Speaker 1: I can't believe I found it. One of the fun
1:31:51
Speaker 1: things about when you're doing this exercise is I think
1:31:55
Speaker 1: both of us also go to the first cards that
1:31:57
Speaker 1: we can find of the players. Sometimes it is Bowman first.
1:32:00
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's minor league cards. Sometimes it's Panini USA cards,
1:32:05
Speaker 1: which this card is wild. From 2015, Panini USA, it
1:32:08
Speaker 1: is a Jersey signature prime patch auto of Jared Jones
1:32:15
Speaker 1: for the under 14 team. So he's like 14 years
1:32:18
Speaker 1: old in this picture. The, the, the patch is pretty nice.
1:32:22
Speaker 1: You get a nice little three color red, white, and
1:32:24
Speaker 1: blue patch. It is with a motif of a, of
1:32:28
Speaker 1: a American flag behind it. The auto, it just says
1:32:32
Speaker 1: Jared J period written like, like a.
1:32:35
Speaker 3: 14 year old, like a school project, like a, like
1:32:39
Speaker 3: a signing their homework.
1:32:40
Speaker 1: Perfect. And then it gets up to another notch because
1:32:44
Speaker 1: you look above and honestly, it's maybe the only thing
1:32:46
Speaker 1: you can see when you look at this card. It
1:32:48
Speaker 1: is Jared Jones as a 14 year old with his
1:32:51
Speaker 1: like extremely blue eyes, just staring straight into your soul
1:32:56
Speaker 1: with the creepiest smile you've ever seen on a 14
1:32:59
Speaker 1: year old. It is so absurd looking. I can't believe
1:33:03
Speaker 1: that Jared Jones did not just buy up all these
1:33:06
Speaker 1: cards and burn them in a fire somewhere. But these
1:33:09
Speaker 1: things do exist. It's actually pretty expensive because I think
1:33:13
Speaker 1: other folks have the same taste in ridiculous cards that
1:33:16
Speaker 1: everybody else does. And like this is up there in
1:33:19
Speaker 1: terms of RPC cards. When I found it, I knew
1:33:22
Speaker 1: I had immediately had to put it in. I didn't
1:33:24
Speaker 1: look anywhere else for Jerry Jones cards. You can't also
1:33:27
Speaker 1: go wrong because this happened with Nick Kurtz, too. Whenever
1:33:30
Speaker 1: you get in these like 14 U cards from Team
1:33:33
Speaker 1: USA cards. I think it might just like, it's almost
1:33:35
Speaker 1: like the Richmond Flying Squirrels. It's like an automatic PC
1:33:38
Speaker 1: pic because they're always ridiculous signatures, ridiculous photos, reminds you
1:33:42
Speaker 1: of where these kids came from and how long they've
1:33:44
Speaker 1: been playing baseball.
1:33:46
Speaker 3: And I know how you may have missed this because
1:33:48
Speaker 3: the smile is just bar none, like creepy, hilarious at
1:33:53
Speaker 3: the same time. but also look at the size of
1:33:56
Speaker 3: the glove relative to the lanky arm, because this has,
1:33:59
Speaker 3: has like a junior high pitcher written all over it.
1:34:02
Speaker 3: Like guy that is growing out of this body, but
1:34:04
Speaker 3: it hasn't quite figured it out in the old school.
1:34:07
Speaker 3: Like when you were like first playing baseball, like you
1:34:09
Speaker 3: got the big glove because you.
1:34:11
Speaker 1: Were growing one glove. It's so beat up.
1:34:14
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it was the outfield. You always have the
1:34:16
Speaker 2: outfielder glove. Like it didn't matter. You could be infielder.
1:34:18
Speaker 2: You could be a pitcher. You could be whatever. It
1:34:19
Speaker 2: didn't matter.
1:34:20
Speaker 3: You had the one, the big glove and that the
1:34:22
Speaker 3: glove he has is, is, literally the size of his head,
1:34:25
Speaker 3: if not bigger. And he just has like his arms.
