Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 48 : All-Star Ballots & Topps Series 2

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Ep. 48 : All-Star Ballots & Topps Series 2 · Cards & Categories

• 0:15
  Hellown. Welcome everybody to episode forty eight of Cards and Categories. I'm Mike
• 0:20
  Coolard from Rasball, joined as always by my very good friend Jeremy Brewer,
• 0:25
  also from Rasball. How you doing tonight, buddy. I am doing just
• 0:29
  fine. Really excited that we don't have a million injuries this week to talk
• 0:32
  about, but we do have some fun cards, so I am excited.
• 0:35
  Ready to go to dig in like always, yes, exactly. We are
• 0:40
  recording this one back on Wednesday again tonight, so we're recording this on June
• 0:45
  twelfth. In the evening in between when we had our last podcast, we
• 0:50
  had the All Star ballot, so I figured I will send it to you
• 0:53
  so that you can open it and get it loaded up on your side.
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  But you haven't seen it. I've already voted once with like the hit it
• 1:00
  five times because you can do the five times a day per email address.
• 1:03
  So if you really want stuff this ballot box, go out there and do
• 1:07
  it. I will link for it to it in the show notes, but
• 1:11
  you can also just google MLB All Star Ballot and it's definitely the first hit.
• 1:15
  I can almost guarantee you. But yeah, a little preview for our
• 1:19
  show Today. Series two twenty twenty four has released today on tops dot com
• 1:26
  and all sorts of hobby stores out there and hopefully retail stores too. I
• 1:30
  looked a little bit today. I know you did too. I didn't see
• 1:34
  any out in the wild at my Walgreens, but it's also a Walgreens,
• 1:37
  so you can't ever count on it too much. But we will get into
• 1:41
  an overview of the entire checklist and lots of great short prints, lots of
• 1:45
  fun going on in series two. But let's start with this All Star ballot
• 1:48
  first, because, like I said, this came out between when we recorded
• 1:53
  our last podcast last week, so I've thought it'd be run to fun down
• 1:57
  or fun to run down because just like baseball cards, like this is maybe
• 2:01
  like one of the biggest nostalgia things I love about baseball is filling out my
• 2:06
  All Star ballot every year. What about you? Yeah, the thing only
• 2:09
  thing I liked about filling out more was back in the day when you legitimately
• 2:14
  got a ballot, Like if you go to a game and they were actually
• 2:16
  legitimately handing out All Star game ballots and you filled in like the old scantron
• 2:21
  style, Like nothing beat that like you feel like you actually were voting now
• 2:25
  to your point, like, I know, Jake Berger just got five votes
• 2:28
  from you for the All Star ballot, but like, like it's there.
• 2:35
  There's a little less nostalgia of just being able to click multiple times through with
• 2:38
  the same email address or whatever, but still the fans get to vote.
• 2:44
  It's a love hate relationship for me when you look out in Toronto's whole infield
• 2:47
  start and you're like, well, who, how the world is this possible?
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  Because the fan vote does have a little bit of a bias to it
• 2:53
  at times, but it's still fun. It's still it's still the way to
• 2:58
  go, and since they only control really the starting lineup, it's not like
• 3:01
  you're really getting two big as snubs anywhere else in it. And the wonderful
• 3:06
  All Star Game where if you do hurt your pinky toe, you sit out
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  and somebody else gets named exactly Yeah, And we're in phase one right now,
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  so that's like when you narrow down each position from essentially every team has
• 3:19
  a player at each position, and then the second round will kick in on
• 3:23
  June thirtieth, where it whittles down to just three at each position. So
• 3:27
  we're in the big wide net where you can pick anybody you want from just
• 3:31
  about any team, and you can write in anybody as well, but they
• 3:36
  do make sure that you have just about every option from every lineup in the
• 3:39
  league, as we'll see now. So we're going to start off with first
• 3:44
  base, because I mean, why not. I guess it's a really strange
• 3:49
  who starts off with first base, But that's where this ballot starts. And
• 3:53
  in the American League, I will start kind of previewing maybe some of the
• 3:57
  names that I'm thinking about as you because I know you're just looking at this
• 4:00
  fresh you haven't even had a chance to tell I haven't looked at all.
• 4:02
  I'm literally looking right now as we talk about it. Yeah, So in
• 4:05
  terms of the American League first baseman, I will tell you my vote.
• 4:10
  I voted for Josh Naylor, wore the Cleveland Guardians, who's up to seventeen
• 4:15
  homers and fifty RBIs were speaking here, But you've also probably got Vlad Guerrero
• 4:20
  in just the conversation here with his seven homers and thirty RBI. But you
• 4:28
  don't get war on this ballot, which I think would show Vlad doing decently
• 4:33
  well because he has a pretty good WRC plus on the season, and then
• 4:38
  maybe Ryan Mountcastle. I think we'll probably get some votes as well, as
• 4:42
  he's up to eleven homers in an eight oh seven. Ops, maybe some
• 4:46
  very sneaky votes for Carlos Tantana. You could vote for Spencer Trocolson, who's
• 4:50
  in triple A. But who are you going to go with on your end
• 4:54
  for first based AL? Yeah, I mean it's thin. First base in
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  the in the AL is very very thin, and I I'm gonna have to
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  agree with you on this one. With Josh Naylor, I I'm a little
• 5:06
  surprised about that, but you know, vlad Interesting just hasn't really produced at
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  the level you'd want. Naylor's just got a ton more production. He's he's
• 5:16
  knocked in more, he's he's got more power, and he's been more i
• 5:20
  would say, meaningful to his team. And so I think I'm gonna give
• 5:26
  it to Naylor there as well. I hardly actually wanted to to give a
• 5:30
  little shout to maybe a Vinie Pasquatino, because I think even though he's been
• 5:32
  hurt some, he's really made the most of the opportunities he's had. But
• 5:39
  the rest of those lists. I think half the guys have been in the
• 5:42
  minors uh this seasons or been hurt. So I'm gonna stick uh stick there
• 5:49
  with Naylor, no Torqals, and no vaugh no Singleton for me, as
• 5:55
  tempting as those all are, Yeah, and it can you can see just
• 5:59
  how bad some of these players have been, like Spencer tocl with his five
• 6:02
  ninety six ops, a sub six hundred ops, not like Andrew Bonds got
• 6:06
  much to write home with with his six fifty five. But let's go over
• 6:11
  to the National League, where I think you've got a lot of just the
• 6:15
  normal contenders here between Freddie Freeman, who's been off to an eight ninety nine
• 6:19
  ops. I'm also I'm quoting ops because that's what's right in front of us
• 6:24
  on the ballot. That usually I would quote something a little bit more substantial
• 6:28
  than that, but that's what's right in my eyes right now, so we'll
• 6:31
  go with that. You could consider I think Jake Croniworth has been very like
• 6:36
  steady in terms of his RBI production. The last few weeks have slowed down
• 6:42
  for him from a fantasy production standpoint, But if you're an RBI fan,
• 6:46
  Jake Croni works maybe a consideration, but I've got to go with good old
• 6:51
  Bryce Harper here. He's just been on fire for the Phillies fifteen homers,
• 6:56
  forty six ribs to nine twenty two ops, and the Phillies are just the
• 7:00
  front runners for the World Series right now. So that's where I'm gonna go.
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  Where are you going with National League for space? We're gonna be really
• 7:09
  bored And I'm gonna agree with you again on Bryce Harper. As I went
• 7:12
  through, Freddie Freeman was tempting to toss the vote, as was maybe Pete
• 7:16
  Alonzo to your point, and the National League was kind of the normal guys.
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  I was a little, you know, disappointed, as I wanted to
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  throw something Cattle Marte's way. It feels like he has really had a great
• 7:29
  season so far. It's just not standing up to what Harper's did. To
• 7:31
  your point, he's been fantastic as of late. So he he gets my
• 7:35
  vote pretty easily here at first space for the National League. Wait, I
• 7:41
  think you're going to be voting for kateel Marte here pretty soon? Oh never
• 7:46
  mind, yeah, yep. Like screens shifted over to second. I was
• 7:49
  wondering why he was playing first, but left. So just like way a
• 7:54
  second, I've been using him wrong in fantasy. He got all my rsro
• 8:00
  Okay, well, I feel better that I'm gouda vote for Kittl Marte on
• 8:03
  the National League. Yeah, okay for the second base we can skip right
• 8:07
  there. If that's who you're gonna go with. I think that's probably the
• 8:09
  hands down favorite in the National League at second base as well. I mean,
• 8:13
  you've got Nolan Gorman coming on strong as he's had a hot couple of
• 8:18
  weeks up to fifteen homers. But it's really hard to argue with what to
• 8:22
  Tel Marte has done for Arizona with an eight forty six ops thirteen homers just
• 8:28
  has been rolling ever since they went to the World Series last year. Study
• 8:31
  producer across the board Bryce Terrang. They don't list stolen bases, but I
• 8:37
  think if they did, Bryce Terrang would catch more votes because I think he
• 8:41
  honestly might even end up being like the fantasy sleeper of the first half,
• 8:43
  as Terrang probably wasn't drafted in the majority of leagues out there. I actually
• 8:50
  I remember writing them up for I think maybe the fifteen teamer in the first
• 8:54
  Waiver Wire article I had, and I haven't been able to write about him
• 8:58
  since because he was hot out the gate with stolen bases and everybody snatched him
• 9:03
  up. But I could do want to throw just a little shout out to
• 9:05
  Bryce Terrang there because he's had a really crazy season out of nowhere. Yeah,
• 9:11
  I think you also miss interesting a guy like Nolan Gorman, you know,
• 9:15
  kind of come out of nowhere to actually make this an interesting conversation.
• 9:18
  In the National League, he's in discussion for like the second best second baseman
• 9:26
  for the first half of the season. You know, he's looked better as
• 9:28
  Ozzie Albi's, He's looked better than Jonathan India, clearly, Gavin Lux,
• 9:33
  Bryce and Scott like he I mean, he's still got an empty average,
• 9:35
  but he's looked really, really interesting. And that's not the guy we probably
• 9:39
  would have talked about early early in the season. So fun to see somebody
• 9:43
  else get in consideration. But yeah, I think it's Marte. No questions
• 9:46
  asked on this one, all right. Flipping over to the American League at
• 9:50
  the Keystone, we've got a couple of the usual suspects I think probably in
• 9:54
  the running here between Jose Altuve, who started off with an eight, a
• 10:00
  seven eighty six ops and ten homers, and then we've also got Marcus Simeon
• 10:05
  with eleven homers and a seven sixty one ops. I want to give a
• 10:09
  little shout out to my boy Willie Castro. I always love Willie Castro did
• 10:13
  in the preseason have continued throughout the season. He's very light in the RBI
• 10:20
  department, especially if you're using him at third base the way I am in
• 10:22
  a bunch of fantasy leagues. But just the versatility has allowed the Twins to
• 10:28
  stay afloat as Castro has moved all over the diamond between shortstop, third base,
• 10:33
  second base, outfield. So I think he's been a great fantasy asset
• 10:37
  for the same reason as well, because he's given you a little bit of
• 10:41
  pop, give me some stolen bases, just steady production. But I do
• 10:45
  have to give my vote, I think to Marcus Simeon here. He's just
• 10:50
  a total star I think in terms of second base and really is the man
• 10:56
  to beat in the AL race here. But I don't want to sway you
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  too much. Who are you gonna go with at second base in the Al
• 11:03
  Yeah? Well, before I go there, I want to make a cut
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  shout as well. I think a guy like Michael Massey, who's only had
• 11:09
  like thirty games this season, he has performed admirally as it's too bad we
• 11:13
  haven't seen him get the full season, because I think he'd be a guy
• 11:16
  that actually would be in the discussion here, which is, you know,
• 11:20
  surprising with how much he struggled last year. So I want at least call
• 11:24
  out a guy like Michael Massey David Schneider as well. But for me,
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  I I do kind of I want to go there with you with Simeon,
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  but I'm gonna call it audible here, and I'm gonna go with Josey l
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  t I think al I think l two ve hit his ment a little bit
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  more. Uh to the Astros, he he's he's gotten on base a little
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  bit more. He's he's hit for a better average, WRC plus is higher.
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  He like I said, Simeon, he's done good things. But the
• 11:58
  speed hasn't been there as much as it has been in the past. So
• 12:01
  I'm given a slight at Sheltuve here, but it's it's neck and neck.
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  I think this would be one of the closer races that we see. Yeah,
• 12:07
  I think so too. So. I mean, I think a lot
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  of those guys that we mentioned, especially, I think Massy might sneak into
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  the final three. It is a little bit of a just a plate appearance
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  issue for me. Massy's got one hundred and ten, Simeon has almost three
• 12:24
  times that many. He's almost up to three hundred played appearances now. Because
• 12:28
  Simon is just an iron horse. Over at the second base, all right,
• 12:33
  let's move over to the hot corner third base. Let's stick with the
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  American League here and again you've got a couple of the biggest stars in the
• 12:43
  league. I think that we'll be in the running for this position. Between
• 12:46
  Rafael Devers, who's up to thirteen homers in a nine to thirty four OPS.
