My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 3

This card may look familiar to those of you that read the blog regularly as I just picked this card up within the last two weeks. As I've already stated, I'm a Pittsburgh Pirates fan. I started my Jameson Taillon collection the minute the Pirates drafted him #2 overall in the 2010 MLB Draft. The Pirates haven't had a pitcher with this kind of talent in their system in a long time.

The card pictured is his 2009 Upper Deck USA Red Autograph numbered to 25. I try to pick one of these up for every prospect that I'm investing in. I know a lot of collectors/prospectors stop buying Upper Deck USA cards as soon as a Bowman card is produced of the player their collecting/prospecting. I continue to buy the USA because the prices on the base autographs drop significantly. Give me an autographed USA card over a chrome refractor any day of the week. The fact is, if the player becomes a star, the USA cards are going to rocket back up in value.

Baseball America doesn't release their Pirates Top 10 Prospects until January 12th. I'm guessing that Taillon will top the list. From all indications the sky is the limit for this kid and I can't wait to track his progress in 2011.

Upper Deck Baseball Series 2 Review

I had to run some errands on the way home from work today. I had to go to the drop off some packages at the post office, buy a birthday card and buy some groceries. I could have bought the birthday card at the grocery store but they don't have baseball cards. I went to Target instead and bought four packs of 2009 Upper Deck Series 2 Baseball. Oh yeah, I got the birthday card too.

I'm going to start a new series in the next couple of days for new product reviews so this post will just be to show the "hits" that I got and a quick first impression of the product.

The packs were $2.99 each and come with 18 cards per pack. Target also had blasters for $19.99 each. Those have 10 packs with 8 cards per pack. They also had the fat packs of 36 cards for $4.99 each. The fat pack is the best deal in terms of price per card but I'm not sure if those include all the inserts available in the blasters and retail packs.

The cards are pretty much what I expected as they're not much different from series one. I actually got a few doubles in only four packs from the same box. That's not very impressive. On the flip side, I think I got some good "hits" for only purchasing four packs. I got a Michael Jordan Goodwin Champions preview card, a 20th Anniversary Retrospective Pedro Martinez and an Emerald StarQuest (Ultra Rare or something) Nick Markakis. These are all pictured below. I also four common StarQuest cards and a Team USA card that aren't pictured.

I don't know that I'll purchase more of this product. I have no interest in building the set and the insert cards aren't that interesting to me. Getting a StarQuest card in every pack is a bit much. The Goodwin Champions cards look nice but I'd rather buy that product when it comes out than to buy Upper Deck 2 to chase the preview cards.

Razor Selling Game Worn Team USA Jerseys

Up to this point Razor has been selling limited edition cards, autographed cards and printing plates on eBay. I just noticed tonight that they're selling game worn Team USA baseball jerseys.

I searched their completed auctions and they've sold seventeen in the last five days. Some are priced as low as $79 for a B. Dean (assuming that's Blake Dean) and as high as $1,999 for a Buster Posey. They do have the "Best Offer" feature turned on so you could always opt for that. It looks from the completed auctions that they have accepted a few best offers.

I'm sure that many of the players in these auctions will become stars one day. With many of these at $99 or below it would be well worth the risk to take a chance on one. I wish I had seen the Andrew McCutchen jersey before it sold for $169 with the "Best Offer" feature. I'm a Pirates fan and he's one of their most promising prospects. I would have loved to have had that in my collection. Too bad I didn't see it in time.

You can view Razor's auctions here.

Grant Green TTM Success

Date sent: 4/11/09
Date returned: 4/22/09

I'm really happy about this return from Grant Green of the USC Trojans. Green is listed as the #2 pick in Baseball America's 2009 MLB mock draft, just behind Stephen Strasburg. I think I'm mostly surprised at how quick the card was returned from such a high profile prospect.

Grant Green is Junior third baseman with the Trojans. He's batting .372 this season in his first 137 at-bats.