1:34:28
Speaker 3: He must have like a seven foot wingspan at 14.
1:34:31
Speaker 3: Like it's just, it's just, it is the awkwardness of
1:34:34
Speaker 3: a teenage kid. And like I said, it looks like
1:34:38
Speaker 3: he was signing his homework as he, as he got
1:34:40
Speaker 3: this out there. So like you had to be so
1:34:42
Speaker 3: thrilled to have this baseball card. He didn't care how
1:34:43
Speaker 3: he looked.
1:34:44
Speaker 1: It's so perfect. I can't. Yeah. It's a great card.
1:34:48
Speaker 3: I will, I will take 10 of these for the
1:34:50
Speaker 3: price of my card.
1:34:53
Speaker 2: All right.
1:34:54
Speaker 1: Well, that gets us to our last player of the month,
1:34:56
Speaker 1: NL Rookie of the Month, Cole Kerrig from the Colorado Rockies.
1:35:00
Speaker 1: A great little month from him after an up and
1:35:02
Speaker 1: down season beforehand and kind of really saved what he
1:35:06
Speaker 1: had done in the previous months, picked it up to
1:35:09
Speaker 1: put together a nice little rookie season for Kerrig. 327 average,
1:35:14
Speaker 1: six homers, 911 OPS. And in total, it was a
1:35:20
Speaker 1: pair of four hit performances in September, too. Really turned
1:35:24
Speaker 1: it on the last two weeks with five of those
1:35:26
Speaker 1: homers in the last 13 games coming through. We talked
1:35:30
Speaker 1: about a little bit on the pod where, like, the
1:35:32
Speaker 1: Rockies got a really soft schedule at the end and
1:35:35
Speaker 1: really helped a lot of people, I think, make up
1:35:37
Speaker 1: some offensive categories. Cole Kerrig is going to be, I
1:35:40
Speaker 1: think it's going to be a fun player going into
1:35:42
Speaker 1: draft season next year because he will have shortstop outfield eligibility,
1:35:46
Speaker 1: which will make him an interesting piece and allow you
1:35:49
Speaker 1: to really, like, mix and match a roster well, especially
1:35:52
Speaker 1: for a guy that's in Colorado for half of his games.
1:35:55
Speaker 1: First time for Cole Carrick going into the PC. Where
1:35:58
Speaker 1: did you go, Brew?
1:35:59
Speaker 2: All right.
1:36:00
Speaker 3: Well, I feel like I'm just let down at the
1:36:02
Speaker 3: end of this because I'm just going back to an
1:36:04
Speaker 3: oldie but a goodie as far as the formula is
1:36:06
Speaker 3: concerned with our PC. But I'm going with his 2023
1:36:10
Speaker 3: Bowman First Auto, and we're going to go with the
1:36:13
Speaker 3: purple refractor because we are color matching the Colorado Rockies
1:36:17
Speaker 3: purple refractor.
1:36:19
Speaker 2: Jerseys. Um, and it, it absolutely, absolutely just pops.
1:36:24
Speaker 3: Um, it's Cole Carrick clearly in, uh, it looks to
1:36:27
Speaker 3: be like a high school stadium, um, batting here. Um,
1:36:32
Speaker 3: I I'm going to call Cole Carrick out the auto dude.
1:36:35
Speaker 2: You got to work on it. It's CC with, I don't,
1:36:37
Speaker 2: it looks like a number two in it or something.
1:36:39
Speaker 2: I can't quite tell.
1:36:40
Speaker 3: Um, but, uh, it is a really, really good, color match, uh,
1:36:45
Speaker 3: for the Colorado Rockies and another team. Like we talked
1:36:47
Speaker 3: about the Royals earlier with Carter Jensen, uh, purple with
1:36:50
Speaker 3: the Rockies is also another, uh, kind of cheat code
1:36:53
Speaker 3: as far as a color match, usually out of the
1:36:55
Speaker 3: two 50. Uh, so another really fun, but accessible card.
