TTM Success: Blake Rutherford (again)

Oops.

I normally don't double up on TTM requests, but I sent two to 2016 Yankees First Round Pick Blake Rutherford because I figured my first one was lost. You see, Blake was promoted about a day after I sent this one to the GCL Yankees, so I took the dupe that P-Town Tom sent me and sent it to Pulaski. I got that one back last week.

I was surprised to see this one come back. It was post-marked from CA, so Blake has been answering some mail from home after his season ended. But, alas, he signed my card!

Also included was a nice note from Julie, Blake's mom. Very cool!

Here are the two signatures. The first one definitely came out a bit sharper in blue. Either way, I thank Blake for his dedication to answering his fan mail.

SuperTraders #19: San Jose Fuji

San Jose Fuji sends awesome cards. I am sure a lot of them come from those sweet flea markets he frequents. I always want to go to one after reading about his adventures and the treasures he finds.

Without a doubt, my favorite card Fuji sent was this 1998 Pacific Invincible Photoengravings Tino Martinez. These are hard to find! I must admit, I already had it, but this one is actually in much better condition than the one in my collection, so this will take its place. It’s a cool card with a canvas-type feel, although not as canvas-y as some of those later Topps Gallery and Diamond Kings sets. It’s like a thinner 2016 Diamond Kings cardstock. Does that make sense whatsoever? Or should I stop doing a bad job describing the card?

The hits are next!

This Chien-Ming Wang 2009 Goodwin Champions relic is really neat. I guess the “M” stands for “Memorabilia Series”. I like the card design though. It’s tasteful, and it’s a cool image of Wang checking a runner.

These tend to pop up in trade packages, and they are definitely cool looking. I’m a sucker for clearcut cards, so I’ve always liked the design. I definitely have several of the Sean Henn cards from this set, but Wil Nieves was new. I didn’t realize he played 35 games for the Yankees.

This is a sweet rookie card by Fleer Sports Illustrated. How cool would one of these be with Sanchez/Judge/Austin? Very cool. These guys were top Yankee prospects, although only Lowell panned out, and sadly it wasn’t for NY.

Speaking of Sanchez, I was surprised I didn’t have this early Bowman Sterling card of his. I’m not sure how I missed it, but I’m very thankful for it, as his cards are not so easy to come by anymore. I have a feeling my days of getting Sanchez cards thrown into trade packages are dwindling. Or maybe they will be better since he’ll have 400 cards in 2017 Topps.

This is just a great shot of Darryl. Such a sweet swing. How underrated in 1998 Donruss, by the way? It’s a really nice looking set that holds up over time.

I don’t remember this set. I don’t think I’ve ever seen. Surely I know Upper Deck Sweet Spot, but not this particular issue, which has embossed baseball stitches on the cards. I do like the simple design, although the stitches kind of put a wrinkle in that.

Does anyone remember Andy Morales? He was a big-time Cuban defector who was supposed to be the real deal. He turned out to be not so good. I do remember reading an article in the local paper about him when the Yankees signed him, but then he never quite made it.

And I’ll top it off with a few more cards of my PC guys.

Fuji, thanks man. Love these cards! I hope you school year is off to a great start!

TTM Success: Ben Heller

Woohoo, an actual success from sending a request to Yankee Stadium. That's my first this season!

Ben Heller signed my card in just nine days. I timed it well with the Yankees' recent homestand, knowing the team was going to be in town for a while when I sent it.

Heller came to the Yankees from the Indians in the Andrew Miller trade. He rode the Scranton Shuttle once before making his ML debut on August 26. Five days later, he picked up his first Major League win in an extra-inning game versus the Royals.

In all, he's made seven appearances on the season and is part of the Yankees 47-man bullpen right now. He'll be a prime candidate be part of the revolving door of relievers again next year, but hopefully will pitch well enough to stick in the Bigs and become a vital piece of the Yankees bullpen for the next few years.

TTM Success: Nick Solak

Hopefully now that the minor league season is mostly over, a few TTMs from the season come in.

I sent this request to Yankees prospect Nick Solak toward the end of the season. Since I'm geographically close to Staten Island, I felt the gamble wasn't too high that it'd get to him before his season ended. Luckily, it came back really quickly signed perfectly.

Shout out to the Rookies App for the custom card.

Solak was picked by the Yankees in the second round of the 2016 MLB Draft. He played his college ball in Louisville, and carried his college success straight into the minors. He spent all year at Staten Island, hitting .321/.412/.421 in 240 ABs. That'll do. As a 21-year-old from a big-time program, he'll be ticketed for full-season ball next year.

From what I can tell by his Tweets, Zippy Zappy enjoyed watching him play this season. I didn't get the chance to see him in person, but I look forward to Solak climbing the ranks over the next couple of years.

Thanks for the autograph, Mr. Solak.

I'm only in this hobby for the money

During Gary Sanchez’s insane hot streak, it was really tempting to unload a bunch of his cards. They were going for extraordinary prices and I could have made a few hundred bucks. Alas, that’s not why I collect, and even though I was tempted, I chose to hold on to my collection of his. It didn’t feel right.

