TTM Success: Nolan...

...Martinez! Tricked ya. You were looking for Nolan Ryan, weren't you?

This was a fun one to get yesterday after I sent it about 700 days ago. This was mailed to Mr. Martinez in 2017 at spring training, and I had certainly written it off. Yes, yesterday a SASE came with a stamp I knew I hadn't purchased in a long time.

Martinez currently sits as NY's 24th best prospect according to MLB Pipeline. The Yankees drafted him in the 3rd round of the 2016 Draft. Last season he finally reached full-season ball with A Charleston, but had a bit of a rough go at it after pitching well for Staten Island. In fairness, he started really strong after the promotion and had three bad starts to end the year, so perhaps it was fatigue setting in.

Hopefully this year he's ready to go and can establish himself as a future big leaguer. Thanks for the autograph, Mr. Martinez!

Shiny from Tiny

Uncle Tiny sent me some Bowman blue shiny earlier this week.

First off, a very cool mini Eric Jagielo. Although Jagielo isn't part of the Yankees organization any more, he sort of still is. He was in the initial trade where the Yankees acquired Aroldis Chapman from the Reds. The Yanks obviously then got Gleyber Torres and others from the Cubs for Chapman, and ended up re-signing Chapman. So the Yankees essentially swapped Jagielo for Torres. It's not quite that clean, as a lot of other players were involved.

Now we're talking. Yankees 2016 3rd-rounder Nolan Martinez. I can't help but like that his name is a combo of Nolan Ryan and Pedro Martinez, so it looks like we've got a future HOFer on our hands. Just 18 years old (born in 1998!!!), Nolan is current MLB.com's 30th best prospect.

Thanks for these, Uncle Tiny!