National League Central Champions?

The Pirates are aggressively getting closer to competing for the NL Central Championship.

In 2005, Donruss had a contest which allowed collectors the chance to win a specially marked version of Playoff parallels.  With the Pirates finishing 33.5 games out of first there was little chance that the Bucs would compete for a playoff run in 2005.  Still there was some hope though.

Jason Bay won the 2004 Rookie of the Year award with a .282 average, .550 slugging, and 26 Home Runs.

Jack Wilson was coming off his best offensive season of his career where he collected 201 base hits with a .301 average and superb gold glove caliber defense.

Kip Wells, well.....like all the pitchers on the Pirates staff (not named 2004 Oliver Perez) didn't do so well (pardon the bad pun).

The Pirates Pitching staff was terrible in 2004 posting a 4.29 ERA and a 1.419WHIP.  It got worse in 2005 which is why the Pirates finished with a 67-95 record and made this piece of cardboard useless.

I was able to add the above card to my Jason Bay collection a few months ago for just over a $1 delivered.

Random Pirates auto of the day

2003 Leaf Second Edition Kip Wells

Kip Wells had a solid season in terms of the Pirates in 2003.  He finished the year with a 10-9 record while starting 31 games and finishing with a 3.28 ERA.  He had 147 strikeouts and 76 walks over 197.1 innings.  Most impressive though was the he was the 9th most valuable pitcher in the NL that year according to WAR with 4.9 Wins Above Replacement.

Like all things early millenium Pirates, he regressed the following year and by 2005 he was leading the NL in losses with 18.  Wells is currently a 36 year old free agent who last pitched 7 games for San Diego in 2012.  He did not appear in the majors in 2010 or 2011.

This 2003 Leaf Second Edition ran me a whopping .99 on ebay and I can honestly say that I have no regrets.