Twitch Sends Me Cards

Interacting with collectors by way of anything other than face-to-face interaction can have its awkward moments. For instance, when you're way behind on sending out response packages to people, you feel a little awkward interacting with them because you feel like you want to say, "sorry, man, I know, I'm way behind." 

Other times, there is some awkwardness when you can't remember who sent you cards. I have solved that problem for myself by scanning the cards as soon as I get them in and then saving them in a scan folder named for the person who sent them to me.

Then, there is the awkwardness I felt recently. I know Twitch of Twitch Collects Cards. By that, I mean, I interact regularly with him on Twitter, watch his creative process in drawing all kinds of awesome sketch cards, and read his insomnia-filled tweets that make me feel awful inside for him. 

The fact is, though, that I never really knew Twitch's name or address before getting cards in the mail. Well, I probably did know CC is really Twitch (I mean, I did read Gavin's trade post), but still -- I didn't want to give credit for a package based on a hunch.  

To make up for my gaffe, I will first show you some of the fantastic art that Twitch is working on. 

I colored 7 #SketchCards today! Haku, Kitty, Karai, Jason/Lono, Gizmo, Rocketeer, BB-8. #collect #art #commissionme pic.twitter.com/vzacHZs5sl

— #RecallRauner (@TwitchWasHere) June 16, 2016

As the hashtag says, you can commission some of these great sketch cards or other items by contacting Twitch via Twitter. This is just the tip of the iceberg on the great art that Twitch is creating. I wish I had even one-tenth of this artistic ability. As best I can tell, my creativity is limited to words.

And, as you probably know if you've read this blog, that is a pretty limited creative streak for me. 

Twitch was kind enough to send me a ton of Brewers. I admit that I am now at a loss as to what to send back, but I'll figure that out soon.

Here's the highlights:

Liquor-fractors and pizza. Yummy. I Googled "Liquor and Pizza" and it turns out that El Cajon, California must be the best place to live in America. I found that Shinar Pizza there allows you to order a fresh pizza, liquor, beer, or wine, smokes (if you're so inclined), or even groceries all at once and they will deliver.

Sticking with shiny and 2011, how about a few of those diamond anniversary parallels?

Two player collections for me in Jonathan Lucroy (now at 147 Lucroy Cards/items) and Corey Hart (lagging behind at 103).

As best I can tell, Hart is done as a player. He tried to play last year with Pittsburgh, and he just could not get through all of the injuries. 

An interesting sidelight is that there is another baseball playing Corey Hart who is a coach in the Blue Jays organization. He stands 6-feet tall and has a shaved head (as opposed to the 6'7", shaggy haired outfielder).  

That Corey Hart and this Corey Hart both played in the Brewers organization together at Nashville in 2005. Now-Coach Corey Hart's first at-bat in the Brewers organization was to pinch-hit for the tall Corey Hart. Coach Corey Hart also told the story that he was asked to sign a baseball card of the other Corey Hart in 2008 or 2009. The card had the facsimile signature on it, and the card company had screwed up -- they put Coach Corey's signature on OF Corey's card.

Perhaps appropriately for Twitch's art is this story in which Craig Calcaterra talked to OF Corey about his extensive superhero action figure collection!

Next up: A&G Minis!

Another J. Corey Hart card -- a 2009 "Old Planter" back -- and a 2011 Mark Rogers Bazooka parallel hand-serial-numbered 2 out of just 25.

Rogers is the rare Mainer major leaguer. I don't know if he is still pitching now (he tried and failed to catch on with Texas in 2015), but he pitched last year in the Independent Atlantic League for Long Island and Bridgeport with not a whole lot of success (39 innings, 6.23 ERA, 25 walks, 9 HR allowed). At one time very early in his career -- based entirely on being the 5th pick overall in the 2004 draft, almost certainly -- Rogers was the 55th and then the 44th best prospect in baseball according to Baseball America in 2005 and 2006 respectively.

Then injuries caught him. Remember everyone and repeat after Baseball Prospectus: There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect. 

Rogers was smart and invested his bonus money wisely, according to this Portland Press Herald article. So, he's financially okay. But, Rogers really was a guy who never lived up to his high draft pick status.