I will admit that I did list my 1/1 printing plate for a very high price, and if I got an offer close to it I would have taken it and tried to track down a Jeter auto with those funds. One offer was tempting, but I didn’t take it. It also led to some Twitter boob who I have never conversed with telling me how I’m only in this hobby for the money and why collect if I need to sell other cards to sustain my collecting and blah blah. It was shocking to me that someone I had never conversed with told me I’m only collecting for the money (can’t remember the last time I sold a real card), but I guess that’s one of the many reasons social media is really stupid. He’s also like the second person I’ve ever muted and blocked. No thanks, random collector preaching to me about how to collect.

(Side note, he also sends Tweets to those random porn star bots who follow you out of the blue, so yeah, clearly a lonely guy…)

While I didn’t sell any Sanchez cards for real money, I sold (or traded them in) for a ton of credits on Listia. I really don’t use Listia at all anymore, but I decided to take a few dupes, turn them into high credits, then pick up more premium cards. I “sold” exactly four Sanchez cards, none particularly fancy:

For the Bowman Chromes, I have about 25 of those from participating in a player case break a few years ago, so I paired two of them together in a two-card lot. I had four or five of the refractor from that same break. And just a few weeks ago, I participated in a Topps Chrome case break and got about seven or eight of those base cards. See? Plenty to spare…even though I’m only in this for the money.

Each sold for over 100,000 credits, which back in the day was a ton, but now isn’t really. I don’t know how that happened. I once got a Roger Maris vintage card for 6,000 credits, and a Yogi Berra auto for 40,000. Now it’s like $5 to by 87,000 credits or something like that. Weird.

So what did I turn my new credits into?

First, this awesome Blake Rutherford patch. It sells on eBay for around $15, more than I would ever spend normally on a card of his. As I mentioned the other day, Rutherford was the Yankees 1^st rounder this past June and is a legit prospect. Nice add.

My second, and final “purchase” was this James Kaprielian auto. He’s the Yankees 2015 first rounder and a big time talent, although he missed most of this year with injury.

Oh, and this one came from my favorite seller, who through in a ton of autographs which I’ll show at some point. There was even a Tom Glavine auto in there!

 

So I got a Rutherford patch, a Kaprielian auto, and a bunch of random autos…all for four Sanchez dupes, all of which I still have more than one copy still in my collection.

I think I came out on top and made some nice flips for some extra cards I didn't need. That’s the point of a site like Listia…to turn cards you don’t want into cards you do. And now only have 62 credits to my name, so I may not visit the site again and be done with it.

It’s a tough thing being in this hobby for the money like I am, but someone’s gotta do it.

TTM Success: Chance Adams

Chance Adams really burst onto the scene this year and established himself as one of the Yankees top pitching prospects. In 2015, he was a 5th round pick out of Dallas Baptist...hardly a guy you'd expect to get overly excited about. As we've seen the last few years, guys taken in the 5-10th rounds tend to be cost-saving picks to save draft pool money.

The Yanks did give Adams a healthy $330K bonus, right around slot. He was a reliever in college, so it looked like he would perhaps be a quick moving bullpen arm.

But the Yanks had other plans.

They decided to try Adams as a starter this past season after working out of the bullpen in 2014. The results?

High A Tampa: 12 starts, 5-0 record, 57.2 innings, 2.65 ERA, 73/15 K/BB
Double A Trenton: 13 starts, 8-1 record, 69.2 innings, 2.07 ERA, 71/24 K/BB
Totals: 25 starts, 13-1 record, 127.1 innings, 2.33 ERA, 144/39 K/BB

It appears the Yankees knew what they were doing. Props to the scout who found him at Dallas Baptist.

Unfortunately, the Yankees shut him down before the AA post-season due to innings limit, especially being a previous reliever. I'll be very curious to see if he returns to AA for a few starts in 2017, or if he'll be ticketed for AAA and ready to spot start in the Bigs if needed. He's just 22, so there's really no rush. However, with the Yankees and their dire starting pitching needs for 2017, I have a feeling we'll be seeing him in NY at some point.

Adams was nice enough to sign this Rookie App custom for me in just eight days.. As Zippy Zappy pointed out, bad call using a dark image. Oh well. The autograph is still on there, and I'm happy to have it before this guys blows up.

TTM Success: Tom Selleck

Last week, one of my cooler TTM successes arrived:

That's Tom Selleck, aka Mr. Baseball aka Jack Elliot. The card is cool enough in its own right, especially with Frank Thomas shagging grounders in a Yankee uniform. I wonder how something like that would go over now for a movie? Can you imagine the outrage if Bryce Harper filmed a movie in a Yankee uniform?

Magnum signed this card for me in about four weeks. His working address is c/o the National Rifle Association, so that's pretty weird. I like to picture Selleck sitting in a den with a bunch of mounted deer heads all around, smoking a cigar and having a grand old time with the boys. Something tells me this isn't quite how it goes around there.

The one downside is that the card came back pretty mangled. I've been preaching about sending cards unprotected and the fact that they usually come back fine, but I wasn't so lucky here.

Regardless, it still looks great and will have a place in my TTM binder. Thanks, Dr. Richard Burke!