Here's a story Baseball America wrote about Green over the summer when he was playing in the Cape Cod League: http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/college/summer-scene/summer-stock/2008/266640.html

Mike Minor TTM Success

Date sent: 3/28/09
Date returned: 4/10/09

This continues the trend of returns from players with cards in the 2008 Upper Deck USA set. Most of the requests I sent were to high school players, 2 have come back. This return my first from a college player in the set.

Mike Minor is a junior at Vanderbilt University. Here is what his coach had to say about him: "Mike is one of the most complete pitchers that I have coached. He has three above average pitches with plus command and pitchabilty. He will be our "go to guy" and one of the top pitchers in the country. Mikie is a well conditioned athlete who has a strong work ethic." - Coach Tim Corbin

David Price pitched at Vanderbilt so it's not like Coach Corbin hasn't seen pitching talent before.

As with the other players, I sent two cards and requested he sign one and keep one for himself. Mike did just that.

Austin Maddox TTM Success

Date sent: 3/28/09
Date returned: 4/18/09

This is my second TTM return from a high schooler with a card in the 2008 Upper Deck USA set. I had previously posted about my Matt Davidson return.

This return is from Austin Maddox. He's a senior at Eagle's View Academy in Jacksonville, FL. Here is what Baseball America had to say about him in their draft preview: "Tremendous arm behind the plate, but throws can be erratic. Rare amateur player allowed to call his own game."

Maddox signed two cards for me. I sent two cards to each high schooler. I requested that they sign one and keep one for themselves.

Matt Davidson TTM Success

Date sent: 3/28/09
Date returned: 4/16/09

I had a crazy idea a few weeks ago while looking at some 2009 mock MLB draft boards. I knew that a lot of the players listed had cards in the 2008 Upper Deck USA set. The problem is that many of these players are still in high school. Could I possibly send a TTM request to a high school player? Was this breaking some sort of TTM code of conduct? I really wasn't sure so I decided to send a few off to see what would happen.

My request that I sent to Matt Davidson of Yucaipa High School in Yucaipa, CA arrived in my mail today. For each request I sent, I included two cards. I asked each player that they sign one card and keep one for themself. Matt Davidson did just that.

Here is what Baseball America says about him in their Top 50 Draft Prospects article today: "Some of the best raw power in this year's high school crop."

In the end, I'm glad that I sent this and the other requests. Any doubts I had about whether it was right or wrong to send a request to a high school player were curbed when I saw that they have already been paid to sign cards for Upper Deck.

What do you think? Has anyone else out there sent a request to a high school player? If not, would you?

Stephen Strasburg Mania

Stephen Strasburg is a 20 year old senior that pitches for San Diego State University. He also pitched for Team USA in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. I don't know that there's been as much hype about a pitcher since Dwight Gooden in mid-80's.

Is the hype deserved? Well, yeah, it probably is. Through five starts this year with SDSU, Strasburg is 5-0 with a 1.70 ERA in 42.1 innings pitched. He has 88 strikeouts with only 8 walks. That's quite a strikeout to walk ratio. Did I mention that his fastball tops out at 103 mph? He's an incredible talent, no doubt. But are collectors going a bit too nuts for this young phenom?

Here's a recent example of an eBay sale, from yesterday actually, of his 2008 Upper Deck USA Red Autograph /25. The card sold for $550! Seriously? He hasn't even pitched in the minor leagues. I know he's been dominant in college and for Team USA but let's get real. I just can't imagine spending that kind of money for a player who's still in college.

The card pictured is his Team USA Retrospective card from 2009 Upper Deck Series 1 which I pulled from a blaster I purchased. This card is not rare by any means but it sold on eBay for $15. I didn't think twice about selling once I saw what they were going for.

Who knows, he may turn out to be the greatest player I'll ever see pitch in my lifetime. If you're interested, he pitches tomorrow against UC Davis at 2:30pm PST at Petco Park in San Diego.