Guess where I was this past week?

Due to work being slow, I decided to take a week's vacation and head down to Florida to follow my favorite team in spring training.  While down there I got a bunch of autos of my favorite Bucs. 

Yup, that's Andrew McCutchen signing for fans.

Here's a wooden sign I bought while I was down there that I got signed by as many of the current 40 man roster as I could.  Unfortunately I only brought it to 1 game, but did get 10 signatures.
Pirates All-Stars: Andrew McCutchen, Nate McLouth, and Evan Meek
Mgr. Clint Hurdle
Pirates 25man roster players Daniel McCutchen, Casey McGhee, Jason Grilli, Josh Harrison
and 2 of the Pirates top OF prospects Gorkys Hernandez and Starling Marte

Pretty cool looking, right?  McCutchen is in the bottom left hand corner.


I also got a few baseballs signed too.

Cy Young Winner's Autograph

I recently picked up this 2011 ITG Father & Son Dual Auto of 1990 Cy Young Winner Doug Drabek and his son top prospect Kyle Drabek. 

It's a shame that Topps has the monopoly of producing licensed baseball products.  The design on this card is kind of basic, which is actually nice.  No gold! No Sparkles! No diamonds!  Just a nice picture of a father and his son with a signature next to their pictures.  The dual auto isn't numbered, but according to the sell sheet for the set, only 49 were produced.  The card cost me $8.50 per signature which isn't a bad price considering that Kyle Drabek autos are still greatly overpriced. 

Doug Drabek was drafted by the White Sox in 1983.  After a few seasons in the Sox minor leagues, he was traded to the Yankees.  He played one season in the Bronx before being traded to the Pirates during the offseason in a package with 2 other players for Rick Rhoden and Pat Clements.

Drabek had the most success of his career with the Bucs and would go on to win the Cy Young in 1990.  He was the losing pitcher in game 7 of the 1992 NLCS which was the last time the Pirates were in the playoffs and consequently ended the season above .500.

Following the 1992 season, the senior Drabek went on to Houston for a few years before playing with the White Sox and Orioles on 1 year deals.  His career record is 155-134 with a 3.73 ERA and 1,594 punchouts.

Doug's son Kyle, was a 1st round draft pick out of the Woodlands Texas high school by the Phillies.  He was the center piece of the deal that netted the Phillies Roy Halladay from the Blue Jays.  Kyle's career has started off shaky in Toronto with a 4-8 record and a 5.83 ERA.  His location seems to be the main issue for the younger Drabek as his WHIP is 1.73.  If he dances around the strike zone he walks batters too frequently and if it's near the strike zone he gets hit.  I believe that this could be a big year for Kyle as he may break camp with the Blue Jays and prove his value as a 5th starter.

Trading Post with Napkin Doon

Napkin Doon had seen the SP Gatorade bath card of Eric Hosmer I pulled in a 2012 pack and was interested in trading for it.  Having no admiration for the Royals other than hoping Hosmer performs well on my fantasy team this year I decided to take him up on the offer.  I was pleasantly surprised to see what he gave up in exchange for that 2012 SP.

Here's what I got

 1953 Red Man Chewing Tobacco Murry Dickson.  Vintage tobacco cards are always welcome at the PTR.

 a collection of random Pirates.  I really miss those Topps HD cards.  They were sharp looking.

 a 1965 Manny Mota Topps that I needed for my team set.  I'm getting closer to completing that year.  Anyone got the Clemente or Stargell to trade cheaply?  LOL!

 1999 Topps HD Bobby Bradley.  Bradley never made it to the majors but was selected 8th overall in the 1999 draft.  I recently did a Former Prospect profile on Bradley which you can read here.

 1964 Topps Smoky Burgess

and finally a 1955 Gair Allie

Need help with ebay purchase

For some reason, I am unable to do a buy-it-now on this item.  It looks like the seller has blocked me, even though I have never bought an item from them in the past.  I am asking my blogging friends to help me out.  If anyone has $6 and an ebay account, can you purchase this item for me and I'll either paypal you the money back + send a random jersey card to you in exchange OR you can choose form one of the following cards below as a straight up trade.

Let me know if anyone can help add to my Jason Bay collection
Here's the link
ebay number 370562198018

COMC Pickups under $2 each!!!!

I recently bought several cards on COMC and they were all under $2 prior to shipping.  You can't beat that with a baseball bat.

