Progressions.

Firstly, I need to apologize for my sparse posting of late. The HP scanner was sentences to death a few weeks ago, and a replacement has yet to be acquired.

If I'm honest, I just don't care for use either my Droid Bionic or Fujifilm mini SLR for taking photographs of baseball cards, yet in order to keep any sort of regular posts happening here, I have to. All of the following, as well as the Liriano splash above, are from the Droid, which I will admit takes great landscapes in well-lit situations as well as getting some extra refractory glow from cards.

But it's not the same. So, I apologize for that, but also, it doesn't much matter, and there is not much I can do about it anyway.

On to some new arrivals.

The above Rymer Liriano is yet another 2012 Bowman Sterling autograph. These can be had for cheap, especially when the prospect in question is going to miss the entire season with Tommy John surgery - which is surprising for an outfield prospect, but also less career-threatening than it would be for a pitcher.

I picked it up for $.99 is addition to a pile of six 2013 Topps Tribute base cards contributing to my reverse box-break of said product.

As you can see, I picker up Giancarlo Stanton ($.86), Andrew McCutchen ($.86), Jose Bautista ($.86), Yu Darvish ($1.85), Reggie Jackson (&.85) and Harmon Killebrew ($.85). Those prices include the outrageous shippinh that the ebay seller charged - but I can't blame him, really, and all but the Liriano auto and the Darvish had starting bids of $.01. I received no competition to land them.

So where does it put me in the 2013 Tribute Box Challenge?

Goal	275
Total	21.64
Remaining Budget	253.36

That in American Dollars. No rupies or dongs or rubels about it. Eight of thirty-five cards down, and only $21 in. I may try to do this in less than fifty dollars, but then I may be getting kind of greedy.

Something else I've been slowly chipping away at is my 2012 Pro Debut and Heritage Minors logo patch collection.

After a few months waiting on Topps to fill some redemptions, I now have these:

Out of desperation, I drafted Jean Segura in the later rounds of my own, personal fantasy league, and damn, he's good. I also roll him out there with Starling Marte, and the two have been carrying me of late. Oswaldo Arcia hasn't been to bad, either.

It's hard to even call Segura a prospect at this point. He's shown very few weaknesses.

Mason Williams, on the other hand, is another case. He recently got a DUI after failing a field sobriety test - yet legally, he was below the .08 blood/alcohol content for Florida. Light weight.

Seriously, though. Not something that should be joked about. Stop drinking and driving you entitled assholes.
_

The next is probably my favourite of my recent additions.

This Javier Baez, a very highly-touted Chicago Cubs prospect, is totally baller. I was very close to winning a combo deal with this and the Wilmer Flores (Port St. Lucie Mets), but was somehow outbid on the Flores.

Initially, I wasn't really psyched for this one. But I got a pretty good deal, and after I removed the cookie crumbs or whatever the shit the seller dribbled all over it, the green and red and orange looks pretty badass.

The Boise Hawks definitely picked a strange color combination, but it does look pretty awesome.

In case you're wondering, I now have:

Javier Baez - Boise Hawks (Chicago Cubs)
Heath Hembree - Richmond Flying Squirrels (San Francisco Giants)
Mike Olt - Myrtle Beach Pelicans (Texas Rangers)
Anthony Gose - New Hampshire Fisher Cats (Toronto Blue Jays)
Taijuan Walker - Clinton Lumberjacks (Seattle Mariners)
Jonathan Griffin - Missoula Osprey (Los Angeles Angels)
Will Middlebrooks - Pawtucket Red Sox (Boston Red Sox)

..and they're all pretty baller.

While all of the previous cards fit into my personal challenges, protests versus the industry, or insert set collections, I most recently won this shiny beacon of awesome for one of my player collections, Francisco Lindor:

Preeeeeetttttyyyyyyyyy.

This is my second Lindor relic, both of which contain this nice blue swatch which I am pretty sure means they're both from the World Futures Game jersey you see in the photo. On the other, he's pictured with the Lake County Captains, another blue team.

Lindor is featured as a prospect/set filler in 2013 Bowman with a once-again regurgitated Topps photo. le sigh.

Stay patient, readers. Looks like it will be until June for me to purchase another scanner. But it'll come, and it'll be awesome.

Towards the Goal: The Reverse Tribute Box

A few days, possibly even a week ago at this point, I decided to cook up another FU to the folks at Topps Cards.

Their Tribute set from this year looks nice, just like last year's, but I'll be damned if I could tell the difference between the '12 and '13 sets. Taking a look at the cards available on ebay, I decided to go after a few. After I received my first autograph of Salvador Perez for less than the price of half-of-one-pack and only numbered to /35, I decided that I would reconstruct a box of the stuff: thirty cards, three autographs and three relics and a pile of parallels.

My perez, a "sepia" parallel with not a single bit of sepia-tone to it, cost $10. The above Jose B. Reyes, a blue parallel of a dual-memorabilia piece...$5.50.