• 12:50
  We've also got Jose Ramirez with those Ale Central leading guardians up to eighteen
• 12:56
  homers sixty two RBI, which is really absurd with an eight eighty four OPS
• 13:03
  plus the pretty standard bevy of stolen bases out of Jose Ramirez this year,
• 13:09
  Luis Ranhifo, I think it's got a If you also had stolen bases here,
• 13:13
  Luis Winhifo would do much better in the voting. It's kind of it's
• 13:16
  really strange that they don't show those stolen bases because Rinifo, I think,
• 13:20
  is nearing in on twenty so he's batting three thirteen. He's had an incredible
• 13:26
  year for the Lowly Angels, and you've also got Jardon Westberg here. I
• 13:31
  mean third base is actually kind of loaded. Because I also haven't even mentioned
• 13:35
  like MIKEL. Garcia. I think maybe we'll get some votes again. If
• 13:39
  you had stolen bases, you would see that Royce Lewis is going to catch
• 13:41
  I think, plenty of votes with his like homer every game pace that you
• 13:46
  know, he might get to like twenty five homers while playing fifty games this
• 13:50
  year, which would catch MVP votes. I would think that it would be
• 13:54
  absurd to see how high he could finish in an MVP race with stats like
• 13:58
  that. But when I've been filling out my ballot, I have to go
• 14:03
  with Jose Ramirez. It's just it looks like an MVP season out of Jose
• 14:07
  Ramirez if he keeps it going at this pace. But again, don't want
• 14:11
  to sway you too much. Where are you going to go here? Yeah,
• 14:13
  there's not a whole lot of swaying to be done with this one of
• 14:18
  all these, I think this is a is actually a strong feel. But
• 14:22
  Ramirez looks just fantastic across the board. He is shoulders of head and shoulders
• 14:26
  above the rest of the guys in the American League at third base. So
• 14:30
  not much argument here. You know, we would like to see a guy
• 14:33
  like Westburg or you know, Lewis or something like that. Some of the
• 14:35
  young guys get a chance, but even that, you're not getting them over
• 14:39
  Devers or anybody else but Jose Ramirez, no questions asked. All right,
• 14:45
  let's flip over to the National League, where this I think is maybe the
• 14:48
  worst collection of spots to vote for that. I don't know if there's really
• 14:54
  one person who really stands out head and shoulders. Alec Bowm. I think
• 14:58
  if we had done voting two or three weeks ago when he was up at
• 15:03
  Jose Ramier's level RBIs but has since tapered off. He still has fifty one
• 15:07
  RBI with a two eighty seven average, so he's performing pretty well, but
• 15:13
  it's been a rough three ish weeks for Alec Bohma of late. You've also
• 15:16
  got some of the standard stars that were used to in the National League between
• 15:20
  Manny Machado, Nolan Arnatto, Max Munsey, Austin Reiley. The four of
• 15:28
  them between them have twelve eighteen twenty four homers, So I think they're being
• 15:33
  out homered by Judge. Now, right, what's Judge up to? Let
• 15:35
  me check that he's up to twenty five? So yeah, sixty five,
• 15:39
  yeah, sixty yeah. The four of those are already a homer behind Judge.
• 15:43
  You've also got Ryan McMahon hitting two sixty seven with twelve homers. You've
• 15:48
  got Joey Ortiz, I think in the discussion here, especially with the way
• 15:52
  the Brewers are playing, he's hit two eighty five with an eight forty three
• 15:56
  OPS. And you've also got Matt Chapman I think here, who has played
• 16:03
  a wonderful third base for the Giants. I think if you had war here,
• 16:07
  Chapman would look certainly much better because of just the defensive value provides.
• 16:11
  But he's even up to eight homers in a seven fourteen OPS. Another guy
• 16:18
  who would benefit from the steels. He's been sneaky on the base pass this
• 16:21
  year, so I know I've read it off a lot of names. You've
• 16:25
  even got Christopher Morrell with his thirteen homers. I think all of these names
• 16:29
  are indicative of kind of you can go anywhere here. So I'm actually not
• 16:33
  going to sway you this time. I'm going to take your vote first and
• 16:36
  see who you want to pick amongst all these options at third base in the
• 16:40
  National League. Yeah, this one is tough because because you're right, there's
• 16:45
  you just like a name value alone, Like yep, there's there's some guys
• 16:48
  here, but you're Aaron Ondo's, your Chapman's, you Machado's, Like they're
• 16:52
  just not doing it this year. They don't really deserve that opportunity. Right
• 16:56
  there with Boom where you know, his numbers look really good, but he
• 17:00
  was just really hot for a short amount of time, which really kind of
• 17:03
  uh, you know, added up. I I'm this is a weird one
• 17:08
  for me, but I have to go with Joey Ortiz. I think I'm
• 17:11
  gonna go with Ortiz here, Like from a from a defensive perspective, he's
• 17:17
  been really, really good. He's Phillip with stats across the board, He's
• 17:21
  been solid. He actually has the highest WRC plus by a decent margin of
• 17:26
  anybody playing third base in the National League. So it's It's hard to say
• 17:30
  because the counting SATs just don't look as attractive as somebody like a Chapman or
• 17:36
  you know, a Morell or somebody like that. So yeah, I'm gonna
• 17:40
  go with Joey Orties. I mean, am I off my rocker? No,
• 17:42
  I think that's a it's a fair choice, especially when you consider how
• 17:47
  important he's been to the Brewers. I think when I mean he was traded
• 17:52
  for Corvin Burns just about straight up like there wasn't too much else in that.
• 17:56
  As you're looking at dial Hall has been hurt and it has been Joey
• 18:02
  Artist that's had to hold the pressure of Corbyn Burns leaving town. He's been
• 18:07
  fantastic. We covered him last week in our May Player of the Month for
• 18:11
  the rookie in the National League, so it's been a good little stretch here
• 18:15
  for him. I'm gonna have to go with Alec Bohm though, just because
• 18:18
  of a little bit of what I talked about with the high RBI total,
• 18:22
  the Phillies have looked amazing, So I'm gonna give him the nod right now.
• 18:27
  I'm not gonna argue he was probably number two of my book here.
• 18:30
  Okay, got it. Okay, let's stick in the National League for a
• 18:33
  shortstop where I mean, I think it's probably only two players. There's some
• 18:40
  pretty good performances out there, but it's whether you want Mookie Bets starting at
• 18:44
  shortstop or Ellie de la Cruz starting at shortstop. I'm gonna go with Mookie
• 18:48
  because he's Mookie Bets and Ellie. I think if if Mookie was at second
• 18:52
  base, Ellie would be the shoe in I think here for shortstop, and
• 18:56
  he's gonna definitely make the All Star Game for the Reds in some capacity.
• 19:00
  But yeah, are you gonna maybe go Ellie over Moki here? Are you
• 19:06
  also taking Muki? I have to go Bookie over. I mean, just
• 19:11
  from a pure excitement perspective, I feel like you want to go Ellie,
• 19:14
  but it has to be Muki here. There's no question about it. He's
• 19:17
  not having the best Mookie season, but he's still having an All Star season,
• 19:22
  and so I let's let's let's be clear, like he's just not having
• 19:27
  an amazing season. He's having a really, really good season. But at
• 19:30
  this position right now, that far out shower shatters anything that Dela Cruz is
• 19:37
  doing. To your point that It's interesting when you look at the steels and
• 19:41
  the thirty four steals that Ellie has, and that's hard, kind of hard
• 19:45
  to to ignore. But when you see, you know, MOOKI get on
• 19:51
  base at uh, you know, a four to twelve clip in WRC plus
• 19:55
  one sixty six like compared to one to ten for Elie. Like he's just
• 20:00
  so far ahead and shoulders above the field at this position, it's kind of
• 20:03
  hard to ignore. So Mooki was a pretty easy call for me. Okay,
• 20:08
  Now I think we're gonna get into what I think is the most difficult
• 20:14
  choice maybe on the entire ballot, and that is al shortstop because you've got
• 20:18
  two MVP candidates in this pool, between Gunner Henderson from the Orioles and Bobby
• 20:23
  Witt Junior from the Royals. Again, this is another one where Bobby Witt
• 20:27
  Junior needs to call up the Commission's office and say, hey, we need
• 20:33
  stolen bases on this form because it looks lobsided in favor of Gunner right now
• 20:38
  on the form because he's got twenty one homers to Bobby WIT's eleven homers.
• 20:42
  But Bobby Witt has nineteen stolen bases to Gunners eight. So Bobby witt On
• 20:48
  combined homers and stolen bases has thirty while Gunner has twenty nine. Bobby's hitting
• 20:53
  three twenty, Gunner's hitting two seventy three. But Gunner's been hitting for a
• 21:00
  lot of slug as you can see in this Ops has hired nine seventy one
• 21:03
  versus Bobby's nine to twenty six. This, I mean, I flip floff
• 21:08
  on this every day because these guys are having absolutely incredible seasons like top five
• 21:15
  and fantasy value out there at shortstop. I mean, I think Bobby WIT's
• 21:21
  probably going to push himself to the number one spot when it's all slided down
• 21:25
  at the end of the year, given that batting average at three twenty is
• 21:29
  absurd that like Kansas City has been playing hot. It's a great hitters ballpark
• 21:34
  nowadays, and Bobby witt I think, takes great advantage of it, hitting
• 21:37
  it into the gaps there. So there is a little bit of like a
• 21:41
  park effect where I think the overall and maybe honestly Fangrass, it feels like
• 21:48
  Fangrass and Baseball Reference are out of sync in terms of like what the park
• 21:56
  factors are on Coffin Stadium because let's see, Bobby it has a one fifty
• 22:00
  five WRC plus compared to Gunner's one seventy five, which is what I was
• 22:04
  kind of expecting that they actually have picked it up on Fangrafts that they are
• 22:11
  discounting Bobby WIT's overall profile there a little bit because of I mean, the
• 22:17
  Babbit is high at three fifty eight. But I think it is also that
• 22:18
  Park factor working its way in there a little bit as well. But yeah,
• 22:23
  I've been torn on this one. Every time I fell out a ballot,
• 22:27
  I've been leaning Bobby Wit. But Gunner's been uber hot this month,
• 22:33
  and I think I've got a hand it to Gunner now at this point,
• 22:34
  considering what he's been doing, especially over the last week, it's just been
• 22:40
  absolutely catching fire. You going Gunner or Bobby here. I mean, as
• 22:45
  I just started, I went going cold. I started to look at this,
• 22:47
  I'm like, oh, it's gonna be Bobby. It's gonna be Bobby.
• 22:48
  But the more a look at it, like, it's really hard to
• 22:52
  argue it against Gunner, and so I have to go Gunner here. To
• 22:55
  your point, like WIT's got the steals, But I think There's a few
• 23:00
  things in Gunner's favor here. First of all, the stats that they show
• 23:03
  on the ballot are not helping Bobby by any means. But Gunner's getting on
• 23:08
  base a better clip. He you know, he walks a heck of a
• 23:12
  lot, He's hitting the ball harder, he's doing more damage when it matters.
• 23:18
  Like it seems like all those things kind of coming in favor in the
• 23:21
  intank tangibles perspective. Yeah, I think you can argue it's probably a little
• 23:25
  better defense than Gunner, but at the end of the day, Gunner has
• 23:30
  just been so fantastic. I also think he's gonna get a boost from just
• 23:33
  the Oorals fan base, whose I think is just excited they're gonna be come
• 23:37
  out and DROs for this. But I think they're gonna be right. I
• 23:38
  think Gunner right now has the very slight edge. We're talking like a fifty
• 23:42
  two forty eight kind of split here, because I do think Bobby absolutely deserves
• 23:48
  over over like half of the guys that we've been voting for at this point.
• 23:52
  Bobby deserves to be in the starting lineup. Wouldn't surprise me to see
• 23:55
  him as the as the d H if that's where we go, if they
• 24:00
  are able to, well, I know, but I don't want to do
• 24:03
  that. I think we need to, you know, pick the best hitter
• 24:06
  that's not doing it and go back the old days. But so, yeah,
• 24:08
  I'm going Gunner Henderson here. I think that's the right call. Yeah.
• 24:11
  I mean, Bobby is probably just gonna jack like a game winning home
• 24:15
  or off of whatever Rockies reliever is sent like, yeah, that's true.
• 24:19
  It's not gonna win the MVP just because of that. Yeah, and that
• 24:25
  they're even dead even in fangrass War right now too. They are four point
• 24:30
  five for Gunner, four point three for Bobby witt. Uh. That's two
• 24:34
  and three in the league behind Aaron Judge. So it's gonna be I think
• 24:37
  a great race in terms of just the al MVP race down the stretch between
• 24:42
  those three and Juan Soto, they're all right there as Aaron Drudge is easily
• 24:48
  the front runner right now just because he's got a slug that begins with a
• 24:52
  seven. But we'll see how the rest of the summer unfolds there. And
• 24:56
  let's move on to Catcher now, which I obviously would have put first because
• 25:02
  that's the way an order goes. And I will say I'm actually surprised by
• 25:07
  one thing that happened here that this uh popped up on me since the first
• 25:12
  time I looked at the ballot last week, and that is that they remove
• 25:15
  Martin Maldonado from the ale catcher section. There was a small little movement happening
• 25:19
  on White Sox Twitter where fans were starting to vote for Martin Maldonado and trying
• 25:26
  to encourage people to vote for Maldonado. And is like first hit last night.
• 25:30
  This is like male eleven or something like that. It's like seven to
• 25:34
  zero average, just because it would be so funny to see Martin Maldonado,
• 25:40
  who has been I'm guessing, is he still last in war? Let's rank
• 25:45
  it again. Oh, he's actually let's see technically it's oh, here is
• 25:49
  Montero right now, but let's drop the playing time and yeah, there's Martin
• 25:55
  Maldonado. If you drop the plate appearances to that's of how bad he's been.
• 26:00
  He's bat at seventy eight one point thirty one eighteen. That is an
• 26:06
  ops of two forty eight with in one hundred and ten plate appearances, he's
• 26:14
  worth negative one point seven war. That is so hard. That is really
• 26:18
  that's right. This is where we need the booth doing the research behind us
• 26:23
  is saying, when's the last time somebody was that bad? Like that's that's
• 26:26
  impressive with a thirty in fact that you're still slayout right, It's yeah.
• 26:33
  I wanted to vote for him so bad tonight and get that movement going.
• 26:37
  But he's been taking off the ballot. So in the American League, that's
• 26:41
  going to leave us, I guess with the real vote, and that's going
• 26:45
  to come down to I think the front runners right now are probably Adle Rutchman
• 26:52
  you're looking at with thirteen homers fifty rbi eight eighteen ops. Salvador Perez two
• 26:57
  ninety six average Homer's forty two RBI eight fifty two ops. I'll give a
• 27:03
  shout to Connor Wong got there, who's hit three twenty seven with five bombs
• 27:07
  eight thirty seven ops. And that probably wraps up. I mean, I
• 27:12
  think cal Raley's going to get votes because he's cal Raley, the big dumper.
• 27:15
  But if you want to vote for the best player out of the catcher
• 27:21
  pool, who you picking over there? Brew Well, I didn't look to
• 27:23
  see where David Frye was showing up? Was he not showing up as a
• 27:26
  catcher? Oh, he's actually done DH. He's in DH. Okay,
• 27:32
  yeah, but you're right, Like I just want to give a shout out
• 27:33
  to David fry from a fantasy perspective. But this to me, even though
• 27:40
  you can argue it being close between the top two, is Sally Perez,
• 27:44
  it's Ali Ruschman, and I don't think there's any question he's looked so good,
• 27:48
  he's been so solid. He's he's one of those few rare catcher prospects
• 27:52
  who's been everything we've hoped he should. He would be playing good defense,
• 27:57
  he's being productive of play, love and everything he's doing. So this is
• 28:02
  a pretty easy one for me with Adley. Okay, well, I'm gonna
• 28:04
  go with sal because we had the Orioles Royals debate for shortstop. I'm gonna
• 28:11
  go the other way this time and give it to the Royals. So give
• 28:12
  Casey a little love out there. I'd be careful, Okay, I will
• 28:18
  be all right. In the National League, we've got a competition between it's
• 28:23
  probably between Will Smith from the Dodgers, hitting two ninety six with ten homers
• 28:29
  forty two RBI. Verse is William Contreras with a three zero five average eight
• 28:36
  homers forty seven RBI. So Contreras has in ops, it's forty points lower
• 28:42
  than Will Smith this point. Will Smith has actually come on as of late
• 28:45
  too that I know he's been pulling his numbers up, because William Conturis was
• 28:51
  kind of lapp in the field there for a little bit in the National League.
