What Kenny's Listening To with Cards from Torren' Up Cards, Part I

When it comes to music or information in general, I tend to be very omnivorous. I read a ton, whether that includes reading for work or for pleasure. I watch tons of documentaries on Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Prime on my Roku as well as trying to find ones being shown on PBS or elsewhere that sound interesting. I also listen to about any music under the sun that comes my way at least once to see if I like it.

Of course, this love of knowledge tends to get in the way of my blogging, because I'm more likely to say, "that documentary about Oasis on Netflix sounds interesting" and start watching that instead of sitting down and blogging.

So, it's been a couple of weeks since the ever awesome Kenny a/k/a Zippy Zappy sent me a zippy zapping accompanied by his massive "What I've Been Listening To" post. Kenny is a 20-something whose tastes in music are all over the place, and I think he likes trying to find stuff for me to consider that might either offend or otherwise fall outside the realm of my tastes as a Gen-X'er.

Because Kenny posted 14 songs, I'm going to break this into two posts. It's just a lot to type and listen to all at once!

As always, to highlight the great cards Kenny sent and the (we'll see what an appropriate adjective is) music Kenny is listening to, here's my response post. Music first, followed by the card.

Now, Now: "SGL"

Kenny's post said this song is his favorite of the 14 songs that he posted, and after listening to this song twice *and* looking up the lyrics, I can see why. As Kenny noted, the band Now, Now is a two-person indie band from Minneapolis comprised of Cacie (or KC) Dalager and Bradley Hale. They met in high school in marching band -- something I can relate to, having been a marching band geek myself all the way through college.

This song is a really catchy poppy indie rock song. NPR featured it in November 2017 as one of the "Songs We Love." "SGL" stands for "shotgun lover," which in this context seems to be simply that she is a quick hookup for her lover. The rest of the lyrics of the song seem to provide feelings of unhappiness about that arrangement. 

But I'll leave all the interpretation to you. YMMV.

Since we're going with favorites up front, I will go with a card of Christian Yelich from Series 1 Topps. There's nothing more I can say about Yelich that hasn't already been said, really. 

Okay, one thing. If Yelich gets one homer between now and the All-Star break, he will set a Brewers record for most homers before the All-Star break. Yelich currently has 29 Homers in 70 games; Prince Fielder set the record in 2007 when he had 29 Homers in 87 games. Fielder finished 2007 with 50 homers. 

Lit, "My Own Worst Enemy"

I didn't need to listen to this song specifically for this post because this has been a personal favorite song since its release in 1999. It was kind of a joke between me and one of my friends that this song was sort of my theme song because I enjoyed going out, smoked cigarettes like a chimney when I drank, and generally I had a tendency to undermine myself at that point in my career. 

So that's why it was kind of a joke and kind of just sad, really. 

Even sadder is the fact that this song is now 20 years old. Which means Kenny was like 4 when it was released. 

1989 Bowman pairs well with a 1999 song. Indeed, Dale Sveum pairs well with a song about being one's own worst enemy too. 

Sveum's baseball career was essentially derailed in 1988 when, while playing shortstop, he went back into left field to chase a blooper. Left fielder Darryl Hamilton was charging in hard for the ball. A terrible collision resulted, and Sveum's left tibia and fibula were snapped. It was ugly. Even worse, the bone did not heal properly and a second surgery to re-break the bones to allow them to heal correctly resulted in 1989. 

He missed the entire 1989 season, and the promise that he showed during his 25-homer season in 1987 was gone. His missing 1989 led the Brewers to calling up a petulant youngster named Gary Sheffield even earlier than Sheffield's abilities and maturity should have allowed.

Sveum also made the mistake of going hunting with Robin Yount, leading to Sveum getting bird shot going through his right ear. 

Drowning the Light, "The Spear of Longinus"

You can read Kenny's intro and discussion on how he was introduced to this song by the Metal Attorney, the Red Sox Fan in Nebraska.

I am not terribly impressed by this song, in large part because it is really repetitive and to my ears, quite boring. I used to use black metal/death metal/speed metal to fall asleep on international flights because it was like active white noise. More than once, I would set up a playlist of nothing but the song "Master of Puppets" played 4 times in a row to help me fall asleep. And it worked too.

