I got Locke-y with this penny deal

I've been showing off a number of cards that I won ebay auctions from the same seller for only a penny recently and here is another fine example.  It's a 2011 Topps Pro Debut Gold Parallel of Jeff Locke numbered to 50.

Jeff was an All-Star in the 2013 season when he posted an incredibly low ERA through the first half and crumbled in the second half.  He's still a very serviceable arm in the back end of the rotation, but he depends so much on painting the corners that if his command is off slightly, it becomes a walk-a-thon or batting practice.  Regardless of what Jeff's 2015 season looks like, I couldn't pass up this golden opportunity to add a low print run card of his for only a penny.

With the announcement yesterday that his mentor, AJ Burnett, is coming back to Pittsburgh it will be interesting to see how Locke does next year.

Seeing Red: Another penny deal of a silver slugger

It's been over a month since I showed a Seeing Red segment at the PTR and that's because of my Save Second Base charity event which raised almost $80.  Thank you to all who participated.  It was a lot of fun and helped a good cause.  I will be randomizing some cards off over the next few weeks or so to those that actively participated.

Earlier in the week I showed off a Tony Sanchez 2011 Topps Pro Debut Gold /50 that I won for a penny.  Today I'm going to show off another card that I won from the same seller for a penny also.

2011 Topps Chrome Red Parallel 11/25

For a penny, you can't really beat that price, but if you need further convincing that it was money well spent...here you go

Neil Walker won his first Silver Slugger award at 2B this year by leading all National League 2B in Homeruns (23) and On Base Percentage (.342).  

What's funny about Walker's 2014 season is that it got overlooked in Pittsburgh because their lineup had 4 players with higher wRC+ (Andrew McCutchen, Russell Martin, Starling Marte, and Josh Harrison).  That just shows how good the Pirates lineup was in 2014, if only their pitching hadn't struggled so much early in the season they could have had a good shot at winning the division.