• 28:55
  If I go back to the WAR leader board too, technically Patrick Bailey
• 28:59
  is leading the National Oh no, that would be contrast is leading the National
• 29:03
  League in ward catcher. But Bailey is second over Yeah, where is Will
• 29:10
  Smith? Maybe he doesn't have enough? Will Smith is leading the NL and
• 29:15
  WAR. I can't read the top of the leader board. I was just
• 29:18
  assuming that would be aptly up there that is Will Smith at the top.
• 29:21
  So yeah, thank you appreciate that because I can read. It's okay.
• 29:26
  That's my value here on the podcast is my ability to read. Yes,
• 29:30
  there's got to be one person on each podcast that can do it right.
• 29:33
  It helps out yep. But because that I am going to go Will Smith
• 29:37
  because yeah, he has really come on as of late over the weekend,
• 29:41
  because last week when I filled this out, I put in William Contreras.
• 29:45
  He looked way better than will Smith on paper, but on flipping my vote
• 29:48
  this week, you're gonna join me on the Will Smith train. Well,
• 29:52
  I really just want to vote Contraras in general, because you get two for
• 29:57
  one, and if you combine the brothers, they're looking fantastic. And honestly,
• 30:02
  Wilson, if it wasn't for the injury, he looked so good.
• 30:06
  I think he might be the guy we're actually talking about. But yeah,
• 30:10
  you're right, it's got to be will Smith here. He's he's been healthy,
• 30:12
  he's been playing, and he I don't know how you say it,
• 30:15
  but he's been sneaky good. And I think that that's part of the Dodgers
• 30:21
  lineup having so much power that is hiding a guy like will Smith being so
• 30:25
  good. So yeah, I have to go will Smith here pretty much hands
• 30:30
  down over William Contrere's. But William's not a bad choice by any means.
• 30:34
  All Right, Well, the outfield pool is a little bit harder to analyze
• 30:41
  and suss out because I think you get about it's roughly forty ish players,
• 30:48
  maybe even almost fifty players to choose from, which is kind of crazy because
• 30:52
  I don't think there's actually any debate in the American League. In the outfield
• 30:56
  right now, it's got to be Judge Soto Tucker, right, like,
• 30:59
  it's not even no one else is even in their strivesphere. David Fry can
• 31:03
  also play the outfield. Sorry, yeah, your pick is going to be
• 31:11
  I'm going to throw you off when I get there, just for fun.
• 31:12
  But no, I think you're right. It's got to be Judge Sother Tucker.
• 31:15
  I don't think there's any question about it. I know Tucker's a little
• 31:18
  banged up right now, but he can be banged up as long as he
• 31:21
  won, and he's still starting in that outfield. So, uh, there's
• 31:23
  there's some other good players there, you know, if you look at maybe
• 31:29
  or Don Alvarez, you can, you know, just squint and see.
• 31:33
  So some guy like Rooker or something like that. I think there's some fun
• 31:36
  guys out there to talk about. But in at least the AL, it's
• 31:41
  pretty pretty cut and dry for me. Okay, yeah, in the L
• 31:45
  it's also relatively I think cutting dry. There's only maybe like four or five
• 31:51
  names that I think I would consider, especially considering that some of the normal
• 31:57
  names here like Cody Bellener, Chris Bryant, Corbyn, Carroll Jazz, Chisholm,
• 32:05
  Michael CONFORDO, let's see, even Nolan Jones has been bad, you
• 32:10
  know. So these are all been guys who you know, you would typically
• 32:15
  be thinking about in terms of votes, but have just struggled this year.
• 32:19
  So I think there's only let's see, one, two, three, four,
• 32:29
  like four guys that I'm considering, and that would be Tascar Hernandez from
• 32:34
  the Dodgers with an eight sixty one ops seventeen homers. We've also got Fernando
• 32:42
  Tucci's junior with an eight twenty eight ops thirteen homers. And we've got Christian
• 32:46
  Yelich with a resurgent year nine to twelve ops, six homers. Another person
• 32:50
  who would steal or benefit from the steals being out there, because what is
• 32:54
  Yellick? He's up for eleven steals eleven and it has been a little bit
• 32:59
  more limited because he was out with the back, but he's see about twenty
• 33:02
  thirty games behind some of these other guys and just looked just just fantastic.
• 33:07
  So absolutely, and then I mean, I think the runaway number one choice
• 33:12
  is Jerks and Profar, though right is it not? With his three twenty
• 33:15
  four average, his ten homers is nine to twenty four ops that I don't
• 33:21
  It's been an incredible stretch for Jerks and Profar, and I don't think he's
• 33:24
  going to keep it up, but he's an all star. I just don't
• 33:29
  feel right about for jerk Profar. Like you look at like and you're right,
• 33:32
  he's he's number one in war. You know, he's doing fantastic in
• 33:37
  the ops perspective, like he looks good. And I will say, if
• 33:43
  it wasn't for Christian Yellis missing some time there, I think that it would
• 33:46
  have been those other three because I can I can argue Tatis over Profar,
• 33:52
  I can argue Taoskar over Profar, but then you run into Yellows. She's
• 33:57
  played thirty less games than than Profar, and it's now getting a little hard
• 34:02
  to make that argument. So I think I think you're right. I think
• 34:06
  Profar does have to get a vote here, and I think I have to
• 34:07
  go Profar, Tatis, ta Oscar as much as I do want to give
• 34:13
  Yellich a chance, or maybe I'm gonna get guy like Jazz Chisholm has been
• 34:16
  actually really really good here as well. But otherwise the NL outfield feel a
• 34:23
  little bit weak for the class here on a whole. Yeah, it's also
• 34:28
  tough when you're growing up against Judge Sodo Tucker on the other side, it's
• 34:32
  everything looks a little weak. But I think I'm gonna go ta Oscar Profar
• 34:37
  Yelich, so I will put Yelich in over Tatis that, especially when he's
• 34:42
  been playing, Yelich has been crazy good. That I was when I was
• 34:45
  writing up for roto Wire the other night he had like his first five hit
• 34:50
  games since twenty nineteen or something like that. That it's been just an unexpected
• 34:55
  bounce back from Yelich that, especially where you took him in Fantasy this year,
• 35:00
  easily an MVP in terms of Fantasy as well. Yeah, I don't
• 35:07
  disagree. Yeah, Now let's get to that designated hitter where in the al
• 35:13
  your boy Josh Frye three twenty three average eight, David fry David Frye who
• 35:20
  he called him Josh Frye David Fry Young is is there as well, so
• 35:23
  I guess yeah, yeah, Josh Young got on the brain standing out with
• 35:28
  his fourteen fifteen ops because he played what like eight games or whatever. Yeah,
• 35:31
  but yeah, we got David Frye with his eight homers, thirty RBI,
• 35:36
  three twenty three average, ten twenty four ops. We've also got Jordan
• 35:40
  Alvarez from the Houston Astros with fourteen homers, two ninety three average, eight
• 35:45
  eighty eight ops. Brent Rooker, I think, is gonna be in the
• 35:49
  discussion here as well with his eight sixty eight ops, forty RBIs, thirteen
• 35:53
  homers and a two sixty three average. No matter what, I think,
• 35:57
  Brent Rooker is probably the a's representative, so I don't necessarily yeah, as
• 36:02
  the starting lineup person. So maybe Ryan O'Hearn might catch a few votes being
• 36:08
  a Baltimore guy, but he's in a bit of a platoon and the RBIs
• 36:14
  have been a little bit light. So yeah, I think ultimately probably comes
• 36:17
  down to Jordan and David fry But I will let you pick here first.
• 36:23
  Yeah, you know, I fucked him up, so I'm gonna go with
• 36:28
  him. It has to be David fry for me. Is he has he
• 36:30
  been what you wed on as the plate not necessarily from ops perspective, he's
• 36:36
  been fantastic. His numbers aren't as strong as eard On's across the board,
• 36:40
  but flexibility he's given that he's played. How many different positions has has fry
• 36:45
  played. I mean he's this year he's played catcher, first base, third
• 36:50
  base, left field, right and right field. He has been all across
• 36:54
  the diamond, being in that, you know, being able to like catcher
• 36:59
  and left field, like that's not the common skill set there. He's just
• 37:07
  done everything he's needed to, and he's done it really, really well.
• 37:08
  And I think you just sometimes have to just reward these guys. And so
• 37:13
  I got to go David fry here, but I think there's a little bit
• 37:15
  of a just a nostalgia what fantasy spins this one for David fry You're not
• 37:23
  probably gonna get the nod. Yeah, but I'm also gonna put in a
• 37:28
  vote for David Frye too, So I'm gonna help you out here because I
• 37:30
  mean, at this point too, he's into one hundred and sixty two played
• 37:35
  appearances of a one ninety one WRC, plus that there is a little bit
• 37:38
  of a babbit fuel here with a three sixty two Babbitt, But he's absolutely
• 37:44
  crushing the ball in scrims of his hard hit percentage and just lacing it all
• 37:49
  across the diamond. I'm also gonna go with David Fry because it's just a
• 37:52
  great story. You can't beat it. And then in the National League a
• 37:57
  DH give me an argument against show Hey. I'm going to give you the
• 38:02
  argument against show Hey, which is just go off of the MLB dot com
• 38:07
  voting websites, and Marcelo Zuna is in three twenty one to show haes three
• 38:13
  twelve. He has eighteen homers to show his sixteen fifty five RBIs of Show
• 38:17
  has forty three in his nine ninety seven ops, which is better than Show
• 38:21
  has nine to sixty five. For those four metrics alone, Marcelo Zuna is
• 38:25
  better than Show Hey. O time, that's all I got. Break this
• 38:30
  thing. They're like, we this is maybe why they don't still on basis
• 38:34
  on the site. This is literally the literally the poster child. Marcelo Zuna
• 38:39
  is great in those four categories only. So that is the argument there,
• 38:46
  and it is one of those It's hard because I Ozuna has had an all
• 38:50
  Star season, He's been great, but yeah, this has to be show
• 38:55
  Hey. You have to give him the nod there because he's been a little
• 38:59
  bit better overall, and he just does need more to the team than Azuna
• 39:06
  does in my opinion. So I'm still gonna give the nod to Otani.
• 39:09
  But there's an argument for Marcelo Zuna. Okay, there you go. You
• 39:15
  tried to make it. But let's run down our teams. Yeah, yeah,
• 39:22
  the Alstar Game was made for show, hey, Otani, so it's
• 39:25
  not even really a question. I don't think that. Let's run down these
• 39:29
  lineups, and we've got very little variation. But first base, we both
• 39:35
  have Josh Naylor second base in the Maria, I guess I should start.
• 39:38
  We're in the American League, obviously, Josh Naylor second base. I've got
• 39:42
  Simeon, You've got Altuve third base. We've both got Jose Ramirez shortstop.
• 39:47
  Both got Gunner catcher. You've got Adlee, I've got sal outfield and d
• 39:54
  h We've all got the same as Judge Soto Tucker Fry National League first base.
• 40:01
  We both have Harper second base. We both have Marte third base.
• 40:06
  I have Boem and you took I forget the third base. I took Julie
• 40:13
  Ortiz. There you go. Yeah, I was finishing up my vote.
• 40:16
  I didn't vote for the Outfield. I didn't put it in, so I
• 40:19
  had to put them in in all your personal information from like yes, so
• 40:23
  you can get information from build Submarines dot com who is sponsoring this Southtar.
• 40:30
  Sorry, I'm gonna go get my social real quick. The vote exactly shortstop.
• 40:36
  We both got MOOKI Catcher, both got Will Smith or did you go
• 40:40
  contraras I Will, I went, I went Smith. I was not allowed
• 40:45
  to take the controller's brothers, so I had to to go with Smith and
• 40:51
  Outfield. I've got Ti Oscar Profar Yelich, You've got Taioscar Profar Tatis,
• 40:57
  and we both got Oi. So bit of variation, but I thought that
• 41:00
  was a fun little exercise. Just also recap some of these guys that,
• 41:05
  I mean, you get to write about them every week. But I've written
• 41:07
  about Jerks and Profar like once, and then he disappeared from my grasp as
• 41:13
  I went back to writing about Corey jokes again. Well, hey, some
• 41:17
  of us have to do the hard work. We're here. I understand by
• 41:21
  hard work, I mean I mean cap show. So I can vote five
• 41:23
  times. Yeah, make sure that you sign up for those build Submarines dot
• 41:29
  com emails. So well, I was actually just identifying what a crosswalk was.
• 41:34
  Oh yeah, yeah, that's gonna be tricky because yeah, they are
• 41:37
  the stoplight ones. Get me because it's like is the poll a part of
• 41:42
  the stop light or is it just the stoplight part. Yeah. I'm always
• 41:45
  the guy that's checking like almost every single box, Like, come on,
• 41:47
  it's I mean, I saw a little paint there. Yeah, just make
• 41:52
  sure you don't hit this and you'll be okay. Yeah, okay, Well
• 41:57
  with that, you want to get into some depressing injury news. Yeah,
• 42:00
  let's get the depression here. Yeah. Okay, Well, we've got one
• 42:04
  major injury that is going to affect maybe the NL kind of like playoff race
• 42:09
  and certainly Fantasy League is all out there as Jtrail Muto from the Philadelphia Phillies
• 42:15
  went down with a torn meniscus getting surgery. Supposedly he's only going to be
• 42:20
  back in a month, which I mean, if it was a very minor
• 42:23
  meniscus thing where they just had to like cut a small hole and yank it
• 42:28
  out, that it was like a floating body or something, I could see
• 42:30
  it. But usually especially when we were looking at Mike Trott's torn meniscus a
• 42:37
  few weeks ago, it was like a six to eight week recovery. So
• 42:39
  these things can vary a lot. And again I know a lot about knee
• 42:43
  injuries just because of Derek Rose, and he ran into a lot of these
• 42:45
  things too, where he had like a significant meniscus injury, but also like
• 42:51
  a really quick meniscus injury. So I know it can go across the board,
• 42:53
  but especially when you think about where the Phillies are and the standings right
• 42:59
  now, they are currently up ten and a half games in the East.