One of the things that Kenny sent me was this Clay Matthews sticker from Panini. My Packers fandom has been waning over the past eight years -- since the Super Bowl win, really. This entirely coincides with my no longer playing fantasy football. 

I will admit that I don't miss the NFL at all. My football watching is all on Saturdays these days -- watching Georgia play along with paying attention to the other SEC games is usually enough for me. 

Gypsy and the Cat, "Sorry"

A generally innocuous indie rock song. It's something that I would listen to again if it came on, but I'm not sure I'd actively seek it out. 

Interestingly, the band seemed to fall apart due to its own former record label, Sony, screwing them over in some respects. According to this article from April 2016, when SoundCloud became a monetized streaming service in 2016, Sony Australia locked down their artists' songs to make sure that the songs were not freely streamable -- that people had to be paying for the right to stream the songs. 

Before that time, music bloggers often embedded SoundCloud files for songs in their blogs. Blog embeds are tracked by a service called Hype Machine, and it has its own charts. Prior to the Sony lockdown, Gypsy & The Cat had a song called "Inside Your Mind" that reached number 2 on Hype Machine. The next week, after the lockdown, the song was no longer on the chart.

Frustratingly for the band, Gypsy & The Cat had not been a Sony artist for over five years at that point. Yet, Sony's actions effectively derailed their efforts on the 2016 album. One can't help but think that bullshit must have played a role in their breakup.

As a side note, band member Xavier Bacash has a new EP out under the name "Sonny". I haven't listened to it yet.

I feel like this "Top Shelf" chrome of Ryan Braun fits well here. I sometimes forget that Braun is still with the Brewers -- he's almost like a name of a bygone era at this point. He's a solid player at this point in his career. He's never been a great on-base guy -- his value is tied heavily into his batting average, which happens when you walk only 17 times in 266 plate appearances as Braun has this year through June 23 -- so he's basically a replacement-level player even with his 12 HRs and 40 RBI this year. At least that is what bWAR says -- 0.1 WAR and a 94 OPS+ is pretty much replacement level, right?

I Set My Friends On Fire, "Life Hertz"

A catchy song. I've never heard of this band before, apparently because they come from the genre of "screamo" -- where they scream everything they sing. It's a decent song, but based on what Kenny's post said, I'm not seeking out anything else by them.

A relatively interesting card visually, though the colors behind Rogers look like some sort of rainbow fingerprint. I'll take this opportunity to note that these all-white uniforms look terrible to me. In fact, pretty much all of the color rush uniforms look awful to me. 

This card is decent, but I'm not seeking out anything else from Panini here.

DECO*27 - 妄想感傷代償連盟 (Feat. 初音ミク)

That "featuring" portion reads "Hatsune Miku" in Japanese. Kenny points out that Hatsune Miku is a "vocaloid icon," which means that she is a completely fictional CGI anime girl. People go to concerts to seek Hatsune Miku sing these songs, so it's sort of like gathering to watch a TV show.

The song is pretty catchy, as you'd expect from computer-generated vocals. I wonder what the words are.

Appropriately, in the cards that Kenny sent, there is a computer-generated Taylor Jungmann to go with Hatsune Miku. Also appropriately, Jungmann has been pitching in Japan for Yomiuri Giants for the past two years.

Gucci Mane f/Migos, "I Get the Bag"

Thank you, Kenny, for giving me some music from Georgia to talk about. Gucci Mane was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and moved to Atlanta in 1989. Gucci's Wikipedia article notes that he was actually a good student in high school (he's a DeKalb County kid, having attended McNair High School), but that he also got started with dealing drugs in school too. He's been in and out of prison for gun charges and drugs. Hopefully he's gotten cleaned up. 

Migos is comprised of three guys -- Takeoff, Offset, and Quavo -- and are managed by Coach K, who used to manage Gucci Mane. The three all grew up in Gwinnett County, the county due east of DeKalb County. Parts of Gwinnett are quite urban, while other parts are very country. I like these guys because Quavo in particular is a huge Georgia Bulldogs fan.

The song is pretty good too, by the way.

Kenny sent me several of these 2011 Minor League Heritage cards, including one of Jimmy Nelson. Nelson attended high school in Florida and then went to college at the University of Alabama. 