On the left is Chris Dennis. Dennis was born in Windsor, Ontario, and was drafted by the Brewers in the 13th round of the 2007 MLB Draft from St. Thomas of Villanova High School in LaSalle, Ontario. He got as high as High-A Brevard County in 2011 before he couldn't keep up enough with his bat (in 96 plate appearances, he slashed .169/.274/.253). I don't know where he went from there -- perhaps he decided to go to college or try something different since, after all, he was 23 at the end of 2011.

On the right is a 1984 Topps Sticker of Larry Bowa. But ignore that. The important guy is the one in the middle -- Birmingham, Alabama, native Charlie Moore. While Moore was pretty much done as a player in 1987, it would have been nice for him to get to stay in Milwaukee for his final season in the majors rather than ending up on Chris Dennis's eventual stomping grounds in Ontario. Moore made it to the majors in 1973 at the age of 20, but he played over 120 games in a season just three times -- 1977, 1982, and 1983.

It's Yovani Gallardo times four -- three shiny cards (two chrome and one "Prizm") and one Turkey Red. Gallardo signed in the offseason with Baltimore to a two-year, $20 million contract with a $13 million team option for 2018 or a $2 million option buy out. Gallardo hasn't pitched much this year for Baltimore thanks to injuries. He'll get every opportunity to claim a rotation spot there, though. 

These cards helped push my Gallardo collection up to 153 cards.

For me, it's always good to add to my ever-burgeoning Ryan Braun collection. The first one is the base "O-Pee-Chee" (put in quotes in deference to the fact that, well, these cards are just Upper Deck in O-Pee-Chee name with a wannabe 1976 Topps look) from 2009. The next actually goes in my 2010 Upper Deck team collection. The "20th Anniversary" card is one I needed too -- even though I have one that looks almost exactly like it already, I still needed it. Finally, that fancy Topps High Tek thing from 2014 is actually a "Spiral Bricks Gold Diffractor" and it is serial numbered as number 22 of 99.

Thanks to this infusion of Brauns, my Ryan collection has now reached 564 different Ryan Braun cards/items.  

Twitch, many thanks for the great package of cards -- to be fair, there were at least 10 more cards I could have included here.

Okay, one more:

Thanks for the cards and thanks for the great art you post, CC!

A Care Package from Too Many Verlanders

Late last week, I needed a pick-me-up. I've been working a ton, leaving very little time for me to do anything hobby related.  So, it was great to see a yellow envelope in my mailbox from Dennis at Too Many Verlanders.  The note that Dennis sent me was that he went to a recent card show and found a few Brewers to send my way.

Starting off, there was what has to be an authentic Steve Woodard autographed 1998 Score.  It has to be authentic because the only three people I can think of who would even want a Steve Woodard autograph are Jaybarkerfan, Thorzul, and me.

The vast majority of the Brewers cards that Dennis found were from 2014. First, there were a couple of those Bowman "top prospects" mini refractors from last year's Bowman offering.

Last year, Jimmy Nelson was the Brewers' top prospect and Taylor Jungmann was the number 5 prospect according to the list on the back of the cards. This year, they are both in the starting rotation at this point of the season.  Both are still young, but both may appear to be questionable choices.

Both were the types of draft picks that Doug Melvin tended to prefer -- college pitchers with slightly more limited ceilings but with a higher floor than, say, a high school pitcher. Jungmann was selected 12th overall in the 2011 draft out of the University of Texas. Disappointingly from a personal perspective, Melvin chose Jungmann 6 picks before Vanderbilt pitcher and current Oakland A's starter Sonny Gray. Well, that's not as disappointing as selecting Jed Bradley (who really doesn't look to be a prospect at this point) out of Georgia Tech four picks before Gray. 

It proves that you should never take a Yellow Jacket. 

Nelson was selected from the University of Alabama in the second round in 2010 -- 4 picks before Rays starter Drew Smyly (out of the University of Arkansas) and 6 picks before the Braves selected Andrelton Simmons.

Again, there's still a lot of time left in their careers to show that they were good selections. Perhaps they will mature into quality starters in time for the next Brewers playoff team in 2018 or 2019.

Dennis also sent me two Jean Segura cards from last year. Jean Segura is the reason that I'm taking a wait-and-see approach on adding any new player collections at this point. Segura came out like a house-of-fire his first year in the majors, making the All-Star team on the strength of that first half: he hit .326/.363/.487 before the All-Star break in 2013. 