• 43:02
  They have a catcher with a bad knee. I don't know if they're going
• 43:07
  to be pushing J. T ral Muto too hard to get back. But
• 43:12
  brew would you think that this portends for J. T ral Muto rest of
• 43:15
  season? And what are you doing in fantasy leagues where he went down?
• 43:21
  Yeah, I think this is for fantasy players probably well, clearly not ideal
• 43:28
  the injury, but also because of the situation with the Phillies, there's nobody
• 43:31
  really clearly stepping up. But with having that lead in the division, they're
• 43:36
  not going to rush him back. And it's not like thinking rush him back
• 43:38
  and put him a DH because you got Kyle Schworber there, and I mean,
• 43:42
  maybe get great and push. We're back behind the plate where he first
• 43:45
  was. So he came up, but I don't feel like that's gonna go
• 43:46
  well. And so but yeah, between Castiano's you know, out in right
• 43:52
  field, medium at bats DA, Kyle Schwarber, first base, Price Harper,
• 43:57
  like there's nowhere for real Muto to get back in the lineup, like
• 44:00
  ease back in and being a catcher like he's gonna have to be to play
• 44:04
  behind the plate every day. They need him one hundred percent healthy. Uh
• 44:07
  coming back here. So I really don't think that there's any any great news
• 44:12
  here. I do think it's gonna be a little bit longer than what they've
• 44:15
  initially talked about. So I think you're going to really have to look elsewhere
• 44:21
  for your pickups here. So I'm gonna pull up some of the catchers here
• 44:27
  just kind of look at the pool because it it gets pretty thin pretty fast.
• 44:32
  And so I think if you're looking at guys that are you know,
• 44:36
  own maybe say fifty percent of the time or or less, you're probably in
• 44:40
  the argument with guys like you know, Travis Darnault might be out there,
• 44:46
  probably one of the better options if he if he is Keeper Uiz. I've
• 44:52
  always been a big fan of Keeper. I think he has a lot of
• 44:54
  potential, he just hasn't quite put things together. Tyler Soderstrom, I think
• 44:58
  he's got a lot of potential, but he also a guy that's not put
• 45:00
  things together and not been able to keep getting the plate appearances. So it's
• 45:07
  it's gonna get pretty pretty thin pretty quick. And again, there's not somebody
• 45:13
  coming up on the back end here for the Phillies. I think I've seen
• 45:16
  even the them talking about looking to potentially make a trade to backfill this position
• 45:22
  at this point. So yeah, I think there's it's gonna be thin,
• 45:27
  thin pickings out there trying to replace JT. So how about you, who
• 45:31
  are you turning to if you're looking at those like fifty percent or less kind
• 45:37
  of owned catchers out there, anybody from your expertise in the waiver wire world
• 45:40
  who you chasing? Yeah? Well, I mean, first, this is
• 45:44
  how Martine Maldonado wins World Series this year? Right, Yes, I don't
• 45:50
  I don't know. I think is that any different than Garrett Stubbs or Marshan
• 45:55
  or anybody else they have there. Only one arct Is will employ Martin Aldonado
• 46:00
  right now. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of the names
• 46:05
  that you mentioned are good. If you saw have Patrick Bailey out there,
• 46:08
  Patrick Bailey has been working his way back and has been hitting a little bit
• 46:14
  better since shaking off the cobwebs of that concussion a little bit more and more.
• 46:19
  Ivan Herrere is probably still out there in some leagues and that would work
• 46:22
  well to overlap with. He should continue to start every day until real Muto
• 46:29
  gets back. You know, if Gary Sanchez is out there, that would
• 46:32
  be fantastic. That's a great route to go, I think because he's playing
• 46:37
  quite a bit up in Milwaukee, getting enough at bats at DH that the
• 46:43
  average is going to be brutal, but he can at least give you some
• 46:45
  of the power that J. Trel Muto offered. I can tell you as
• 46:50
  a J. Trel Muto owner in our twelve team, two catcher standard Roto
• 46:55
  league together, my options are between caber Ruiz and Corey Lee this week on
• 47:02
  the waiver wire. So if you're in some deeper leagues, it's pretty gross,
• 47:07
  so you might not have too many options available. I think the other
• 47:10
  thing you have to consider is that when you built your team at etrail Muto
• 47:15
  out the gate in draft season, you were probably counting on ten stolen bases
• 47:21
  at least, if not more like fifteen out of the catcher position. So
• 47:25
  when you've Mille your team build around him, you probably were able to not
• 47:32
  have to pick up stolen bases around the fringes because you knew that you were
• 47:37
  banking Summitt catcher, or so you thought until JT. Real Muto had this
• 47:40
  knee injury and it's only stolen one base this year, So that is something
• 47:44
  to consider as well, that you might need to also find an avenue to
• 47:49
  more speed on your team with real Muto being out here. Yeah, I
• 47:53
  think you're right. It's it hurts. I did have him on one team
• 47:57
  myself, and yeah, it costs a little bit to get him there.
• 48:00
  And this will sound really bad, but I haven't replaced him yet because I
• 48:04
  just I don't know, like I'm saying, we like it's a head to
• 48:07
  head league, and so I'm sitting here going, well, I might just
• 48:09
  kill my ratios this week by replacing real Muto. So I'm kind of just
• 48:14
  biting my time running without a catcher for the time being. Probably not wise,
• 48:20
  but based on the rebuilding mode of that team, not hurt too bad.
• 48:24
  All right. Well, that's also an option out there too, I
• 48:28
  guess, just just pack it up and go home, all right. The
• 48:32
  other injury that we had since we last talked is a little bit less significant,
• 48:37
  but it does sound like he's gonna need more than the minimum amount of
• 48:40
  time on the AL. Is the recent news, and that is the astros
• 48:45
  Kyle Tucker going on the AL with a bruised shin after he fouled a ball
• 48:49
  off of himself. Certainly another huge blow if you had Kyle Tucker, as
• 48:54
  you've had to make it two weeks without your number one overall pick, and
• 49:00
  you do have to wonder long term bone bruises just don't heal up well.
• 49:05
  And I think that's probably a little bit of what he's dealing with. And
• 49:08
  Kyle Tucker did offer some speed for you, so I think again, if
• 49:12
  you're looking rest of season, you're probably gonna need to shore up your speed
• 49:15
  a little bit if you have Tucker, because I'm not counting on too much
• 49:20
  else come in his way with the corresponding move the Astros Phil Tucker's roster spot
• 49:25
  with our favorite Joey Loberfido, who I think as long as he's up,
• 49:30
  he's pretty usable in deeper leagues like anything probably fourteen and deeper. I think
• 49:37
  you can slot him in just because the Astros have been hitting a little better
• 49:42
  and low Berfido has been hitting better even with the strikeout rate. But what
• 49:46
  do you think about Kyle Tucker's injury for the Astros. Are you thinking maybe
• 49:52
  it could affect other skills other than his speed maybe, you know, at
• 49:55
  the end of the day, yeah, I I you know, with it
• 49:59
  being a bone bruise, I think it's one of those that it will probably
• 50:00
  be for maybe a little bit of time impact the speed, But I'm not
• 50:05
  too terribly concerned, you know. Give if you're given a full like week
• 50:08
  two weeks on that that's usually gonna be something that, uh, that goes
• 50:13
  away as long as you just stay off it. So I'm not really too
• 50:15
  concerned about Tucker's long term outlook here. I do think it's gonnaybe take them
• 50:20
  a little bit of time to kind of get moving once he gets back,
• 50:22
  just to get comfortable and make sure that he's fully back. They might.
• 50:25
  He might not. You know, the green light might turn yellow for him
• 50:29
  just for a little bit of time. I do have to correct you,
• 50:31
  though, Joey Luperfito was called up and then sent back down already. Uh
• 50:36
  so you got sent down yesterday. They called up us says, our salas
• 50:38
  are following Yanni or Diez's little finger injury. Uh so they had to call
• 50:46
  uh, just just in case. So you know, it'll be interesting,
• 50:53
  uh to see, because you know, if if Tucker does make it back
• 50:57
  closer to the minimum, little Perfito is probably not gonna be back. Or
• 51:01
  if your Diaz is shown to be back and ready to go, Librafido might
• 51:06
  come back. But the scene as the ash was willing to send down Little
• 51:09
  Brafido for a backup catcher, not so certain that they were fully bought into
• 51:15
  him at this point. So I'm kind of white and waiting for Tucker or
• 51:19
  plugging the lineups elsewhere. Yeah, I mean, I think with low Brafiito
• 51:22
  too, it is like they have an option yere, so they can just
• 51:24
  kind of like shuttle him back and forth. You know, he's gonna be
• 51:27
  the bus guy all year. It's gonna be so rough for him. Hopefully
• 51:30
  he just keeps hitting in the minors and uses his opportunities when he gets up
• 51:36
  there, because he's been a little rough when he's been up there. He
• 51:38
  just needs some opportunity, all right. Well, if you are looking for
• 51:44
  some speed out there, we might have one answer here, as the Colorado
• 51:46
  Rockies have called up their top prospect, Adele Amador, which is really kind
• 51:52
  of a shock. With Brendan Rodgers, the second normal second baseman, hitting
• 51:58
  the injured list for a Hamster, this should give Amador two weeks run at
• 52:02
  the second base job in Colorado. I don't know what the Rockies are doing.
• 52:07
  I have no idea what they're ever doing, because this is not a
• 52:12
  guy who has fully formed. He only had a ninety eight WRC plus at
• 52:15
  double A this year, was struggling with a one ninety four average and was
• 52:22
  certainly young at double A. I think he's going to be a big time
• 52:27
  bat kind of in the future, and maybe like the if you can imagine
• 52:31
  Ezekiel Tovar, but actually makes more contact that, I think that's what Amador
• 52:36
  can do for you, while providing certainly more speed that Tobar has. The
• 52:40
  speed but doesn't run as much. Amador does flash that speed on the base
• 52:45
  pass, as he had twenty two steals down in Double A before coming up,
• 52:49
  So I mean, you're probably not looking at somebody who's gonna hit better
• 52:53
  than like two forty ish while he's up with. I think when he gets
• 52:59
  on, he's going to run because he's going to try to prove that he
• 53:01
  can stick on the major league roster. I just don't know if he's quite
• 53:06
  fully formed yet up in Colorado. But what do you think, I mean,
• 53:09
  long term, if you have Amador shares, you've got to be super
• 53:13
  excited because this shows you how close the Rockies think he is. But do
• 53:17
  you think there's any chance that maybe Amador just takes this job out right from
• 53:22
  Brendan Rodgers and carves out some playing time. Yeah, I no, I
• 53:29
  don't think so. I mean, I think there's a argument for the move
• 53:32
  being made because even though Amador's average was dreadful as the both Mendoza line there
• 53:37
  in Double A, he was getting on base at nearly a three forty clip,
• 53:42
  and so he is a very patient hitter. I do think he's very
• 53:45
  young to be called up. I don't think he's to your point, well
• 53:49
  finished product. But I think that there is a lot of skills here,
• 53:53
  and so I think they're just kind of give him a look, give him
• 53:57
  a taste, because he is the future. And this is the Rockies going
• 54:00
  all all the old Rocky ways, which is never call your prospects up,
• 54:02
  vigureouse to do you now they've gone the other way, which just call up
• 54:05
  everybody, but you know when they're sixteen, and so it'll be interesting to
• 54:09
  see. But I don't think he's gonna threaten rogers. I think he's just
• 54:12
  getting a little cup of coffee here and then he'll be back down to the
• 54:15
  minors, maybe if he returns to Triple A or something like that, just
• 54:19
  to kind of see. I do think Amador is one of those guys that
• 54:22
  we're all been waiting for, like Victor Scott earlier this year, any any
• 54:27
  other speed story we've had, was like, is this gonna be the next
• 54:30
  guy to really make an impact and be And I think Amador has a really
• 54:35
  good chance there because he does have a little power. He does he's a
• 54:37
  very patient hitter. I think there's a lot to like here, and I
• 54:40
  think as he as he grows into the role. I think he's gonna have
• 54:45
  sneaky power better than people people think, and so I'm I would be shocked
• 54:50
  to see him, you know, be a fifteen homer guy, especially there
• 54:54
  in Colorado, maybe even stretch it to a little bit more in his in
• 55:00
  his best years. And so it'll be interesting to see how that plays.
• 55:02
  But long term love the guy. Short term, I'm not really too interested.
• 55:07
  I'll probably take a flyer if I'm in a keeper league of some sort
• 55:12
  or I got to keep a guy or two. Yeah, I think that's
• 55:15
  fair, And I mean, I do think one of the things that is
• 55:19
  concerning in his profile is he actually in double A this year had a twenty
• 55:23
  four percent in field flyball rate, which is just pop ups, which is
• 55:28
  not great. So I think that's why his average is so low too,
• 55:30
  and so that is something to watch develop. I think too, is that
• 55:36
  if he can't solve that, then he might have batting average issues more so
• 55:40
  than he was pretty too, and he is. He's a very much a
• 55:44
  groundball hitter too, Like why drive ground ball? Like there is not much
• 55:47
  flyball in this profile at all, and so when you start you know,
• 55:52
  looking at you know, trying to get the ball over the fence and things
• 55:57
  like that, the stuff you're really hoping for. He is a whole heavy,
• 56:00
  round ball, line drive hitter and not a whole lot else, so
• 56:06
  he's probably very happy the shift's not around anymore. Yeah, exactly. All
• 56:09
  right. Well, let's move on to some pitching debuts that happened in the
• 56:14
  past week, and we actually kind of nailed these. I'm gonna have to
• 56:17
  pat ourselves on the back, even though if we can't read or don't know
• 56:22
  like all the ins and outs of Joey lo Berfdo's life over here, we
• 56:25
  did get this right. A couple of weeks ago, as we covered both
• 56:29
  Hirstin Waldrop and Drew Thorpe came up and we thought they might be coming up
• 56:35
  soon, so we were suggesting, hey, get out there and stash them
• 56:37
  if you're in leagues where this type of debut will make an impact to you.
• 56:43
  For Hirst and Waldrop, I'll start there with him down in Atlanta.