His overcoming injury to come back and pitch this year has been a great story at the same time as it has been sad. Before his injury, he was verging on being a true #1 starter, finishing 9th in the Cy Young voting. Since his return, he has been terrible -- 3 games started, 12 innings pitched, 10 walks, an ERA of 9.75 and a WHIP of 2.167 pretty much says it all. He is being moved to the bullpen.

That's the end of Part I. Any comments from y'all as to which one of these songs is your favorite? How about the cards -- anyone like any of these cards more than the others? Why?

Music from the Trading Spot

One of the trading world's really underrated guys is John from Johnny's Trading Spot. I say he's underrated because the guy literally drops fantastic packages on every one of his trading partners whenever he sends something. Johnny has sent me boxes of bobbleheads, massive and jammed Priority Mailers, and tons of awesome parallels that I have distinct difficulty finding in the wild at card shows or online.

John is right up there with Wes/JBF in my book -- both of them are incredibly generous fellow SEC fans who go above and beyond and seemingly ask for very little in return generally. John recently (within the past two months) sent me yet another excellent package. To thank John, I did a little research and found some of his favorite bands from his past. That means I read his blog, by the way.

Anyway, let's get to the music and the cards!

One of the first things I found on John's blog was a post where he showed off a TON of cards from a set all about Kiss from the late 1970s. I think it's a Donruss set based off a search on Trading Card Database. Every time I see a set like that, I think, "Man, I need to look more at non-sports cards and collect some." 

Then that feeling passes as I look at my mounting want lists for the Brewers. I have chipped away at those in terms of organization, though -- I'm all the way up to 2014 in terms of getting all the Topps parallels, inserts, and autographs into binders!

Speaking of parallels and inserts...here are four parallels that I needed. It's always interesting to get a Yuniesky Betancourt card. How he started in 152 games at shortstop for a 2011 team that won 96 games and won the NL Central is one of sabermetrics biggest questions. Betancourt "hit" for an OPS of .652 and tallied -0.5 WAR. And the Brewers paid him $4.3 million for that "production." Wow.

For whatever reason, it makes me chuckle to look at that team page on Baseball Reference and see the photos of the top 12 players from that team -- nearly everyone is shown on a team other than Milwaukee! The list goes Ryan Braun (MIL), Prince Fielder (TEX), Shaun Marcum (CLE), Corey Hart (PIT), Nyjer Morgan (CLE), Yovani Gallardo (SEA), Rickie Weeks Jr. (TAM), Randy Wolf (DET), John Axford (OAK) Carlos Gomez (TEX), Zack Greinke (ARI), and Jerry Hairston Jr. (BAL).

By the way, that Surhoff #1 pick is one of my favorite cards. I loved that subset in the 1985 Topps, and I was disappointed that it came out too early in 1985 for B.J. to be included. 

Now, when I saw John was a CDB fan, I knew damn well that he is a true Southerner despite his questionable choice of being a Florida Gator. Charlie Daniels comes from that late 1970s pop-country music time when country was really still country, but, as always, certain pop sensibilities had invaded. You have your Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelsons, of course, but folks like Eddie Rabbitt and Ronnie Milsap and Barbara Mandrell were their generation's versions of Luke Bryan, Tim McGraw, and Miranda Lambert. 

By the way, be sure to watch this video at least from the 3:30 mark on to see what happens when someone learns a new special kaleidoscope camera effect.

Let's get on the Upper Deck here. Two Prince Fielder inserts to go with a card from Carlos Lee to commemorate his short-lived Milwaukee stay and a Mat Gamel "Signature Star." Man, if Mat Gamel could have stayed healthy. All I got here, though, is that he went to the same Jacksonville High School as the daughter of two good friends of mine in Jacksonville (she's there as a senior now), and that his brother Ben is off to a pretty good start in Seattle this year.

I'm just not a huge fan of the song "Freebird," but I've listened to "Sweet Home Alabama" literally hundreds or thousands of times. I do hope that Neil Young will remember that a southern man don't need him around anyhow.

Of course, this is a big song for the University of Alabama, as you might expect. 

Man, I miss college football about this time of year.

Anyway...baseball cards....

Bowman seems to go well with the collegiate feel here for me. The whole "Bowman is about prospects" thing works in this regard. 