Now, both of those are more than I'd like to spend on cards, but at the same time, I would never, in my life, purchase a high-end box. My greatest box purchase at this point? 2010/11 Panini Rookie Anthology hockey at about $60 at the last card show I went to.

So, pick 30 2013 Topps Tribute cards, mostly one-by-one, for a fraction of the cost? Or take a steel-toed $275 kick in the testicles from Topps and purchase a box?

No thanks, Topps.

The thrill of opening your packs isn't worth it anymore.

Progress: 2/30
Total Spent: $15.49
Budget Remaining (DA Card World price $275 - Total): $259.51

Unrelated

On a side, I picked up the hella refractory Drew Hutchison from another reverse-box caliber product, 2012 Bowman Sterling. I personally loved the design of 2012 Sterling, while most complained quite a bit about it.

I've only picked up a few from it so far, including 5-8 Francisco Lindor autographs, a few Stryker Trahan autos (including one very awesome refractor) and the Lindor base refractor.

This one cost me the most, as you may have guessed.

That there is a mighty fine purple refractor on my favourite busted Blue Jay, Drew Hutchison. Normally I don't have many cards #ed lower than /50, so finally pulling in a Purple Refractor /10 of one of my favourites was quite enjoyable.

More coming soon. Maybe even a sad post about getting old and stepping away from the game you love. 

Incoming & Outgoing: Patchin' Heat

BEWARE: Puns.

Things have been slow around here lately. While everyone else seems to be comfortably housed in their snug little abodes, I've been making my rounds through the local waste water treatment plants and pumping stations and so on, doing what I do.

In the driving snow (yesterday.)

And the high temperature of 6 American degrees.

I'm not asking for sympathy. Just laying a baseline for understanding as to my lack of posts of late.

I'm just tired, man.

A little too tired to write so many words, or post anything to ebay, or visit the postal office (yesterday) and deal with the maniacs who wanted to go to the post office on Monday but could not, and the poor souls behind the counter that wish they'd chose a different life path.

They were, however, happier with their choice today. Including my worker, who I had a brief chat with about baseball cards - enough to inspire a future post. But not right now.

Like I said, I'm tired.

I did manage to send some packages out today though. To the dwellers of the following regions -  you're on notice.

The borough of Brooklyn, NY.

Somewhere in I have no idea, Pennsylvania.

The bitterly frosted plains of North Dakota.

...and the bitterly windswept, lake-affected land that is Jefferson County, Nueva York.

My Spanish teacher always made us say Nueva York. No one really says Nueva York, right?

Right. Baseball cards.

Bask in the refractors warm glowing warming glow.

Ahh, Sterling. I like you. Francisco is bathed in a nice warm glow of refractory goodness in this limited to 199 card from this year's Bowman Sterling. This came a while ago, but I didn't want to post just one card. With no other new Lindors coming anytime soon, I decided to go ahead and post it.

You're not a refractor...

A plain white envelope from everyone's favourite Orioles cardboard blogger, Ryan. The book on Anthony Gose has one chapter: offspeed. Hopefully he'll get it together in the International League this summer, and I can watch him run around the bases insanely here in the lesser Syracuse area. Thanks, Ryan. I dig it.

Kactus Kelly

Maybe you were wondering where the "Patchin' Heat" subtitle came from. Well, the suspense is over. Night Owl, you might as well close this post right now. It's just going to get patchier. Some blowhards on Blowout Cards forums were ranting about how overrated Kelly is as a prospect.

"I SAW HIM PITCH AND HE WAS AWFUL RAWR LOOKIT ME GUYZ"

Sure. I saw Zach Wheeler pitch this summer. He didn't look good, but hell, it doesn't make him overrated.

Another said he was boring. So was Mike Mussina.

Schoop, day it is.

I have a passionate love affair with minor league logos. They cause me to do wild things, like bid on used Montgomery Biscuits hats off ebay - and makedamnsure I win them.

One logo which I cannot get enough of is the Bowie BaySox logo, AA affiliate of the Orioles. Schoop will be representing the sneaky good Netherlands baseball squad in this late winter/spring's World Baseball Classic. Watch. They may surprise you. But they still cannot pitch.

Flying Awesomeness

There's nto a whole lot to say about this patcher. It's a Flying Squirrel. On a baseball card. And some SF Giants prospect - but that's not the point.

A Flying Squirrel. From Richmond, Virginia.

I love minor league baseball.

Warning: Beautiful Baseball Cards.

Yesterday, the 'burbs of Syracuse, New York were buried in about 18" of fresh powdery snow. I have to drive a good amount for my job (about 70 miles/day) in a rear-wheel drive Ford Ranger - a vehicle which has no place on anything other than tarmac in even the best of weather. Knowing full well that I had recently won many auctions of some very exciting cards off of the 'bay, I used my hard (read: moderately hard) earned vacation time to hang out, exhume cars from the depths of December and watch a mini-marathon of No Reservations until my shiny new awesomes arrived.

