Nick Kingham Goodwin Champions AUTO

Nick Kingham was a 4th round pick of the Pirates in 2010, the same year the Pirates grabbed Jameson Taillon and Stetson Allie.  Kingham was a highschooler when he was drafted and reached the AA level in 2013 during his age 21 season.

In 2013, Kingham's line was very solid in AA Altoona where he pitched to a 3-3 record with a 2.70 ERA over 73 innings.  His command got a little worse than what he had been doing through the rest of his career as he increased his BB/9 rate to 3.7.

If all goes well for the Pirates, Kingham will likely start the 2014 season in AA and recive a callup to AAA mid season when Jameson Taillon gets called up to the majors.

I found the above 2012 Goodwin Champions for a lowbid of .99 with $2 shipped.

Waiting for AJ

AJ Burnett had one of the best seasons of his career in 2013.  He became a free agent at the end of the season and the Pirates chose to not give him a qualifying best offer of $14.1 million to resign with the club for the 2014 season.  I can't argue the logic though.  AJ said numerous times that he would either be retiring after the season or resign with the Bucs.  The worse case scenario would be AJ took the qualifying offer then decided to retire midseason if he started out poorly.  This would leave the Pirates payroll in jeapordy and would have wasted an offseason where they sought out other pitchers.

No matter what happens to AJ Burnett during this offseason, I am happy he was a part of the Pittsburgh Pirates the past two seasons.  I got to see his Pirates debut last April and there was a buzz around the stadium that something magical would soon be happening in the Burgh that rainy day when he shutout the Cardinals.  He became a teacher to the Pirates young arms and was trully a leader in the clubhouse.  I hope that maybe one day AJ returns to the diamond as a pitching coach and helps lead future arms to become better ballplayers.

The above green paralle "Band of Brothers" 2013 Prizm card was grabbed for $2 shipped on ebay.  I'm happy to put it away in my Cutch collection, but think that I should get a 2nd copy for my AJ Burnett page too.

2013 Heritage Minors Team Set

I like Topps Heritage.  I said it, let's move on.
I came across someone selling the Pirates team set from Heritage Minors and pulled the $8 trigger for ten cards.  Dilson Herrera is no longer part of the organization as he was the centerpiece to the trade that brought Marlon Byrd, John Buck, and cash to the Pirates for their playoff push.

Of the 9 players still with the organization, 4 of them are listed as top 100 prospects in baseball (Taillon, Heredia, Hanson, and Polanco).  One is not too far removed from being on that list and if he can prove he's healthy, will likely return to being a top prospect (Josh Bell).

The Pirates future is bright, but....

The future star of this set though is Jameson Taillon (seen below)

McCutchen Mondays: 2013 Hometown Heroes Sportsdiscs

I remember playing with Sportflix as a kid and later on those 7-11 discs found on the bottom of slurpee cups.  I used to love scratching them as if they were records and I was a hiphop superstar.  Panini recently put out a set of cards called Hometown Heroes and had an insert set called Sportsdiscs.  They are round circular cards and feature some of today's best players on them.

The backs of the cards have very basic stats

With so few oddball cards on the market today, if you are a player collector, you need to check and see if your player has one of these sportdiscs in the 2013 Hometown Heroes set.  They're awesome!!!!  And usually pretty cheap too.

Cutch wins the MVP

Everything I could say about why Cutch was more deserving to win the MVP over other players has already been send throughout a long 162 game season.  Congratulations Cutch!!!!

Cross another off the list

I've been actively adding to my Charlie Morton collection for about 4 years now.  You'd think that for a guy with only 85 cards produced (before 2013 hit stands), acquiring his cards wouldn't be that hard.  Hahahahaha! Think again.  Ground Chuck has over 30 1/1s somewhere on this Earth.  I have 3.  Yup! Just 3.  Not good percentages.

However, of the non 1/1s (54) I now own 50.  That's right, I added another Charlie Morton to my collection thanks in part to some kindness on my brother.

2002 UD Premiere Prospects Future Gems Quads 313/600 with David Bush, Joey Gomes, and Josh Johnson

He bought me the 2002 Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Future Gems Quad featuring Joey Gomes, Josh Johnson, Charlie Morton, and David Bush. The card ran about $9 and was one of the five remaining non 1/1s I needed to complete my Charlie Morton collection.   Now I'm down to only 4.

2002 Upper Deck Prospect Premiere Future Gems Quads came in very large 1 per pack box toppers back in the day.  I included a scan of the pack next to an average sized bowman card to show the difference.

Pretty large, right?  Well it has to essentially hold an uncut piece of cardbaord for 4 baseball cards.  These cards were all numbered out of 600 and finding them on the market today is very difficult.

Here's the back of the card my brother got me.

I am still in search of another that features Charlie Morton along with Val Majewski, Joey Gomes, Daniel Cevette.  I've yet to see that card available for sale anywhere.

It's one of only 4 non 1/1s I need.

Just four!!!!  Like the amount of players on this card.  I only need 4!
I've given some thought to which player I might PC in the future where I can collect every parallel of that player.  As much as I like Cutch, it's just impossible to collect all those different parallels.  I've been leaning towards Justin Wilson who is a hard throwing lefty the Pirates have in the bullpen.  I met him several times as he was developing in the minors as a starter and was at the 2010 Eastern Conference championship game when he was awarded MVP honors.  The problem is that his name is pretty common so saving it as an ebay search tool would be very annoying.

McCutchen Mondays: Another Archives Post

My current favorite player in baseball is Andrew McCutchen.  Quite honestly, he might be my favorite player I've ever gotten a chance to see play. I currently own almost 300 unique cards of Cutch and hope to get that number closer to 400 by the end of the year.  Amongst my cardboard collection of Cutch are many autographs, over a dozen 1/1s, and almost enough jersey material to put his jersey back together.  Back in 2011, I created Morton Mondays, but with the lack of Charlie Morton cards available, I changed it to McCutchen Mondays so each Monday I will show off one new card from my Cutch collection.

To see all my Andrew McCutchen relics, autos, printing plates, manupatches, etc ... check out this link.

I previously showed off one of my 1972 Basketball designs from 2013 Topps Archive Andrew McCutchen inserts on a McCutchen Monday.  Well, it's time for another.  This time we're retroing 1983 All-Stars designs to show off the 3 time All-Star.

Yet again, a nice pickup, this time for only 75 cents delivered.