i checked out my cards: baby jays

This is what I have been staring at since Thursday afternoon. With the Nor'easter spinning off the Atlantic Coast, a bunch of veeeeery cold air north of the Great Lakes was pulled down from Canada, resulting in about sixty straight hours of lake-effect snow locally. 

So on Friday I worked for home (for real!) and watched the snow blanket the area, and once my tasks were accomplished I took sorting more of my recent COMC Black Friday order. Previous entries can be seen here, here and here.

For this installment, we'll take a look at some Baby Blues.

You won't see any of Toronto's No. 1 prospect Vladimir Guerrero Jr. here, but Bo Bichette, another son of a 1990s star is no slouch, leading us off in his Bowman Scout's Top 100 above.

Sticking with bloodlines, I also picked up some sky-blue refractors from this 2016 Bowman. The sky blues look great with Blue Jays on them.

Reese McGuire, surprisingly, doesn't have a dad that's an ex-All-Star. Still, he's a legit catching prospect that came to the Blue Jays last summer when the Jays traded Drew Hutchison to the Pittsburgh Pirate in a very lopsided trade.

Leaf 2013 brought back some memories of the very early 1990s, and boy does this card lend itself to a nice inking.

As does 2014 Bowman Inception:

This year wasn't my favorite as far as Inception goes, but 2016 was tremendous with the celestial theming. Unfortunately, the plain gray swatch relic comes with an unsatisfying sticker autograph.

Still, that's a pretty fantastic-looking card.

Sean Reid-Foley had a strong debut in 2014 and was solid in 2015, but he hasn't progressed past Double-A yet in 2017.  The recent slowing of his progress and rank loss in the Blue Jays top prospects list means his secondary card values have dropped as well.

The same goes for Conner Greene, who also struggled with Double-A New Hampshire this season.

I've got a purple one of these somewhere, too, and a base green "paper" parallel. Greene throws a hundred but like many others that do, has trouble placing it. He's also buds with Charlie Sheen, which, well, take that as you will.

Bringing back this design of Bowman's Best in 2016 was a great idea. See? Topps can still swing it sometimes, even if they're just rehashing old sets and an insert.

Another reminder to watch your COMC inventory closely: I ended up with two of these. And the same with this one:

Alford led me to pick up another sky-blue refractor from 2016 Bowman, and with Biggio and Alford already, I might as well see what other Jays from 2016 Bowman I can grab. 

Unlike some of the Jays pitchers, Alford had a real strong 2017, earning a call-up this summer before breaking the hamate bone in his wrist and finishing the season at Triple-A. He played in the Mexican League this winter and did extremely well.

From A...to Zeuch. TJ Zeuch was Toronto's first-rounder in 2016, and as a bit of a safe pick, he had a great debut season in 2017. 

Beyond leading the Blue Jays pitching prospects in 2017, he's also a leader in the chase for the most pitchery of pitcher faces as well.

Finally, we'll end with Max Pentecost, the Jays' top hitting catching prospect. Pentecost has been kicking around the org since 2014, battling various shoulder injuries. One of his first cards was this 2014 Bowman Sterling autograph on a sticker:

And yes, it's that hideous in person. But us prospectors have to prospect.

Of course, as bad as this Sterling auto looks, the following is the opposite. 

No sticker, no terrible photoshopping, no chrome board - well, no board at all. This "card" feels almost like a piece of glass, but is definitely a solid plastic from 2014 Leaf Trinity, and hand-numbered at just 23/25.

It's thick, around 1/8", crystal clear, and the blue is beautiful.

To give y'all a better look, here's a photo rather than a scan, coincidentally with some stats of Pentecost's that I was using to write up a post over at Jays From the Couch.

Hopefully that gives a better idea of of the Pure inserts from Leaf Trinity. If you've got a favorite player int he set, I recommend grabbing one of these.