Over the last two seasons -- 2014 and 2015 -- however, his line is .251/.287/.324, "good" enough for an OPS+ of 69 (a stat which places league average at 100 and takes the player's home ballpark into account).  In other words, he's been pretty damn awful -- basically barely above replacement level according to WAR on Baseball Reference (last year, 0.6 WAR; this year, 0.1 WAR).  Now, he's still young -- just 25 years old. But, Orlando Arcia is getting closer and closer to ready in the minors. If Segura wants to be anything more than a platoon partner for Scooter Gennett at second, Segura will need to show a LOT next year.

Okay, let's move on to some cards of guys no longer with Milwaukee.

Alcides Escobar spent parts of three seasons in Milwaukee before being traded to the Kansas City Royals with Lorenzo Cain, Jeremy Jeffress, and Jake Odorizzi in exchange for Yuniesky Betancourt and Zack Greinke.  The Brewers got two years of Greinke (well, a year-and-a-half, before the Brewers traded him to the Angels for, in part, Segura).  The Royals got two All-Stars and trade bait (with Wil Myers) for Wade Davis and James Shields. Can't complain too much about that.

One last card:

This card was definitely the highlight of the package. A Rickie Weeks/Bill Hall dual autograph card from UD Premier in 2007 serial numbered 12 of 25 -- and sorry Gavin, you're not getting this Christmas card!  It's a great addition to the Rickie Weeks player collection for me.

Dennis, thank you for thinking of me while perusing the cards at your baseball card show!

#WarWithJBF: Here Come the PWEs

In my first post about Jaybarkerfan's assault on the postal workers in North Atlanta, I noted that I thought I would win the first battle.  But, as I also said, "the first shots never determine the final outcome."  After all, no one is exactly sure who fired the first shot of the American Revolution at the Battle of Lexington, and the Confederates, under the leadership of General Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard, first the first shot at Fort Sumter.

Is that a plain white envelope I see on the horizon, sir?

If General Beauregard asked that question, his view west to Alabama from the outskirts of Atlanta would have been filled with mail trucks.  You see, the onslaught of PWEs has begun. The first one I received carried some notes to warn me of what is coming:

As best I can tell, I think I am around day four of the PWEs.  On the first day, just one PWE showed up.  It contained these notes accompanied by four cards:

I already have the top three cards, which is why they are small, but I did not have the Upper Deck Game Jersey of Ryan Braun.  That's a great new edition.

The next day (Thursday), nothing arrived from the Hazel Green Roll Tide Church. On Friday, two envelopes arrived.  One of them, unfortunately, had been slashed open by some intrepid felon within the United States Postal Service.  The other one, though, had another great relic card:

Corey Hart's contribution to the 2012 Topps Golden Moments Game-Used Memorabilia Insert set arrived -- and it too was a new addition to a player collection.  

Then yesterday arrived.  Before yesterday, I was under the impression that JBF had sent out a PWE a day. Now, I know that is not the case.  

My wife has been following these proceedings closely -- after the warnings from Bob Walk the Plank were passed along to me, I thought it wise to give my wife a heads up to avoid moving any heavy boxes.  I filled her in when those notes above came. When she brought in the mail yesterday, all she said to me was, "I guess that guy wasn't kidding."

Yes, yesterday, SEVEN PWEs showed up.  It's starting to add up now...and my thoughts are that I may see another 11 PWEs before this is over -- and before the 6 "Monsters" arrive.  I am not afraid of monsters, though.  Not yet, at least!

So what did these PWEs have?

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

Yes, that's a relic in every envelope.  Every. Single. One.  

The cool thing is that about half of the "filler" cards are ones I needed for my player collections and/or for the Brewers team binders.  

You might be able to tell from my write up here that my trepidation is increasing.  I mean, as much as you can see from the photos that Bob Walk the Plank posted -- and as many of you have found out personally -- one cannot appreciate the sheer volume of cards that Wes sends out.

Now, I have some great stuff for him already -- some of which has arrived in Alabama but most of which is yet to come.  Don't get me wrong.  

But this war...is this where we are heading?

We'll see.