Vacation Mail

I got quite the bundle of mail from Topps while I was on vacation. Most of it was Red Hot Rookie redemptions finally rolling in, the rest were autograph redemptions from 2010 Topps Chrome Baseball. Here's the funny thing, all of these cards came regular mail except one, the Stephen Strasburg RHR was sent certified mail. I guess Topps is making sure that they have proof of receipt for those. I think it would have been cheaper for them to send those first class with delivery confirmation than certified, but whatever.

The Red Hot Rookie redemptions look great and they're on chrome stock. I wasn't expecting them to be chrome stock, but I've never had any of these cards from previous years to know if they always are. Topps has sent me #'s 1-8, I'm just waiting on #9 Mike Minor and #10 Brett Wallace. I hope that I get at least one Brett Wallace autograph as I sent in three for redemption. I'll keep you posted on those.

The two autographs I received from Topps Chrome were Brian Matusz and Brandon Hicks.

2010 Topps Red Hot Rookie Redemption #10 is Brett Wallace

Well, how's that for timing? Just last night I posted about this redemption and today it was announced. I swear that I didn't have any inside information. If I did, I wouldn't have purchased two additional #10 redemption cards the day before if I had known it was going to be Brett Wallace.

Don't get me wrong, I think Brett Wallace is going to to be a solid big league player. I lived in Phoenix, AZ for a couple years and saw Wallace play for Arizona State. I liked him then and I still do. He's had just over 100 at-bats with the Astros this year, hitting just .215 in that time.

The strange thing about Wallace is his path to the big leagues. He was drafted by the Cardinals 13th overall in the 2008 draft. He rose quickly through the ranks in the minors, by July 2009 he was already in AAA. This is just about the time the Cardinals decided they needed a bat for a playoff run and traded Wallace to the A's on July 24, 2009 as the key part of their package for Matt Holliday. He lasted just under five months in the A's organization before was traded to Toronto for prospect Michael Taylor. Strange enough yet? Wait, there's more. Just over one year after joining the Toronto organization, he was traded to Houston for prospect Anthony Gose. Wallace was assigned to AAA for one day and then was immediately called up to the Astros after Lance Berkman was traded to the Yankees.

Whew, back to the redemption cards. I have three #10 redemptions. Only 10% of the cards redeemed are going to be autographed. I'm hoping that at least one of my three will turn up autographed. I'm going to redeem a full set tonight so I'll report back with my results.

Brett Wallace TTM Success

Date sent: 4/11/09
Date returned: 5/26/09

I'm excited to get this request back. I haven't received too many requests back that have gone out to young prospects. I sent this one as soon as Brett Wallace was assigned to AA Springfield out of Spring Training. He just got called up to AAA in Memphis so maybe he cleared out his requests when he moved cities.

Wallace is the future for the Cardinals at third base and may get called up at some point this season. The Cardinals have started three different players at third base this season and are waiting for Troy Glaus to return to the lineup from shoulder surgery.

Wallace batted .281 with 5 home runs and 16 RBI in 32 games with AA Springfield. So far with AAA Memphis he's batting .342 with 1 home run and 4 RBI in 9 games. That's a nice start for him in AAA after getting off to a slow start in AA to start the season.