1:36:58
Speaker 3: You can get the, the color match first bow and
1:37:01
Speaker 3: auto of Cole Carrick for 129 bucks, uh, right now,
1:37:05
Speaker 3: buy it, buy it now, which actually feels pretty gosh
1:37:07
Speaker 3: darn cheap, um, for, um, the kind of season he had.
1:37:12
Speaker 3: So this actually might not be a bad choice to
1:37:14
Speaker 3: just pick up, not just only for the PC, but
1:37:16
Speaker 3: just for he has another.
1:37:18
Speaker 2: Strong full season. This thing could definitely jump.
1:37:22
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
1:37:23
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the type of guy that's going
1:37:25
Speaker 1: to maybe rattle off like two or three all-star appearances
1:37:27
Speaker 1: for the Rockies too, just because like if he's young,
1:37:30
Speaker 1: puts up numbers. And I mean, he's a solid hitter.
1:37:33
Speaker 1: So we saw lots of great things from him. Also
1:37:36
Speaker 1: has the possibility of swiping 50 or 60 bags, which
1:37:39
Speaker 1: will put them on radars. But yeah, you can't go
1:37:42
Speaker 1: wrong with a colored match Bowman first. Also great kind
1:37:45
Speaker 1: of juxtaposition to Freddy Peralta in the horror days of
1:37:50
Speaker 1: Bowman design. We got back to the classics in 2023.
1:37:54
Speaker 1: And just like the Royals that we talked about with
1:37:56
Speaker 1: blue matching so well, Rockies and purple. Man, to be
1:38:01
Speaker 1: a Rockies collector would be awesome because you get of
1:38:04
Speaker 1: two 50 for your parallel number and purple color colored
1:38:08
Speaker 1: cards are just kind of cool anyway. And when you
1:38:11
Speaker 1: actually get the color match going, it's amazing.
1:38:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, it absolutely is. So, all right, finishes up with
1:38:17
Speaker 2: Cole Keurig. Where did you go?
1:38:19
Speaker 1: Well, I can tell you he's not in a high
1:38:20
Speaker 1: school stadium because he's at San Diego state in this card,
1:38:24
Speaker 1: because I found 2023 Panini extra elite edition, uh, number
1:38:31
Speaker 1: 29 auto. It's the same picture, non-Photoshopped. Which is, honestly,
1:38:38
Speaker 1: I feel like you don't see this too much where
1:38:40
Speaker 1: they just use the same picture without the Photoshop from
1:38:44
Speaker 1: the Bowman card but in the Panini because... Panini is
1:38:47
Speaker 1: obviously unlicensed, but they can use the collegiate gear. It's
1:38:53
Speaker 1: kind of like nice to be able to compare it
1:38:56
Speaker 1: to how they did the Photoshop up for the Rocky.
1:38:59
Speaker 1: So you can kind of see the back and forth
1:39:01
Speaker 1: and just like, you know, where they did the tweaks
1:39:05
Speaker 1: and how they cleaned it up and how they reframed
1:39:07
Speaker 1: the card. But yeah, it's exactly your card. It's just
1:39:11
Speaker 1: on a 2023 Panini Elite. Cause you made the pick first.
1:39:14
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of what you're talking about. When
1:39:16
Speaker 1: I saw this card, I was like, I got to
1:39:18
Speaker 1: pick this one too. Cause it's like, you get two
1:39:20
Speaker 1: photos for the price of one, uh, mine, uh, one
1:39:24
Speaker 1: 12th of the price though, 10 dot 10 bucks for
1:39:26
Speaker 1: this card. It's a, it's a nothing burger of a card. Uh,
1:39:30
Speaker 1: people are not really into Panini elite extra edition, especially
1:39:33
Speaker 1: when it's kind of a second, maybe even third tier
1:39:36
Speaker 1: name like Cole Keurig, but nice little card. And, uh, yeah.