• 56:47
  Things were rough in the first start. He was actually cruising through the first
• 56:52
  three innings. He had three scoreless innings, and then things spell part in
• 56:55
  the fourth, so his final line against the Nationals was three and two thirds
• 57:00
  with seven earned runs, four walks, one k. It's good for a
• 57:04
  seven eighteen the ra Drew Thorpe debuted this week just yesterday last night against the
• 57:10
  Seattle Mariners in Seattle so great Pitchers Park, but he was able to keep
• 57:16
  that lineup in check. Looked very solid five innings, one earned run,
• 57:21
  four k's, two walks. Looks pretty polished, but again, pretty weak
• 57:25
  lineup in a really nice pitchers park. That surprising, and he's not gonna
• 57:31
  get any wins. Like I think you probably know that pitcher for the White
• 57:36
  Sox, christ and Waldroup will probably get more for the Braves. If you
• 57:39
  had to pick one for rest of season, which one would you take?
• 57:45
  You're probably gonna disagree with me here, But I'm gonna take Drew Thorpe if
• 57:51
  I'm taking one of these guys for the rest of the season, and it's
• 57:53
  not necessarily based on skill, it's based on opportunity. I think Thorpe is
• 57:59
  going to get a long leash here with with the White Sox, and I
• 58:02
  think he's gonna he's a guy that goes deeper into games. I think he's
• 58:06
  gonna get a lot of opportunities. I think Waldrop's still developing. I think
• 58:09
  there's still He's gonna pitch a little bit. He's gonna be back in triple
• 58:13
  A. He's I don't think that we really see him settle into the Atlanta
• 58:19
  rotation full time. I'm not convinced that, And that's why I would take
• 58:21
  Thorpe. I think long term, Waldrop's got the higher ceiling. Maybe Thorpe
• 58:25
  has a better floor just overall from a profile perspective. Uh so, yeah,
• 58:31
  So, like I said, I'll take Thorpe. I do. He
• 58:34
  has probably one of the most interesting change ups of all of baseball, more
• 58:37
  break than anybody. That thing is nasty. At the same time, he
• 58:42
  just doesn't throw that terribly hard. So the few times that he did get
• 58:45
  hit yesterday, he got hit pretty hard because if he doesn't get his spot,
• 58:51
  he's a little susceptible. So it'll be interesting to see how he plays
• 58:55
  because his Thorpe's profile is not very typical. You don't see many guys like
• 59:00
  this who are a little more control artists, don't have the speed, but
• 59:05
  then have like a nasty pitch or two, and so it's really interesting,
• 59:08
  like if he's able to use that change up enough to make his other stuff
• 59:12
  play up, which in the minors it absolutely did. Does that work in
• 59:15
  the majors That's the big question mark for Thorpe. But I think Waldrop He's
• 59:21
  got the higher ceiling by far. It's just a matter is the control going
• 59:24
  to be good enough and is he going to be able to keep the ball
• 59:30
  in the Ballparker's I think those are the two things with Waldrop. So I'm
• 59:34
  willing with Thorpe. Am I off my rocker. I have to assume you're
• 59:37
  going Waldrop here. No. I mean I think if you're looking for a
• 59:40
  little bit more of like a higher floor, Thorpe is the way to go.
• 59:44
  Like if you need a picture, I think Thorpe is going to stick
• 59:47
  in that white sox rotation the rest of the year and give you something like
• 59:51
  a low fours array. Again not as many as many strikeouts, but like
• 59:55
  you're just gonna get somebody who posts every fifth day Waldrop. If if you've
• 1:00:00
  got a league where maybe you're not hurting for pitching as much, where you
• 1:00:06
  have the ability to chase ceiling a little bit more, then maybe I would
• 1:00:09
  go Waldrop there, just because the upper level outcome for Waldrop is far and
• 1:00:16
  away above what Drew Thorpe is that an upper level outcome for Waldrop is something
• 1:00:22
  akin to like maybe, I mean, amongst the best pitchers in the league,
• 1:00:29
  because he's got a great fastball. The splitter is devastating. It is
• 1:00:34
  a nasty, nasty splitter out of Waldrop. It was really cool to see
• 1:00:37
  that in the major leagues that it just falls off of a cliff. It's
• 1:00:40
  got like it looks like a knuckleball because it's got so little spin. And
• 1:00:45
  so yeah, I think it does depend a little bit on your team.
• 1:00:49
  If you meet somebody who's posting Drew Thorpe, if you're chasing some ceiling,
• 1:00:52
  some upside Waldrop, I have to own it started Drew Thorpe twice yesterday in
• 1:00:57
  different leagues. So I think you can you can see were White ten is
• 1:01:00
  I needed some mintings. Oh yeah, I mean I started a Waldrop in
• 1:01:05
  my RCL team just to uh. I mean it was the Nationals. You
• 1:01:07
  had. It wasn't that bad of a gamble, but it fell apart fast.
• 1:01:12
  Yeah, exactly. Okay, well we got one trade technically, right,
• 1:01:16
  Yeah, I guess they were. It did come down to a trade.
• 1:01:20
  As Kevin Bigio was designated for assignment by the Toronto Blue Jays, and
• 1:01:25
  the Dodgers reached out and completed a trade to bring him over. This should
• 1:01:30
  put Visuo into some sort of platoon role for Los Angeles now, because third
• 1:01:37
  base has been a little bit of a sore spot since Max months you went
• 1:01:40
  down. He's been working his way back from a strained oblique, but it
• 1:01:44
  just hasn't been going terribly well because I mean, Max Month season is mid
• 1:01:49
  thirties, and I can see why it wouldn't be going so well. And
• 1:01:53
  that should open up some playing time for Bisuo as well as obviously there's still
• 1:02:00
  got the platoon with Jason Hayward out in the outfield, and they've got Gavin
• 1:02:05
  Lux at second base struggling. So it was really interesting that the Dodgers decided
• 1:02:09
  to make a trade for Vizio here, and especially given his best skill is
• 1:02:16
  his eye. He's got a career thirteen point seven percent walk rate, and
• 1:02:22
  that should get Visio on base plenty at the bottom of the Dodgers' order for
• 1:02:27
  a dangerous lineup. I think this might be a sneaky move that if you're
• 1:02:30
  looking for some sort of savior upside in a deep league, it might not
• 1:02:36
  be a bad shot taking it on Kevin Bigio this weekend? Am I the
• 1:02:39
  one off the rocker? Now that obviously, this is a guy who has
• 1:02:44
  looked like absolute Dodo since the twenty twenty season. Let me see what's his
• 1:02:50
  total wrirc plus since the beginning of twenty twenty one ninety four without two nineteen
• 1:02:54
  average. So it's been tough, But this might be the best landing spot
• 1:03:00
  Kevin Bigio could have dreamed of. What do you think? Yeah, I
• 1:03:02
  have to agree with with last David, this is the best milanning spot Evin
• 1:03:06
  Vigio could have dreamed of. I think I have a few takeaways here.
• 1:03:09
  First and foremost, it's the end of an era with the sons of the
• 1:03:15
  All Stars, So you know, lad Guerrero, Boba, Chet and cav
• 1:03:21
  On Bigio not coming through to their full potential hurts a little bit just from
• 1:03:27
  all the wonderful cards we could have continued to have with that team. But
• 1:03:31
  to your point, I think it's a good landing spot. And what kind
• 1:03:36
  of I would say frustrates me with this one is they sent Vargas down as
• 1:03:40
  as a result, like a guy that we've kind of talked up of like
• 1:03:44
  has a lot of potential. They just can't seem to dedicate to him.
• 1:03:47
  And they're just adding cav On Bigio, who's got some flexibilities. Still,
• 1:03:51
  you got some youth and get on base to a lineup that's got Keiki Hernandez,
• 1:03:55
  Gevin Lux, Chris Taylor. Like we already have three cav On Bigio's
• 1:04:01
  in that lineup, and so what are you adding? You're subtracting, like
• 1:04:08
  you know, but it's the Dodgers that feels like they're the team playing the
• 1:04:10
  video game and goes like, hey, that guy's had some value one point,
• 1:04:13
  I'll add them to my roster and see what happens. Like it's it's
• 1:04:16
  an interesting move from that perspective. So I would have liked to see Miguel
• 1:04:20
  Vargas still have that opportunity rather than cavi On Bigio. But Bigio is an
• 1:04:26
  interesting one to watch there. You know, if if the if the Dodgers
• 1:04:29
  you know, have figured something out with him or they see something in him.
• 1:04:33
  We do know there's some skills there. We do know there's some speed.
• 1:04:36
  We do know there's a little pop like maybe there's they can pull something
• 1:04:40
  out of him, but I'm not I'm not running the waiver wire quite yet.
• 1:04:44
  Okay. I think yeah, that's a good analysis, and yeah,
• 1:04:48
  if you are in something super deep where you would consider starting him, certainly
• 1:04:55
  maybe make the move and bention, but otherwise maybe a watch list. So
• 1:04:58
  I think there is an opportunity though in LA even if it is somebody walking
• 1:05:01
  in with a sub one hundred WRC plus over the past four years that I
• 1:05:06
  think will be surprised, maybe with the Dodgers could tease out of him.
• 1:05:11
  Yeah, I think you're right, all right. Well, like I said
• 1:05:15
  earlier, we are speaking on Wednesday, June twelfth, but actually happens to
• 1:05:18
  be the release date for twenty twenty four Top Series two. But we've actually
• 1:05:24
  got a couple more other card releases on the calendar coming up, so it
• 1:05:29
  looks like, yeah, Panini just kind of went bananas dropping a bunch of
• 1:05:31
  release dates on us over the past week. As here are some of the
• 1:05:36
  sets that are coming out in the future. We had this past Monday on
• 1:05:41
  June tenth, the Tops Dynamic Duos came out again. Top Series two come
• 1:05:45
  out today. Donners got pushed back to July third, which is when Tops
• 1:05:50
  Tier one is also coming out, and seven nineteen, we've got Panini Boys
• 1:05:56
  a summer, which is that a new one or a new ish one.
• 1:06:00
  I haven't recalled seeing Panini Boys this summer in the past, have you.
• 1:06:04
  Yeah, I don't recognize that one of the off the top. So I'm
• 1:06:08
  actually looking right now. I'm actually like kind of interested in it when I
• 1:06:13
  was looking at some of the description of the set and looking at pictures of
• 1:06:15
  it. Of course, it is non licensed, so there's no logos or
• 1:06:19
  anything on it, but it's a little bit of like a pastoral Tops inception.
• 1:06:25
  It's like the way I describe it, where it does have some nice
• 1:06:28
  patches, incorporates a lot of prospects into the set, but it looks like
• 1:06:33
  it could be kind of a fun one. Yeah, I think, I'm
• 1:06:38
  not sure, but I'm looking it feels like Panini had Boys of somewhere in
• 1:06:44
  chronicles previously. I think maybe that's what it is. And so it's almost
• 1:06:47
  like they split this one out as its own set. And to your point,
• 1:06:51
  just looking at a few of the cards that they kind of have in
• 1:06:54
  there, it's I'm not sure what to compare it to. It's it's kind
• 1:06:59
  of like a cross between I don't know if I want to say this,
• 1:07:04
  but between like heritage and national treasures in a weird way, like I don't
• 1:07:11
  don't know if that's right, or you know, it might even go like
• 1:07:14
  diamond Kings, Like there's a little vibe of that. So it's an interesting
• 1:07:18
  looking set. And yeah, it'll be fun to kind of see what what
• 1:07:24
  this one's all about. I not a whole lot of background here, no,
• 1:07:28
  Yeah, so I mean I think we could scope it when it comes
• 1:07:30
  out next month and dive into it a little bit more. But I will
• 1:07:33
  say that this is maybe like the first Panini set I've been interested in in
• 1:07:38
  like four or five years, so it is. It does look cool,
• 1:07:43
  but well, we'll have to see. We'll have to try to see what
• 1:07:45
  it's like to get a box. But I think you're about three hundred dollars
• 1:07:47
  a box, so well that's a bummer. Maybe I'm less interested. But
• 1:07:53
  three autos and three autos and one memorabilia cards, so when you start talking
• 1:07:57
  about some other things we see from tops, uh, maybe there's a little
• 1:08:00
  bit more to be said for it. Okay, And then we've also got
• 1:08:03
  Panini Prism on the schedule eight twenty eight in August, so I wouldn't be
• 1:08:09
  surprised to see that one push back. I feel like Prism gets pushed back
• 1:08:12
  like every year, so it is good to see it. It's coming out
• 1:08:15
  of the schedule that they've got the Chrome presses working over at Fanatics. But
• 1:08:18
  it does look like the Panini Prism will probably hit the shelves first before TOPS
• 1:08:25
  Chrome because I haven't really seen a TOPS Chrome release date or time yet,
• 1:08:30
  which is a little concerning because you would think we would start getting it on
• 1:08:32
  the calendar about now. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see, but it
• 1:08:38
  should be shown up here pretty pretty quick. Okay, Well, if you
• 1:08:43
  want to check out any of those sets, you can check out the show
• 1:08:46
  notes where you can see that calendar coming up. But we're going to take
• 1:08:50
  a short break and we'll be back to do an overview of Top Series two.
• 1:08:55
  Stick around, all right, Welcome back, everybody. We are going
• 1:09:15
  to discuss twenty twenty four Top Series two now. And the nice thing about
• 1:09:19
  Top Series two is that we don't really have to discuss design because this is
• 1:09:24
  just a continuation of Series one. Flagship. We are starting, obviously from
• 1:09:30
  number three fifty one in the set, as Series one had three hundred and
• 1:09:34
  fifty, so we get another three hundred and fifty here on June twelfth,
• 1:09:41
  the release date. If you want to hear our thoughts on the overall Flagship
• 1:09:45
  design, you can go back to episode thirty one when we discussed this back
• 1:09:49
  in February. I think where we came down is you are pro twenty twenty
• 1:09:55
  four design, I am anti twenty twenty four design. So we will leave
• 1:09:59
  those take back at episode thirty one. No need to rehash it here.