So, who is Cody Scarpetta and how did he end up on a Bowman Platinum card? Scarpetta was an 11th round draft pick in 2007 out of high school in Rockford, Illinois. His dad Dan was a third-round pick of the Brewers in 1982 who made it all the way to Triple-A before crashing out at the age of 25. Cody worked his way up the system all the way to Double-A Huntsville (Sweet Home Alabama) in 2011 and, in addition, made five appearances in the Arizona Fall League that year at the age of 22. He got shelled, and it was an indication that something was wrong -- as in, yup, Tommy John surgery. That really killed his career, though he continued to pitch in independent league baseball last year.

There are literally dozens of better songs from Steve Miller Band that I could have posted. But, I'm a child of the 1980s, and this song from 1982 is the one I most remember personally. Yes, "The Joker" is a thousand times better in my opinion, even if Billboard put this song at #70 on its list of Greatest Songs of all time. 

I bet my list would vary greatly from theirs.

Here's "the rest". Seth Lintz in the 2010 Pro Debut set as a blue parallel got into that set because he was a second round draft pick in 2008 out of high school. He barely made it to the Midwest League with the Brewers -- total of 14 appearances as a reliever in 2011 and 2012 with Wisconsin -- before he was cut loose. He made the independent league rounds some as well for a while, but it doesn't look like he has pitched since 2015.

Jed Bradley -- from Huntsville -- recently retired from baseball. He made it to the major leagues briefly last September with the Braves and appeared in 6 games in the same city where he went to college (he's a Tech kid). His card mate, Taylor Jungmann, was sent down to Double-A Biloxi earlier this year to be stretched out as a starter. Jungman and Bradley were both first round picks in 2011, but neither has really panned out. Jungmann's been passed not only Josh Hader, but also by Luis Ortiz and Brandon Woodruff and maybe even journeyman Paolo Espino.

My thanks go out to John as always for a great package of baseball cards. I would have played Molly Hatchet, but there's no damn way I'm putting any song called "Gator Country" on this blog!

Where Did the Time Go?

It's been a very long month for me. Today is the first day in 3 weeks that I haven't worked (at least I hope I won't work), so I finally get to sit down at my computer in my home office and relax for a day. Perhaps it is appropriate, then, that today I am writing about a package that I received in the mail almost two months ago now from someone whose 2016 buried them: Julie from A Cracked Bat.

Julie and I traded a few times back in 2015, when both of us had much more time on our hands to spend with our hobbies and our cards. Those halcyon days. Oh how I miss them.

I'm not complaining, though. I'm very happy with my job, and even though I have been exhausted lately it's much better than sitting around twiddling my thumbs and wondering how long I'd have a job (as was the case in 2014, to be fair).

Anyway, it's time to show off the cards. Let's get to them, powered by some music of course. I'm going to go a bit basic on the music though; since Julie's living in the great state of Michigan, I'll go with music from Michigander musicians.

Eminem

While I have not listened to much Eminem in the last several years -- I mean, I know he has released new stuff but I just haven't listened to it -- I have always liked a lot of his early stuff. "My Name Is" is a really good song that makes me think of my younger days ... holy crap, that song is from 1999. Geez I'm old.

Perhaps surprisingly, these cards are now eleven years old.  The word "Fleer" hasn't appeared on a baseball card since for a decade. Let that sink in for a moment. I will not bemoan the fact that baseball card collecting is more fun with multiple companies having licenses because the companies abused those licenses and collectors with their multitudinous parallels and inserts and parallels of inserts for most of the decade of the aughts.

For what it's worth, I am not a fan of the Fielder or the Weeks cards. The white on orange name plate reminds me too much of the vomit-inducing colors of the Tennessee Volunteers. Orange is evil, people.

Orange is evil.

Kid Rock

I'll admit it. This song -- again from 1999...this song graduates high school this year, y'all -- was something of a guilty pleasure for me 18 years ago. At least when it first came out. 1999 was the year of the rap-rockers like Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, and, at a more principled level, Korn. Kid Rock wasn't really a rap-rocker, though. As we have seen his career develop, he doesn't care about any particular genre of music -- he will besmirch them all given enough time.

If you're missing those days of 1999, though, feel free to sign up for the Kid Rock Cruise, featuring Kid Rock, Doug E. Fresh, and a bunch of artists I've never heard of.