1:39:40
Speaker 1: He didn't put a good effort into his signature for
1:39:42
Speaker 1: Panini either. He's got this CC with a line through it,
1:39:47
Speaker 1: gets him through autos quickly, but not exactly distinguishing himself
1:39:51
Speaker 1: in the hobby.
1:39:52
Speaker 3: Well, I would say one more thing about this photo.
1:39:55
Speaker 3: The amount of eye black on Cole Kerrig is phenomenal.
1:40:00
Speaker 3: It is max. His old cheek is eye black. I'm
1:40:04
Speaker 3: glad to see as he's grown up, got to the majors,
1:40:06
Speaker 3: he's just gone back to the strict line from an
1:40:08
Speaker 3: eye black perspective. But hey, that was why I thought
1:40:12
Speaker 3: it was a high school picture. Just that much eye
1:40:14
Speaker 3: black was like high school player all over.
1:40:16
Speaker 2: But you're right.
1:40:17
Speaker 3: You solved the mystery. But I'm going to give Topps credit.
1:40:21
Speaker 3: I'm trying to look at these two. They did a
1:40:24
Speaker 3: pretty gosh darn good job with the Photoshop here. They
1:40:27
Speaker 3: even got his sliding pad in his back pocket and
1:40:29
Speaker 3: changed that to a purple sliding pad.
1:40:32
Speaker 2: So give him credit.
1:40:33
Speaker 3: They did a good job with the Photoshop. But yeah,
1:40:37
Speaker 3: this is the fun of the PC. We can do
1:40:38
Speaker 3: silly things like this.
1:40:39
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, even around the batting gloves, they turned there's
1:40:42
Speaker 1: like these little slippers of red on the San Diego
1:40:44
Speaker 1: State one that they they made black on the Photoshop,
1:40:47
Speaker 1: which I wouldn't have caught. But now it does stand
1:40:50
Speaker 1: out like you're like, oh, yeah, that is Photoshopped. But yeah,
1:40:53
Speaker 1: it gets a little bit into the what goes into
1:40:57
Speaker 1: the sausage being made on the Bowman Photoshop, which I
1:41:01
Speaker 1: think is kind of fun. Okay, well, we're going to
1:41:04
Speaker 1: wrap it up here for this week. And let's see,
1:41:06
Speaker 1: the Yankees still have a few outs left, but they
1:41:09
Speaker 1: are down 4-3. And we are, looks like we're going
1:41:12
Speaker 1: to be staying up late watching Brewers Padres again tonight. So,
1:41:16
Speaker 1: nice little locked-in battle there. Brew, let everybody know where
1:41:20
Speaker 1: they can follow you on socials.
1:41:22
Speaker 2: Yep, find me at Twitter, xBlueSkyJBrewer17. Cooley, where can folks
1:41:27
Speaker 2: find you?
1:41:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can find me on blueskyatmcool7 and you can
1:41:32
Speaker 1: read my work at Baseball Prospectus. Going all winter, going
1:41:36
Speaker 1: to have stuff going up just about every week. So
1:41:39
Speaker 1: should be fun as we also gear up for writing
1:41:42
Speaker 1: the annual. So I'm looking forward to that happening over
1:41:46
Speaker 1: the next few months. If you're looking to follow the podcast,
1:41:50
Speaker 1: look out on blueskyatcardscategories or email the pod at cardscategories
1:41:55
Speaker 1: at gmail.com. I've sent you to the show notes quite
1:41:58
Speaker 1: a few times. You've probably already seen it. But one
1:42:01
Speaker 1: more reminder, there is a link to a store down
1:42:04
Speaker 1: there that has some cards and categories gear. And we'd
1:42:07
Speaker 1: appreciate you also rating and reviewing the podcast wherever you're
1:42:10
Speaker 1: listening to us. Just helps us grow our audience and
1:42:14
Speaker 1: make sure that we get feedback on how we're doing.
1:42:16
Speaker 1: So appreciate you checking out this pod and we'll be
1:42:19
Speaker 1: back roughly same time, same place next week. Take care, everybody.