• 1:10:03
  But if you're not familiar with how Flagship works, if you're kind of new
• 1:10:06
  to this card game or getting into it from this podcast because you found us
• 1:10:13
  via ras ball, which is a fantasy baseball website, that the way Flagship
• 1:10:17
  works is that you have multiple series releases. So we have series one in
• 1:10:21
  series two, we'll also have update series in the fall. This pretty much
• 1:10:26
  should cover just about every I would say kind of star, mid level star
• 1:10:31
  to a little bit of like bullpen depth on each team, especially when you
• 1:10:38
  think about like the premier teams in the league between like the Yankees, the
• 1:10:42
  Red Sox, the Cardinals, the Dodgers, and then you know, fewer
• 1:10:45
  and fewer Rockies, Marlins, White Sox, so on so forth. But
• 1:10:49
  with Series two, we're especially getting updates for players and new teams. So
• 1:10:55
  just the other week we discussed on our May Player of the Month PC Chris
• 1:11:00
  Saale only having that one Big League Atlanta Braves card. You've also got the
• 1:11:05
  one from Series two now. And we're also going to get waves of new
• 1:11:11
  rookies coming up. So we've got in just the regular base set, we've
• 1:11:15
  got rookies like Kessen Hurstad PCA, We've got show to Imanaga, Mason Wynn,
• 1:11:21
  Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Junior Kamenero, Kyle Harrison. I think I missed Jordan
• 1:11:28
  Lawler. Jordan Lawler's in the base set as well, and this is my
• 1:11:31
  personal favorite, is that he hasn't really been in any other sets, and
• 1:11:35
  that's Andrew Salfrank, the reliever from the Diamondbacks who was in the World Series
• 1:11:40
  last year. Mostly funny because he's out for the next year because he was
• 1:11:44
  caught up in that betting scandal the other week, So to Pacita Marcano went
• 1:11:49
  down for the entire rest of his lifetime with a lifetime ban. Saw Frank
• 1:11:55
  caught a one year band. But you can go out there and get his
• 1:11:58
  rookie card. I think if, especially if you can track him down to
• 1:12:01
  get him to sign something funny on it, that would be quite the collectible
• 1:12:04
  item out there. But Brew, I'm going to open it up and just
• 1:12:08
  ask you from though that handful of rookies I ran through, who are you
• 1:12:14
  the most excited about going into the release of series two? Here? Yeah,
• 1:12:17
  I think this is gonna be the one, the one time where I'm
• 1:12:21
  gonna be interested for the pitchers over the hitters. Uh, And it's gonna
• 1:12:26
  be Amamoto for me. I think he's going to be uh, you know,
• 1:12:29
  he getting his his first true you get his rookie card in here.
• 1:12:32
  It's gonna be the guy that I'm really interested to see. And I think
• 1:12:36
  there's gonna be a really big market for him, uh, being out of
• 1:12:40
  LA and I know he had a really big market, you know, just
• 1:12:43
  when he when he signed. So I think he's gonna be the one that
• 1:12:45
  is really the most exciting here. A lot of the other other guys,
• 1:12:48
  even you know, I say, even iman Aga, I think is because
• 1:12:51
  of how well he's played. It's gonna get uh some excitement there. Uh.
• 1:12:56
  Otherwise, I think that there's a lot of interesting guys outside of you
• 1:13:00
  know, any of your instance short prints and then personally Mason Winn. I'm
• 1:13:03
  really excited about Mason Win. He had really hit an auto in the in
• 1:13:08
  series one that he had to chase and that was about all he had,
• 1:13:11
  so it's hard hard to find. So I'm interested and excited to see some
• 1:13:14
  some Mason Win and what that that looks like for me. So how about
• 1:13:17
  you, Who's who's the guy that you're looking to chase? Well, I
• 1:13:21
  mean yeah, outside of Saul Frank, certainly, I think it's gonna be
• 1:13:25
  worth chucking away some Cam and Arrows just because he is the probably the best
• 1:13:30
  bat of everybody that I just listened off. I mean, I think that
• 1:13:33
  he's probably a couple years away from really breaking out. But Cameron Arrow is
• 1:13:39
  young. He's in triple A for the Rays that I think, especially just
• 1:13:43
  given the way that this year has gone in terms of him kind of stopping
• 1:13:47
  and starting with a bunch of injuries. I'm sure there are people who have
• 1:13:50
  kind of started peeling back on their investment in junior Cameron Arrow, But I
• 1:13:56
  think he could have a really special season in that bat that could lift his
• 1:14:00
  overall value. Otherwise, Yeah, Yamamoto, I think is going to be
• 1:14:04
  probably the hands down favorite here. And they have released another huge set of
• 1:14:12
  parallels as we've had back in Series one flagship and keeping up the theme of
• 1:14:17
  kind of like the gimmicky overall holiday sets in parallels that we've had for the
• 1:14:26
  past couple of flagships between Update last fall with the Halloween and this spring when
• 1:14:32
  Series one had a bunch of Easter related items, which in hindsight it was
• 1:14:38
  a little bit further removed because Easter was in like April and it released in
• 1:14:43
  February. But whatever, I guess, spring is spring right this year for
• 1:14:48
  Series two. This is new for Series two for the first time. I
• 1:14:51
  will say that they only started this with Update last year. We've got summer
• 1:14:56
  themed, so we've got hot dogs one in every twenty one blasters, statues
• 1:15:01
  of Liberty one and every fifty six blasters, beach umbrellas of fifties, sons
• 1:15:08
  of tens, fireworks of five waves, one of one, so these will
• 1:15:14
  only come in blasters again, so I at least that's what I've read,
• 1:15:18
  So I believe that should be the case where they're only in retail products,
• 1:15:23
  So that does push people into ripping all those terrible blasters out there with all
• 1:15:28
  your brutal odds. But it should be fun to chase some of these,
• 1:15:31
  because I have a feeling these hot dog ones are gonna be pretty popular out
• 1:15:35
  there in the hobby. Am I overstating that or do you think that maybe
• 1:15:41
  one of these other parallels might shine through a little bit better. Well,
• 1:15:45
  I just had to take the hot dogs. It's like the Taco cars all
• 1:15:47
  over again. It's just they're just dreadful. Yeah, I think it's it's
• 1:15:53
  interesting. I don't know that any of them are gonna really be too exciting
• 1:15:58
  because the ones that I think I'm a little more interested in are much more
• 1:16:00
  short printed, like the Sun cards. I think are going to be interesting
• 1:16:05
  to see kind of how that design develops. And I haven't really seen one
• 1:16:10
  actually there. I do actually fun one just now actually just look pretty guest
• 1:16:14
  and cool, and so I think those ones, those ones are going to
• 1:16:17
  be more in demand. So the ones I'm interested in, the sun,
• 1:16:21
  fireworks, the waves, I think those are the ones that come up the
• 1:16:24
  hot dogs actually, Liberty, the Beach Umbrella. They're just a little too
• 1:16:27
  gimmicking. They feel like Don Ross, like phoned it in type of parallels,
• 1:16:31
  and that's just I can't quite go there. That's the way I felt
• 1:16:34
  about most of them, from the Eastern parallels to the Halloween parallels. They
• 1:16:39
  just I just haven't been able to get on board with them. But to
• 1:16:42
  that point, I think there's a few of these that are a little more
• 1:16:45
  attractive. They're just really really hard to find ones. I'd rather take a
• 1:16:49
  taco fractor over any of these. I mean, yeah, those, I
• 1:16:54
  don't know how many. I haven't seen one in a long time. The
• 1:16:58
  I mean, the sun ones are pretty cool. Fireworks are cool as well.
• 1:17:00
  I see one right now. Actually, I'm a little surprised that it's
• 1:17:03
  only one hundred bucks a show to Imanaga Fireworks parallel. That is of five
• 1:17:11
  I said, right, yeah, that seems like a pretty good deal right
• 1:17:14
  now on eBay. And so I think those will be interesting. I think
• 1:17:17
  the New York teams with the Statue of Liberty parallel will probably be rather popular.
• 1:17:26
  In the end that I could see lots of New York mets and New
• 1:17:30
  York Yankee collectors out there trying to put together full sets with that statue of
• 1:17:33
  Liberty background in the foil. Actually see a Nolan Gorman right here. It's
• 1:17:41
  up new listing Fireworks parallel right in your PC. You can type in your
• 1:17:45
  bid right now. I'll let you get to it while you contemplate the entire
• 1:17:49
  list of parallels out there, because I'm giving you the privilege of reading off
• 1:17:54
  all the parallels here for Series two. I'm sure that this isn't even inclusive,
• 1:17:59
  because it does feel like with Flagship and with Chrome and with Bowman the
• 1:18:03
  past couple of sets. Every time we do this overview, we come back
• 1:18:08
  like the next week after with another parallel that's been found out there. But
• 1:18:13
  give the people what they want out there. Let them know what color is
• 1:18:15
  they're going to be searching for top Series two. Run them through the gamut.
• 1:18:21
  Le's see if we can do this without messing it up so parallels.
• 1:18:25
  This time around, we got the Aqua coming back from the Fanatics boxes if
• 1:18:29
  you got those with Series one. Those are one per each Fanatics box.
• 1:18:34
  We also have the common gold foil. Those are one for every two Jumbo
• 1:18:39
  packs. Only the Jumbo are Yellows have some of those. I don't think
• 1:18:43
  tho's been in every set seals like but two per hangar boxes. We have
• 1:18:47
  the rainbow foils, the royal blues. We got the team color, which
• 1:18:53
  I think was it was a good one first for a time around. With
• 1:18:56
  Series one, we also the true photo the ones without borders, which is
• 1:19:00
  I think I saw a number of folks get confused with this was Series one,
• 1:19:03
  but they were pretty pretty neat. You got the yellow foil what was
• 1:19:06
  are one in ten hangar boxes, a little different from the yellow itself also
• 1:19:12
  in those hanger boxes. Then we got all this. I would say the
• 1:19:15
  standards we're tiving standard anymore. But we got the golds out of twenty twenty
• 1:19:18
  four. We got the blue foils out of nine ninety nine, purple out
• 1:19:20
  of seven, ninety nine, green foils out of four, ninety nine,
• 1:19:24
  aqua foil out of three ninety nine. Not to be confused with just the
• 1:19:28
  aqua. We've got the orange foil out of two ninety nine, red foil
• 1:19:31
  out of one ninet nine. We have the vintage stock out of ninety nine,
• 1:19:34
  Independence Day out of seventy six, Black out of seventy three. This
• 1:19:39
  time Father's Day and Mother's Day both out of fifty, got the yellow reckle
• 1:19:45
  out of fifty in hangar boxes, the Memorial Day camos out of twenty five,
• 1:19:49
  you got your clear acetates out of ten. Then you've got your one
• 1:19:54
  of one platinums and your printing plates as usual. So there's just a few
• 1:20:00
  of the parallels to go chasing for. I don't know if I missed any
• 1:20:03
  of them, but I think I got through. I think you did.
• 1:20:06
  I think you made it. And yeah, I think that's a total retread
• 1:20:11
  of series one, which it makes sense because I think especially if you're putting
• 1:20:15
  together sets of any of these either. I mean, there are true Sikos
• 1:20:18
  out there that like try to do an all orange boil set of this.
• 1:20:23
  I've seen that. I'm sure people probably even try for the Independence Stay vintage
• 1:20:27
  stock, maybe even down to the of fifties. I can't see anybody trying
• 1:20:31
  to do in of twenty five, but that would be an impressive full set.
• 1:20:36
  So that's why they keep it consistent, I think, across all flagship
• 1:20:41
  products, so it's not mixing and matching the way that we have seen with
• 1:20:45
  Bowman and tops Chrome over the years, where there's just like total variation from
• 1:20:50
  set to set in terms of what types of parallels that we have and what
• 1:20:55
  colors that they're putting in there. So yeah, pretty standard in terms of
• 1:20:59
  what we're used to for flagship there. I am. It's cool that they
• 1:21:04
  are bringing back the team colors and true photos. I think that those have
• 1:21:08
  been some of my favorite that I've seen from series one, between just having
• 1:21:13
  that element of the team color being like a super color match and you and
• 1:21:18
  I love our color matches. We've gone over that maybe just about every time
• 1:21:21
  we talk about cards on here. And the true photos I think have been
• 1:21:26
  really cool. I've really enjoyed seeing different variations of those because it reminds me
• 1:21:33
  of a lot of like the cards that were just much more straightforward that especially
• 1:21:39
  when you got like off brand stuff from like the seventies and eighties, it
• 1:21:42
  was just like a photo of the player. I think that's just really striking
• 1:21:45
  overall. Especially if you can get one of these big names like a true
• 1:21:49
  photo like Yamamoto or something, it's going to be a pretty iconic card out
• 1:21:54
  there. Yeah, I think so. And I do have to take us
• 1:21:58
  back because I've been searched eBay as we're talking here, because I've just thrown
• 1:22:01
  off by some of these fireworks parallels, and I think this is going to
• 1:22:05
  throw folks off because there's folks calling some of the parallels fireworks, which are
• 1:22:12
  not actually fireworks. I don't know what they are. But the firework parallels,
• 1:22:16
  the Sun parallels actually are numbered on the back, and if you look
• 1:22:19
  at the ones that you probably saw, they have they're kind of like a
• 1:22:24
  concentric circles that is not the actual fireworks. That is not the sun.
• 1:22:30
  I don't know what that is the fireworks one. Now, Yeah, the
• 1:22:34
  fireworks truly look like fireworks. And so because I was, I was just
• 1:22:39
  surprised with the number of those that I was seeing already on eBay and on
• 1:22:44
  the checklist, I'm not finding anything listed that would match those cards. So
• 1:22:49
  we're starting off beach umbrellas, honestly, because I think the ods from last
• 1:22:56
  set weren't numbered either. Let's let's let's search search for that to see if
• 1:23:01
  that that No, the beach umbrellas are very obvious. That is terrible.
• 1:23:08
  Yeah, So it's it's going to be interesting to see here because there's even
• 1:23:15
  there's some beach umbrellas showing up out of ten, which is really really interesting.
• 1:23:20
  We did that in update last year too, where the numbers didn't always
• 1:23:26
  line up with the foils. So it looks like whoever is running that portion
• 1:23:30
  of the quality control of TOPS has just done another bang up job. Yes,
• 1:23:35
  so more to come. We got to dig into this further. But
• 1:23:39
  the umbrellas are numbered out of fifty outside of the what looks to be an
• 1:23:43
  umbrella parallel out of ten, So we've got some more digging into do to
• 1:23:47
  really understand what's happening with those special holiday type versions, because as usual,
• 1:23:55
  TOPS has released something and not giving us all the details. So we'll figure
• 1:23:59
  this one out maybe next week. Yeah, I have no idea what it
• 1:24:02
  is, right because it's definitely something that's just not listed in everything we've talked
• 1:24:06
  about, right because it's the hot dogs, something else, the Statue of
• 1:24:11
  Liberty, Statue of Liberty, the umbrellas or umbrellas, Sons are sons,
• 1:24:15
  fireworks are fireworks? What is? And like I said, there's two versions
• 1:24:19
  of the umbrellas. There was an out of ten McKinsey Gore. I saw
• 1:24:23
  the eBay of umbrella. There was a different version of an umbrella, So
• 1:24:27
  there are clearly more out here of these parallels, of these holiday parallels than
• 1:24:30
  they're telling us, So it's gonna be interesting. But I've also seen people
• 1:24:35
  that because of that, they don't know how to list them, they don't
• 1:24:38
  know what they are. They're calling them fireworks, and there's gonna be people
• 1:24:41
  out there that are gonna be misled on these. So bang up job tops
• 1:24:45
  throwing us for a loop just to begin here as as we get going.