I know, I'm living the life.

However, the cards never came. In fact, they should have on Wednesday, but they didn't then, either. Patiently (or, obsessively refreshing every 10-20 minutes) checking the tracking info, I received a message around 8pm that the postal carrier left an undeliverable note in the box. This was not so - we had placed the rent check to be mailed out in the box earlier in the day, and it was still there by this time. Jerks.

Anyways, today the packages came. All four of them. This is one of those times where you'll hear some ridiculously repetitive spiel about how these cards look so much better in person! or the scans just don't do these justice!

I'll spare you that. Just know that these are some of the best-looking cards to come out in 2012. Bottom line.

I'll start with my main man and current Blue Jays rotation afterthought, Drew Hutchison.

Sepia Swooooon

This is the sepia refractor variation of Drew's 2012 Topps Chrome Rookie autograph. I will admit Topps have been pumping out some great Jays rookie autos of late, from Kyle Drabek and JP Arencibia in 2011 to Drew Hutchison and Brett Lawrie in 2012. Any version of this card which featured a full-colour photograph is an absolute abomination. One of the worst Toppshoppings I have ever seen. Awesomely, though, there are only 75 of these buggers. Happy to have one.

Have you ever seen a 1st Bowman Card of a 32nd round, 985th overall pick? Well, Jorge Saez is one, and Bowman decided to feature him on this card for 2013. I can find almost nothing on him. In fact this is the only one I have of him - COMC is bare and everything else on ebay was overpriced.

The Jays drafting Saez shows Jays Brass' love of college catchers. JP Arencibia, Yan Gomes (now with the Tribe) and Saez - all recent picks. The blue refractors are astonishing with the new Jays uniforms, even if they are Toppshopped - and Jorge's catcher's gear makes this card that much better.

This card, however, was just a $.99 throw-in to the main attraction:

Hello, I love you.

Introducing the perfect baseball signature card. This card is absolutely stunning. Its really hard to convey that message through a poor scan (after vicious cleaning of the scanner bed and checking the card over for imperfections), but believe me when I say that this card is absolutely perfect. Francisco has an original, instantly-classical signature. Rarely do you see such a compelling "F" in someone's inkings. I've had quite an adoration of Lindor since hearing about him on Baseball Prospectus' Up and In podcast - the best podcast ever, if you were wondering - and have made him a cornerstone of my collecting interests with this purchase and a pile of Lindors waiting for me to request shipment on COMC.

By the way, I've bought four of these so far.

Yep. Four.

And that does not include the following three, all 2012 draft picks of your Toronto Blue Jays.

Round 1, Pick #17:

DJ Davis

Bowman Scouting Report: Davis has scary speed and good instincts, which lead to myriad outfield highlights*. His strong forearms whip the bat through the zone, generating line drive to all fields.

I do not know too much about DJ Davis - mostly that he's a hell of a sight in centre field and was regarded as the fastest in the 2012 draft class. Some of his major-league comps include Alejandro de Aza and Michael Bourn. That's fine by me, but I'll be honest, I was hoping Lucas Giolito would slip one spot lower than he did. So it goes.

I do, however, love Davis' signature. It's so authentic. Its not forced. It doesn't look like he has been practicing it since he was eleven years old. It's just...honest.

Round 1, Pick #22 (Supplemental):

Marcus Stroman

Bowman Scouting Report: Stroman turned Duke into destination for scouts*, unleashing 95-mph fastballs and filthy sliders against overmatched ACC competition. His efficient delivery, obvious intelligence and rare polish make him a good bet to zip up the Blue Jays chain.

I am quite excited for Marcum Stroman's future as a Blue Jay. He was amazing at Duke. Unfortunately, a banned-substance suspension ended his 2012 and will cut into his 2013. I highly doubt that Stro' is juiced - it doesn't fit his build or his performance. However, Marcus immediately took responsibility for his actions and vowed that this instance was entirely a mistake and will be buried in the past.

Round 2, Pick #50 (CA)

Matthew Smoral

Bowman Scouting Report: Left-handed swingers never feel very comfortable against Smoral, whose low, three-quarters arm angle and long limbs can make his low-90s heater seem like it's jumping at hitters. A plus-slider and an improving change-up keep the righties at bay, too.

Smoral seems like decent replacement in the ranks for recently-traded Noah Syndergaard. Big, tall, lefty, with solid control and medium heat. I love the way the Jays uniform, albeit inauthentic, looks on this card. Blue jersey. Blue border. Blue ink.

Matthew's signature is definitely the least interesting, though, but it's bound to morph into something different during his trip through the Jays system.

This post was wordy, but most of the good ones are. I try to avoid the cliche "look what I found on ebayz!!1" posts and actually write something rather than just...write. Something.

I hope you enjoyed it. Leave comments to let me know you did or did not.

Crickets.

*I apologize for the abysmal grammar on these cards. I doubt they were actually written by baseball scouts, but rather deciphered from their notes and columns and so on.