McCutchen Mailday #92: Minor League Relase from 2007

Finding minor league cards of Cutch for a fair price is becoming more and more difficult, but this 2007 Eastern League Top Prospect from his Altoona Curve days was bought for $5 delivered.  I'm on pace to match last year's nearly 400 Cutch PC additions in a calendar year with this recent addition to the PC.

Shark Week with the Shark Tank.

When Jason Grilli took over as the Pirates closer in 2013, he dubbed the Bucs bullpen : The Shark Tank.

The Pirates had one of the best bullpens in baseball that year thanks to Tony Watson, Mark Melancon, and Jason Grilli. They fed on hitters in the 7th thru 9th innings and basically shut the game down to a 6 inning game.

Three members of the 2013 Shark Tank were also members of the 2010 Eastern League Champions Altoona Curve. They were ground ball specialist Jared Hughes, setup man Tony Watson, and flame throwing southpaw Justin Wilson. Wilson was actually the MVP for the Curve's Championship run in 2010.

Last year, the Curve had a giveaway to the 1st 1,500 fans in attendance receiving a Shark Tank figurine that can be placed in your fish tank. It depicts Watson, Hughes, and Wilson riding a shark. I have wanted to add it to my collection for some time, but they very rarely pop up for sale.

Since I finally got one for my collection and it being Shark Week, this seems like the perfect week to show it off.

A Tale of 1 City

I follow the Pirates minor league system as closely as I follow the major league roster.  With the way the Pirates used to do things before Neal Huntington took over, you could get maybe 3 years out of a player before you had to say goodbye to them.  They were in fan's eyes what the Oakland A's are doing now (but the Pirates had about 20 more losses each season).

Now the Pirates have a competitive team on the field for 162 games a year and also have a very interesting farm system rich with right handed pitchers drafted out of high school.  At the head of the class is Tyler Glasnow, but right behind him are Jameson Taillon and Nick Kingham.

Kingham is repeating in AAA to start the year, but will most likely be the first guy called upon to make his MLB debut this year.  Jameson Taillon, the 2nd overall pick in 2010, is still recovering from Tommy John Surgery last year.  It's likely that he will make his minor league season debut around June/July with the potential for a September callup.

Both the cards above feature Taillon and Kingham with the Pirates AA affiliate, the Altoona Curve.  I won both cards nearly 4 months ago for around $10 each.  The Taillon is numbered out of 75 and hails from 2013 Topps Pro Debut.  The Kingham is not numbered and is from 2014 Topps Heritage Minors.

Going Green McCutchen Mailday #19: 2008 TriStar

When I was planning out my posts for March 2015 I knew that I had to show off 3 Andrew McCutchen's that I purchased early in February, but would have to wait to highlight them to create the "Go Green Event" I have planned.  All March leading up to St. Patrick's Day I plan to highlight green parallels I've purchased over the past few months that haven't been shown on the blog.

 The green on this card really pops.

 This 7 year old cardboard numbered to only 50 copies ran me under $9 delivered and marks the only card I have of Cutch wearing the Altoona Curve uniform.

I will only be highlighting 3 cards this month in my Quest for 100 because quite frankly I haven't been able to add many greens of  Cutch in 2015.