• 1:24:49
  Yeah, the hot Dog ones rule. I love them already. I've only
• 1:24:54
  seen a few, but they all are awesome. So that would be actually
• 1:24:58
  a six set to put together all top Series two hot Dog parallels. I
• 1:25:02
  hope some intrepid person out there does that. Thats kudos to you if you
• 1:25:09
  managed to pull that one off. Yeah, if you do, you have
• 1:25:12
  a standing spot to come onto this podcast and talk about it, because yeah,
• 1:25:17
  I would be thoroughly impressed. Okay, well let's get into where we
• 1:25:21
  can get out and buy these cards. So, just like Series one and
• 1:25:26
  any other flagship, just about anywhere and everywhere. So hobby shops are going
• 1:25:30
  to have your standard hobby boxes, hobby jumbo boxes, and then they will
• 1:25:35
  also be carrying along with your retail environments like your Barnes and Nobles or Targets
• 1:25:43
  or Myers or Walmart's or the Walgreens. I just mentioned that obviously. I
• 1:25:48
  mean my Walgreens always carry stuff from like two years ago. I don't even
• 1:25:53
  know where they dig it out from. But we'll be seeing Series two there
• 1:25:57
  in twenty twenty six. There. You will be able to get the the
• 1:26:03
  hangars, you will be able to get individual packs, you will be able
• 1:26:08
  to get blasters, and probably a few other jumbo packs. I haven't talked
• 1:26:13
  about the fat packs, and probably a few other kind of mixes and matches
• 1:26:16
  because they don't have the megaboxes out yet, but typically they have been resently
• 1:26:21
  seeing megaboxes, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's also maybe some team up
• 1:26:28
  with Costco again that those seem to be pretty popular from twenty twenty three,
• 1:26:31
  when there are the boxes at Costco that had Series one, Series two and
• 1:26:36
  some update in it, so that could be coming to shelves maybe around the
• 1:26:40
  holiday time. So there are certainly plenty of different options out there. Brew
• 1:26:45
  If you had to pick one, which option you're going to be out there
• 1:26:48
  ripping? Yeah for me? If i'm if I'm ripping the flagship products,
• 1:26:54
  I'm I'm almost always going with the Jumbo. I think the Jumbo is you
• 1:27:00
  usually where the value is, especially from a number of cards perspective. You
• 1:27:03
  are not guaranteed, but you're getting pretty close to the overall set that you
• 1:27:09
  can get your You've got a number of opportunities and guarantees there with the Auto,
• 1:27:15
  the multiple relics, and you also having generally the two silver packs giving
• 1:27:20
  you a chance to chase an additional auto also within those. So Jumbo box
• 1:27:26
  for me generally has been the way to go. With Series two not being
• 1:27:30
  as strong as some of the checklists, I might also back that down to
• 1:27:34
  again a few hangers just to try those. Because Hangars have been really good
• 1:27:39
  with Series one, I'm expecting the same with Series two. I haven't seen
• 1:27:42
  the seen those odds, but I expect that to play through. So for
• 1:27:45
  me, if I'm going, if I'm going big, I'm starting with the
• 1:27:47
  Jumbo. If I'm if I'm just picking something up for fun with a quick
• 1:27:50
  little rip, definitely going with the hanger box if if I can find those,
• 1:27:55
  But Hangars usually trail the initial release by a few weeks so you're probably
• 1:28:00
  seeing blasters out there, yet you're probably not singing seeing the hangars on the
• 1:28:02
  shelves yet. Yeah, and that is unfortunate for you because you will not
• 1:28:08
  be pulling any hot dog parallels from jumbo boxes as a retail only thing.
• 1:28:12
  Maybe. I guess we'll find out later, but I think, well,
• 1:28:15
  well, I have to plause you there. I think I found the answer
• 1:28:18
  because I'm searching. There are apparently base holiday cards that are not parallels,
• 1:28:25
  because I and we went out and look at some of the odds, and
• 1:28:29
  it does appear that each of the holiday come with a base. And so
• 1:28:33
  I think the ones that we're seeing that look kind of like concentric circles.
• 1:28:38
  You could argue fireworks, argue son, but clearly as neither of those.
• 1:28:41
  I think we're talking about base holiday parallels. Now I know what it's meant
• 1:28:45
  to be, but I believe that is what we're talking about. Not necessarily
• 1:28:50
  numbered, but based on the odds, we're talking probably three or four thousand
• 1:28:55
  of those out there. Thanks to your buddy or top speed buh, he's
• 1:29:00
  indicated there are three thy nine hundred and twelve of those base based on the
• 1:29:05
  odds, So interesting takeaway there that I think we finally found the culprit of
• 1:29:13
  our confusion. Yeah, I guess we have to figure out who the the
• 1:29:16
  ultimate like culprit is of not getting that information out there between Beckett and Topsis
• 1:29:23
  because that was not on the Parallels checklist. See we've uncovered one. Didn't
• 1:29:28
  even need a week. Yeah, well, look at let's just call it
• 1:29:30
  a call to win for here. Okay, good sleuth work. But yeah,
• 1:29:34
  I do think you did mention that typically Series two is weaker overall because
• 1:29:41
  in Series one they obviously want the biggest stars out there to build hype for
• 1:29:45
  the baseball season, so you're missing people like you know, Akunya and you.
• 1:29:51
  I mean, I was gonna say Otani, but Otani's actually in Series
• 1:29:56
  two for the first time in a photoshop Dodgers jersey, which is a real
• 1:30:00
  bummer. I think that this was their opportunity to put Otani in a real
• 1:30:04
  game action with the Dodgers jersey. But they photoshopped a photo from last year,
• 1:30:10
  which is a little bit disappointing. And we also let me check before
• 1:30:15
  I speak, but I'm pretty sure we get a Wan Soto in a Yankee
• 1:30:19
  uniform. No, we do not. He's just in the cover, you
• 1:30:24
  know, Yankees uniform. So if you want one a flagship of Wan Soto
• 1:30:28
  in a Yankee's uniform, you still have to take down that chase down that
• 1:30:31
  short print from Series one. But the other reason that Series two is going
• 1:30:36
  to be hot this year is that the short prints in therefore the rookies are
• 1:30:43
  hotter than hot. Again. So they did this a couple of years ago,
• 1:30:46
  especially with Julio and Bobby Witt Junior, who were surprised debutants during twenty
• 1:30:55
  twenty two. Am I saying that right? Yeah, correct? And so
• 1:31:00
  they were included in Series two as short prints to be able to hype like
• 1:31:06
  the release for them being an update. They've done the same thing over at
• 1:31:11
  Tops this year for Series two. So the rookies who are going to be
• 1:31:16
  an update don't have a bas rookie card in Series two but have a short
• 1:31:23
  print are Jackson Holiday, Jackson, Merrill, Jackson Curio, and Whyite Langford.
• 1:31:30
  So those will be pretty big ones, big cards to chase out there.
• 1:31:32
  And here we've also got a variation on the Jackson Holiday card, which
• 1:31:39
  I think is going to be It's going to be either the biggest gimmick of
• 1:31:43
  this year or the biggest win of this year. I'm kind of not sure
• 1:31:45
  which way it's going to play out, but I want you to inform the
• 1:31:49
  people out there what they're doing with the Jackson Holiday cards and then also rule
• 1:31:54
  off the bat whether you think it's a gimmick or if you think it is
• 1:31:57
  going to be something iconic. Yeah, this this to me, and I'm
• 1:32:01
  going to start off there is this going to be a gimmick or iconic?
• 1:32:06
  I think it's going to be iconic is where I'm going to go. I
• 1:32:11
  think this is one of the best moves the TOPS has made in a while.
• 1:32:15
  And what they've done is they have gone back to the nineteen eighty nine
• 1:32:20
  Clear six sixteen what we've known as ff air, otherwise known as bleep space.
• 1:32:28
  We're going to keep this without a rating on our pod notes unless our
• 1:32:32
  sound engineer, Okay, you are smart enough to bleep out of a podcast
• 1:32:36
  editor to know how to do bleeps yet. Yeah. So anyway, that
• 1:32:42
  card is synonymous with folklore of card collecting, where Bill Ripkin had some inappropriate
• 1:32:49
  language on the bat knob of his bat, starting with an f ending in
• 1:32:55
  face and that card was kind of I call it a misprint and air.
• 1:33:00
  But then they also had versions of it which were blacked out or white it
• 1:33:04
  out, trying to hide what was on the end of the bat. And
• 1:33:10
  they have recreated that card with Jackson Holiday with multiple variations on it as well.
• 1:33:16
  And so they have recreated Jackson Holiday with the fun face card, also
• 1:33:24
  one with a black box on it, and also one with a white box
• 1:33:28
  on it, trying to cover what is in theory on the end of that
• 1:33:31
  bat. I think because the folklore of that Bill Ripkin card, this is
• 1:33:36
  one that can go for hundreds of dollars in graded great condition. Nowt maybe
• 1:33:43
  a stealing from flear a little bit. I think this is one's going to
• 1:33:45
  get a lot of people excited. I've already seen, you know, Twitter
• 1:33:49
  read it, everybody kind of talking about that card. And I'm just guessing
• 1:33:56
  that the early sales of this have been through the roof, and so it'll
• 1:34:01
  be interesting to see what plays. But as I go through that where you
• 1:34:06
  at are you still sitting here not not quite sure? Because it looks like
• 1:34:12
  if you're gonna get go after any of these cars from Jackson Holiday, it's
• 1:34:15
  going to cost you roughly five hundred dollars is kind of know what the early
• 1:34:21
  bids are looking like. So where are you at? Are you gonna own
• 1:34:25
  one of these? No? I will not unless I pull one. But
• 1:34:30
  I'm actually surprised by that price because when the Julios first came out like they
• 1:34:34
  were pushing more in the thousand dish range and settled in I think to like
• 1:34:40
  the two to three hundred range. So obviously maybe there is a little bit
• 1:34:45
  of the shine coming off of Jackson Holiday, but it is also unknown how
• 1:34:49
  many of these are out there and how many of each version are out there,
• 1:34:53
  because honestly, this is very recently kind of like unfolded as we've been
• 1:34:58
  prepping for the pod because it wasn't included in any of the traditional checklists that
• 1:35:03
  came out early. So tops through this in as like that little Nugget when
• 1:35:08
  it initially came out, I thought it was just going to be fun face
• 1:35:12
  on the bat knob, and then if that was all the parallel was going
• 1:35:15
  to be, I was out on it. But with the different variations with
• 1:35:20
  the cover ups that mimicked the cover ups that they used in the eighty nine
• 1:35:25
  Fleer in the subsequent releases after they noticed the error on the Ripken card.
• 1:35:30
  I'm actually in on this card that I think the variations make it really fun.
• 1:35:33
  I think if they really wanted to go full whole hog though, they
• 1:35:38
  should have made a one of one f face card just for fun, like
• 1:35:44
  that would have been I think the ultimate card to put out there, with
• 1:35:47
  the full tribute to Ripken with the curse on it, and maybe it is
• 1:35:54
  floating out there, who knows. Maybe they didn't want to release it,
• 1:35:57
  but if I was in charge of tops and printing cards, like, I
• 1:36:00
  don't kind of care what the backlash would be if if there was any,
• 1:36:03
  because obviously you can go out and get that eighty nine flee Ripken card anywhere
• 1:36:09
  you want that, Like it's just one bad word, you know, you
• 1:36:13
  can be a Spaceballs uses lots of F bombs and an n SPG rated.
• 1:36:17
  You know you're right that And it would be shocking because I'm looking now,
• 1:36:23
  I think something the the jury is out on what's truly out there. I
• 1:36:28
  second five different variations of this card. You have the fun face, you
• 1:36:31
  have the black tape, black box area box, you have the white circle
• 1:36:39
  variation where they've a whole bat knob. You have a white scribble where it's
• 1:36:45
  kind of scribbled out, and you have a black scribble where they've scribbled that
• 1:36:47
  out. So that and the original fun face. I'm not sure if we
• 1:36:53
  say original, but that is five different variations of this card, all you
• 1:36:59
  know, selling in that five to seven hundred dollars range. And what's hard
• 1:37:01
  is you just don't know what's the rare one. What are they all the
• 1:37:05
  same rent run? That's what's really interesting. And you know there are some
• 1:37:11
  fans out there that of that nostalgia that are going to be going after this
• 1:37:15
  to create the rainbow of this card. And to your point, it's there
• 1:37:19
  might be more out there, There might be something that we just don't know
• 1:37:23
  about. But I'm I'm liking what Tops has done here. I think it
• 1:37:30
  that little extra tarrot in the product for folks to go after the Easter egg,
• 1:37:34
  if you may, is kind of a fun little thing that the Tops
• 1:37:39
  is doing. Right. Yeah, Okay, well let's get into some of
• 1:37:43
  the inserts. So for the series two inserts, we've got nineteen eighty nine
• 1:37:48
  coming back as like the main insert set that goes along with the flagship and
• 1:37:56
  with that They've also got Tops Baseball All Stars from the nineteen eighty nine designs.
• 1:38:02
  I've always loved those designs that like they were the special All Star cards,
• 1:38:06
  and I don't know if it's just because I had a lot of them
• 1:38:09
  in my collection as a kid that they have like a fond place in my
• 1:38:12
  heart, but I think that they've always been kind of a cool looking card.
• 1:38:15
  So those will be awesome to see out there with the new players on
• 1:38:18
  them. We've also got stars of them well be packing all those retail packs
• 1:38:24
  out there. And we've got a new Ronald Lacuna forty seventy insert checklist,
• 1:38:32
  which all of them have autograph parallels as well. So TOPS has done this
• 1:38:38
  every year where they kind of dedicate an entire set to one player. So
• 1:38:44
  it's been like Juan Soto and Cody Bellinger and King Griffy Junior in the past.