What better way to start off showing my COMC of $2 each or less than beginning with some more Jason Bay relics for the collection

 a 2008 Allen & Ginter Jason Bay jersey for $1.10 followed by

 a Jason Bay Sweet Spot Sweet Swatch Memorabilia for $1.49

How many Jason Bay jersey cards will I have by the end of the year?  That could be a fun contest.

a Freddy Sanchez auto for $1.99

For $1.25!!!!!!!!!!!! a dual jersey of Nate McLouth (welcome back to Pittsburgh Nate!!!!!!) and Freddy Sanchez numbered 383/400.

 keeping with the cheap McLouth theme is this red ink AUTO rookie of Nate from 2006 Upper Deck Clear Path to Greatness.  This card was had for $1.79

A Jose Tabata 2006 Bowman Futures Game Jersey card.  What's interesting about this card is that it features Tabata in the Pirates colors for the first time since the All-Star game was played in PNC Park that year while Tabata was a still a member of the Yankees minor league system.  This was had for $1.55.

Willie Stargell and Bill Madlock Fleer Platinum Cornerstones numbered 902/1000 for $1.  It's not a relic or auto, but a very nice looking numbered card. 

In addition, the below two cards of Bobby Bradley posted yesterday were bought for $1.75 and $2 respectively.

I also picked up a bunch of Ryan Doumit and Neil Walker cards that I needed for my PC.

Former 1st Round Draft Pick: Bobby Bradley

Bobby Bradley was the Pirates first round draft pick of the 1999 MLB Draft.  He was selected 8th overall out of Wellington High School in Wellington, Florida.  He reportedly signed for a little over $2.3 million which was overslot at that time.  He began his professional career that year and was voted to the 2000 Futures All-Star Game as a 20 year old.  In 2001 Baseball America had him ranked as the 20th best prospect in all baseball.

Leading into the 2001 season, Bradley had pitched 119 innings with 149 strikeouts, 1.04 WHIP, and an incredible 2.47 ERA.  It seemed like Bradley would be fast tracked to the majors and may provide the first true ace pitcher the Pirates had since Doug Drabek in the early 90s.

Bradley however started to have many injuries including Tommy John Surgery and never made it to AAA until his age 24 season in 2005.  After only 12 innings of work in AAA, he was ultimately released to make room on the 40 man roster for Zach Duke. 

Bradley attended Marlins spring training in 2006, but left after only one day of workouts.  He finished his minor league career with a 18-12 record with 334.2 IP (327 K, 1.28WHIP, 3.25ERA).

The fact that he never got a cup of coffee in the majors is really a sad story and just goes to show the risk in taking pitchers in the draft.  There's a lot of risk involved in developing pitchers and it's a shame that many of them don't get a chance to see their big league dream come true.  I think if Bradley had not been injured, he could have been a legitimate ace based on the scouting reports I've read and his makeup. 

I picked up the above 2 cards for less than $2 a piece from COMC which I will highlight some other of my sweet pickups tomorrow.


For those reading, who is the biggest let down of first round draft picks for teams you root for?

trade with Cards from the Quarry

Johnny aka hiflew at Cards from the Quarry made a trade with me when he saw my blue parallel Drew Pomeranz 2012 Topps card I pulled from a blaster.  The deal was gong to be the Pomeranz and a large assortment of Rockies for the 2012 Andrew McCutchen '87 Topps mini and an assortment of Pirates.  For some reason, I couldn't find all my pre 2011 Rockies so I decided to give up a pack pulled Todd Helton relic from 2002 (?) that I was hoping he didn't have. 


Here's some of the highlights of what I got:

up first is the centerpiece of the trade.  As everyone know's Cutch is my favorite player to collect.  The dude is a future superstar.  I actually needed 2 of these.  One for the PC and one for my '87 Topps minis set.  I had one and am now happy to put this in the McCutchen binder for safe keeping.

 2 Pirates Hall of Famers.  The Clementes are the Archive reprints, but I don't own the reprints (or originals for that matter) so I'm happy to get them.  The Maz is a card I had never seen before.  It's copyrighted CMC 1989 and is number 67 of a Baseball Greats set.  Anyone have any information about this set?  Were there other Pirates in the set? 

 Bazooka minis are fun.  I have a binder of Jason Bay and Jason Kendall and a plethora of Mike Williams cards.  These are all new additions to the collections.

I just love getting new cards I didn't have before and every single one of these is new to my collection.  Doumits and McCutchens I don't already have are always the highlight of a trade package for me.  I just love adding to my player collections. 

Holy crap! I miss SportsFlics cards!!!!!!  Nothing says late 80s awesomeness like a SportFlics card.  I remember when these things came out, they were awesome.  Come to think of it, they still are.  John Smiley is my favorite left handed Pirates pitcher of all time so this makes me remember what it was like being 9 years old again.  GO BUCS!!!!

Thanks so much for the trade and I look forward to trading with you again.