COMC #2: Prospectin' Francisco Lindor

I like to think that on this here blog, I don't keep secrets. If I find a market inefficiency, I will share it. My COMC deals and methods? Shared. Prospecting? Shared. Mostly. Some of my prospecting should pan out quickly.

See: Marcus Stroman, Taijuan Walker.

Some other will take time.

See: Strkyer Trahan, AJ Jimenez and the starring role in the post you're reading: Francisco Lindor.

Much of my prospecting comes from the bang-on analysis of prospects I originally heard in the now defunct Up and In podcast from Baseball Prospectus featuring Jason Parks and Kevin Goldstein. Goldstein is now a higher-up in the Houston Astros (long overdue congratulations), and Professor Parks will be returning this spring with a new podcast. This inspires elation in me.

The guys on the podcast were big on Francisco Lindor. Until recently I didn't know much about him. What caught my eye to him was his gorgeous signature featured on baseball cards. It's always something simple like that, isn't it?

Unfortunately, this post does not feature a signature of Frankie Lindor. However, it does show off some goodies I picked up of him earlier this month from COMC.

Let's move through time:

2011 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects & guys you've never heard of that will be selling oranges on the Freeway by January.

Two-thousand and eleven featured Francisco Lindor in a Cleveland Indians get-up for the first time, as you may have noticed from the iconic 1st Bowman Card stamp in the upper left. The first/RC logo/XRC clutter plaguing out collecting universe needs to end. Rookie Card logo, All-Star Rookie logo, nothing else.

For some reason, 2011 Bowman had prospects shrouded in black borders. As a fan of cards in black, this is actually not one of my favourites. So it goes.

2011 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects but chrome this time instead of paper.

Hey, look! It's Lindor's 1st Bowman CHROME card! That's different, somehow! 

Possibly. I guess chromes, though usually around 2-3:1 packs, are a parallel to the Bowman paper cards. I'd rather have a paper rookie card. You cannot beat that authenticity. 

So I'll admit, at this point, that Lindor cards are kinda repetitive at this point. It won't get much better, save for a new photo and borders on the following:

Internationale.

One of the selling points on Lindor is his ability to switch-hit, while being rangey middle infielder who hits line drives and is apparently a hard worker. Sign me up.

The Bowman International parallels, exhumed for 2012 are my favourites of the year. Even more, brace yourself, than purple refractors. Happily, I was able to obtain this one of Lindor, featuring a Puerto Rican flag. Lindor was born in Puerto Rico but moved to Florida for boarding school at the ago of 13. I think his folks knew they had something in their young middle infielder at an early age.

Wavy.

Ohhhkayyy so maybe these beat the International parallels in a taste test. Blue Wave Refractors are simply fantastic. If you're having trouble picturing the light-exploiting effects of this card, go through a search on ebay or imagine an XFractor Laser Show if it happened in 1994. Sure, they're loud and gaudy and colourful, but is that really that much of a bad thing?

I don't think so.