• 1:38:48
  It's Ronald Kunyiz turn this time around. For series two. We've also
• 1:38:55
  got the return of those ugly silver Slugger that will be peppering all sorts of
• 1:39:00
  boxes and being your one hit that's pulled from some hobby boxes out there and
• 1:39:08
  making plenty of people frustrated. We've also got the I want to say the
• 1:39:14
  downtown, but I forget what they're called. The city connects yep, city
• 1:39:20
  connects. And we've also got the return of the home field advantage. No,
• 1:39:27
  that's that is what I'm thinking of. Yes, home field advantage is
• 1:39:30
  the is the downtown version. We've got the also the return of heavy lumbers.
• 1:39:34
  We've got the returns of the followbacks which we've had in Big League and
• 1:39:38
  in Series one, and all sorts of other stuff. I do want to
• 1:39:44
  call out the city to SETI check list. This is the one that I
• 1:39:48
  was thinking of with the City Connects. I was excited for the execution of
• 1:39:54
  these, like when I was reading about them. Essentially what it is is
• 1:39:56
  it's like a map with the airport name behind them. But they made them
• 1:40:02
  as boring as you could, like you can't really see anything but the airport
• 1:40:06
  name on them, and then the map is really indistinguishable. So it's really
• 1:40:12
  a letdown to see that they couldn't quite execute those Cities to city inserts as
• 1:40:17
  I was, like I said, kind of excited for them. And I
• 1:40:21
  think the biggest insert that's going to be probably the most popular out there is
• 1:40:28
  a women in Baseball insert set. So this has Jessica Mendoza and others in
• 1:40:33
  it. That covers some of the women that have been important to Major League
• 1:40:38
  Baseball over the past few years. And so I think that's going to be
• 1:40:42
  a big one for people to collect out. They're easy to to put together.
• 1:40:45
  Of also only five, so I think that's even something I'll chase,
• 1:40:48
  even maybe even in the blue Parallel or something fun just to kind of commemorate
• 1:40:55
  that. But any of these inserts really stand out for you overall group?
• 1:41:00
  Yeah, I mean there's there's a few. I to you to your point
• 1:41:03
  that you just made, I think the Women in Baseball Inserts is very kind
• 1:41:08
  of just an important set. I think it. Uh, we've seen a
• 1:41:12
  few of these women in baseball show up in a few different products over the
• 1:41:15
  last few years, and they've always been a chase card and uh, you
• 1:41:19
  know, something to commemorate the the change into the guard, the opportunities that
• 1:41:24
  we see. I think the home field advantage checklists, those have really been
• 1:41:29
  great cards that they've done done well. I think that for me where it's
• 1:41:34
  gonna get interesting and I'm gonna go much more rare on you. We have
• 1:41:41
  the first pitch inserts, which I think will be interesting seeing that the trade
• 1:41:45
  over to other sports. You've got c J. Stroud, Victory Wimbiana.
• 1:41:49
  I'm not gonna we don't that's what we don't do basketball. But I think
• 1:41:54
  what's really interesting is there there's gonna be a few chase cards is coming out
• 1:41:58
  of that set, in particular because we do have some autos coming out.
• 1:42:02
  There's there's a number of dynamic duo autos there would be fun. But there
• 1:42:06
  is one very particular latinum one on one CJ. Stroud, Victory Wimbeyana auto
• 1:42:15
  that'll well, there's an out of ten and then there's a one on one
• 1:42:16
  parallel, so I guess eleven cards technically, however you want to look at
• 1:42:20
  it, and I think that is going to be one of the big hits
• 1:42:26
  in this set, which isn't even a baseball card. It's got two guys
• 1:42:30
  that threw out the first pitch that I think that'll be interesting. You've already
• 1:42:32
  seen a few of the first pitch cards there or the playball autographs there with
• 1:42:38
  CJ. Stroud and Victor, and they're commanding thousands of dollars already, So
• 1:42:43
  I think that's gonna be a really interesting one to watch, uh they see.
• 1:42:46
  But to the point earlier, I think you're right on the women of
• 1:42:49
  baseball check this is one that I'm I'm very interested in and I think it's
• 1:42:53
  gonna be a fun one just to grab one of each of those, just
• 1:42:56
  to have the set. Yeah, exactly. And I I will declare that
• 1:43:00
  the Stroud when Bayanna do a autograph is definitely a gimmick, Like I think
• 1:43:05
  it's just when you're it just I think rubs it in our faces too.
• 1:43:11
  That of the three sports, baseball is probably like the least popular popular amongst
• 1:43:16
  the youngkins out there. You know that they are all chasing wim Banyanas and
• 1:43:19
  Strouds in football and basketball products as we've kind of seen at our card shows,
• 1:43:26
  and how many different mahomes like rookie patch attos have been flashed in our
• 1:43:31
  face that we aren't interested in. And if it wasn't I think those two,
• 1:43:38
  just with the hype around Stroud and wim Baniana, then maybe it'd be
• 1:43:42
  less gimmicky. But it does feel like tops move to say, we know,
• 1:43:45
  Top Top Series two moves much at a much slower pace than other products
• 1:43:53
  and let's put something in there to really accelerate those sales. Oh yeah,
• 1:43:58
  and you know those are all stickerados, like right, they didn't send those
• 1:44:00
  cards out and they're absolutely sticker autos. So it's it for that. It
• 1:44:05
  really truly is a gimmick, and those are gonna be those would be really
• 1:44:10
  hard cards to come by, and yeah, people are gonna chase them,
• 1:44:15
  and it's gonna be a long chase, I think, what is the easy,
• 1:44:18
  easy way to put it. Yeah, and they are definitely sticker autos
• 1:44:21
  because especially some of those let's play ball like first pitch autos with Stroud have
• 1:44:29
  been coming out. People have been ripping them and they don't have the auto
• 1:44:31
  on them, so that's gonna be fun for yep. So yeah, there
• 1:44:39
  are ones out there that already I'm looking at one on Reddit right now that
• 1:44:44
  it is sans auto. Even though it's got all the top certified autograph stuff
• 1:44:49
  on it, it does not have the auto sticker on it. But I
• 1:44:53
  do think that if you are buying and want just a better bang for your
• 1:45:00
  buck, this is also a reason why the jumbos are gonna be better overall,
• 1:45:04
  because you get the higher chance of the autograph in there, and this
• 1:45:09
  is actually comparatively too flagship I've seen in the past. It's a pretty solid
• 1:45:15
  autograph checklist. Lots of stars, lots of Hall of Famers, lots of
• 1:45:19
  really solid rookies, and really it does seem like they cut down on the
• 1:45:24
  number of I would say, like kind of role player type of guys,
• 1:45:28
  a reliever type of guys. Obviously, you don't know how many of each
• 1:45:32
  total of each card are out there, so I think that's how Tops regulates
• 1:45:38
  it a little bit, is that they do stuff some of these packs with
• 1:45:41
  more of your like Michael Tolias and people like that, you know from bench
• 1:45:46
  players, some of the Rockies. But I will say it's a surprisingly solid
• 1:45:50
  auto checklist, and that should make your return on a Jumbo a little bit
• 1:45:56
  better than I think it might have been for series one. Possibly. Yeah,
• 1:46:00
  I think you make a really good point because as you look at it,
• 1:46:01
  Yeah, they don't, get me wrong, there's still a few of
• 1:46:03
  those names you look at and be like, really, that's that's where we're
• 1:46:06
  going. But like in general, you have to assume that majority of these
• 1:46:12
  weapon called bass bass autos are going to be ones that are a little bit
• 1:46:18
  uh, that are well distributed. You're getting some pretty strong names in the
• 1:46:23
  vast majority of those, and so you're more or less going to hit somebody
• 1:46:28
  interesting the majority of the time, which is which is fun. And then
• 1:46:31
  you get into some of these shorter checklists of autos, it'll it'll get really
• 1:46:36
  interesting. They did go with a Baseball Stars checklist, which I think is
• 1:46:42
  a little bit weaker. If you look at that one, you have some
• 1:46:44
  some guys in there that are kind of up and coming, you like Drew
• 1:46:48
  ram on the Cardinals, you know, Trey Cabbage, Alekai Williams like so
• 1:46:54
  that that there is a one of those checklists which has some bigger names but
• 1:46:57
  also weaker. And I guess our rookie though too, so you'll have the
• 1:47:00
  rookie card of them at least you know, yes, so you will.
• 1:47:03
  I will have to go back and just call it that Baseball Duels. Even
• 1:47:05
  know we talked about the Duels of Victor and CIJ. Stroud. There are
• 1:47:11
  some huge chases in that list. You've got King Griffy Jr. And Mike
• 1:47:16
  Trout. You've got Griffy and e Hero Uh, You've got Tani in each
• 1:47:21
  Hero you have Molina and Pooholes, Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan, Like,
• 1:47:29
  you have some major, major cards in there that are going to really get
• 1:47:34
  some people excited. So we've got our Victor Or sorry Victor, Vladimer Greer
• 1:47:39
  Junior and Vladimgreer Or Senior. I don't know if we had a duel auto
• 1:47:43
  of those two before. I don't know if I've seen it, sure you'd
• 1:47:46
  have to think so. And again, sticker autos, they just create one
• 1:47:48
  and send it out. So I think that your point, this is a
• 1:47:51
  pretty strong checklist from an auto perspective, so if you hit one, you
• 1:47:58
  have a good chance of getting some special Yeah. And we didn't even talk
• 1:48:01
  about the other huge chase auto here, which is from the Signature Tunes dual
• 1:48:08
  Autographs checklist, which is I don't know if they're going to be doing this
• 1:48:12
  more. It did seem like when I was reading like some of the background
• 1:48:15
  information from TOPS that maybe this is going to be a more common dual autograph.
• 1:48:21
  But what they've done is they have Juan Soto and Kyle Tucker pair it
• 1:48:27
  up on an autographed card with the artist from their walk Up song. So
• 1:48:31
  for Juan Soto, that's Daddy Yankee for Kyle Tucker, that's Travis Scott.
• 1:48:36
  Those are going to be I think huge chase autos as well, just in
• 1:48:41
  terms of like the Stroud when Binyama, I actually like these better because there's
• 1:48:45
  a baseball element to it. It's not just let's stick together a football player
• 1:48:49
  and a basketball player and put in a baseball card set that there is a
• 1:48:54
  relation between the player and the musical artists. So I really hope that they
• 1:49:00
  use this to maybe build the brand a little bit more in the future,
• 1:49:03
  be able to pair the baseball players with a celebrity to get people to chase
• 1:49:09
  these cards. Yeah. I think it's a great call on You're either that
• 1:49:13
  that tie in with the player. Interesting to see Kyle Tucker on there and
• 1:49:15
  the guy that really doesn't tend to jump up in the card world as much.
• 1:49:20
  Kyle Tucker is as unexciting as Lane Thomas and who's our guy go to
• 1:49:27
  on this podcast for for for boring guys in the in the in the hobby,
• 1:49:30
  and so I'm a little surprised to see Kyle Tucker being one of those
• 1:49:33
  guys out there. I was a thought for Androis Tease or shohe Atani or
• 1:49:36
  something like that, so that it'll be interesting to see how that affects the
• 1:49:42
  value of that card. I think it's also a I mean, you got
• 1:49:46
  Daddy Yankee with Soto on the Yankees, but then Kyle Tucker, Travis Scott
• 1:49:51
  is a Houston connection, so I think that's a little bit of what it's
• 1:49:55
  getting into as well. It's not about Kyle Tucker, that's what I Yeah
• 1:50:01
  Travis or yeah, Kyle Tucker is the vessel for the Travis Scott auto into
• 1:50:05
  the set. That's fair, all right. Well, I think even with
• 1:50:13
  everything that we've kind of outlined here with Series two, I think when it
• 1:50:16
  usually does come out, there's less hype around it. But because of some
• 1:50:19
  of these elements between the big Time Rookies and the Jackson Holiday short prints,
• 1:50:24
  I think it's going to be a pretty exciting series to release. So I
• 1:50:29
  just like you have been enjoying searching eBay as we've been talking to see a
• 1:50:31
  bunch of these cards get posted, So certainly check it out there if you're
• 1:50:35
  looking for singles, hit up your hobby shops out there if you are looking
• 1:50:40
  to get those jumbo boxes, and they're also still up on tops dot com,
• 1:50:45
  so Series two, just like Series one, should be lots of cards
• 1:50:49
  printed out there, so get your opportunity to buy some cards wherever you can.
• 1:50:55
  But with that, brew I think we can wrap up this week's podcast.
• 1:50:59
  Let everybody know where they can find you on socials and read your articles.
• 1:51:03
  Yep, find me over on Twitter slash ex a Jaybrewer one seven.
• 1:51:06
  Find me on the weekends on Sundays doing your top one hundred hitters for the
• 1:51:11
  rest of the season and hitter profiles. We should be releasing top one hundred
• 1:51:15
  hitters rankings again this weekend, so come out check it out, make your
• 1:51:19
  arguments, make your pitches for why your guy is too high, too low
• 1:51:25
  where he needs to be. So that's where you can find me. Coolly,
• 1:51:27
  how about yourself? Yes, you can find me on Twitter, slash
• 1:51:30
  x and on blue sky at in Cool seven, and you can find me
• 1:51:35
  on ras ball on the weekends doing that waiver wire report. I know I
• 1:51:41
  mentioned earlier that you might be in some need for some speed, so I
• 1:51:46
  will have more prepared statements on that this Saturday as we try to find some
• 1:51:51
  replacements for those stolen bases, as well as anything else that you might need
• 1:51:55
  on your fantasy team. If you want to contact the podcast here, If
• 1:52:00
  you want to send us in a picture of that Jackson holiday short print you
• 1:52:03
  might have pulled yourself, you can do so at the email at cards Categories
• 1:52:09
  at gmail dot com, or reach the podcast on Twitter slash x at cards
• 1:52:15
  Categories. And if you have enjoyed what you've listened here, listen to here,
• 1:52:19
  certainly get out there, rate review the podcast. Wherever you are listening
• 1:52:24
  to us, check out the website at rasball dot com, where if you
• 1:52:29
  get back into some of our back catalog, we have pictures of cards starting
• 1:52:33
  I wouldn't we start that in April or so, so maybe don't go too
• 1:52:36
  far back in the catalog, but that is somewhere to see everything in terms
• 1:52:41
  of show notes links. You can comment on the post there as well,
• 1:52:45
  and we will be back again, same time, same place next week.
• 1:52:49
  Have a good one, everybody be