I picked Kid Rock for these Gypsy Queen Minis because, back in the day, Kid Rock palled around with a dwarf named Joseph Calleja a/k/a Joe C. Joe C. had coeliac disease which stunted his growth at 3'9" tall and ultimately led to his untimely death at the age of 26. 

Joe C.'s contribution to American music did not end with his collaboration with Kid Rock. He also contributed an instant classic song to an important soundtrack. I'm speaking, of course, of his song "Kyle's Mom is a Big Fat Bitch" on the South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut Soundtrack. May he rest in peace.

The Von Bondies

When I first heard the Von Bondies back in 2005 or 2006, I liked this song ("C'mon C'mon") but I can't actually remember hearing any other song by them at all. In fact, the only other thing that I remember about this band is that the lead singer Jason Stollsteimer got his ass kicked by Jack White at a Detroit club in 2003. Stollsteimer and White had been feuding in the press, apparently, and that led to the scuffle.

Ah, the craziness of youth.

As I was sorting through a bunch of Bowman after that Nashville card show I attended, I actually wondered aloud to myself where I had gotten the Bowman Platinum Orlando Arcia card. Now I know that I need to thank Julie for it!  That Trent Clark card seems to pop up in multiple iterations and parallels at nearly every show I attend as well -- but I don't think I had the purple one...just as I didn't have a purple Heritage High Number of the YMCA's favorite pitcher, Jungmann.

Sorry. Had to do it.

The Romantics

I could have gone for the two big hits that The Romantics had -- "What I Like About You" or "Talking in Your Sleep." But I wanted to go with this one because, well, look at how adored these guys with their poofed up pompadours are at this soda shop in 1983! Plus, all that vinyl clothing...it's too shiny to be leather, right, unless they legitimately are wearing patent leather jackets. 

I suppose that's possible, of course.

Just don't read the comments here, where people start saying how much they loved 80s girls because their body parts were real and their rear ends weren't the size of "airplane hangars." 

Yikes...

This random jumble of cards was intriguing. The Sheets card was a "Fleer" insert (after Fleer's name was bought by Upper Deck). The O'Leary card is one of those Cyberstats parallels, I think. Then you get the Topps reprint of Coooooooooooooooooooooooop! in the early 2000s -- you know, before the Brewers were reduced to getting cards of only Robin Yount with occasionally Paul Molitor thrown in. 

Then, there is the encapsulated "Just Minors" card of Gaby Hernandez and Yuniesky Betancourt. It's hard to comprehend how former GM Doug Melvin allowed himself to be put in a position where he forced his manager, Ron Roenicke, to play Yuni for 68 games at FIRST BASE in 2013 -- a season in which Betancourt's slash line was .212/.240/.355. It made Juan Francisco look like Paul Goldschmidt.

The real question, though, is whether Julie was just trolling me with that card. After all, Betancourt came up in the Seattle system, and that card shows him with San Antonio in 2005. The other guy on the card, Gaby Hernandez, was a Mets farmhand in the Gulf Coast league in 2004 when his photo was taken.

Hmmmm....

The White Stripes

I could use Michigan music for literally dozens more posts -- there are so many great options available from there. But after mentioning Jack White above, I felt compelled to go this direction. However, there's no way I would subject you to the now ubiquitous "Seven Nation Army." I remember in 2006 that that song got adopted by the European Championships as the song for the crowd to chant aloud. It was cool then.

Now, 11 years later, it's a tired cliche. It's been beaten into the ground by nearly every sports team on every continent. If Antarctica had a sports team, the penguins supporting the team would chant that damn song. 

Come on, folks -- come up with something new. Y'all finally got past having Blur's "Song 2" blasted every three seconds during NBA games -- let "Seven Nation Army" drop now too.

The final card I'm highlighting is this beautiful SP Legendary Cuts of Warren Spahn. Julie's one of the bloggers who remembers that I also have several Milwaukee Brave collections that I chase. It's always a pleasure to get a new one, too.

Julie, thanks for the great cards and sorry for how long it took me to post them!

3 Cards and the Truth

Nashville legend Harlan Howard wrote dozens of hits in his life, so much so that he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1973 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1997. He was asked one time how he formulated great country songs. His reply is now practically a cliché, but he said it first. His response was, "Three chords and the truth."

The now-legendary giving of Matt from Bob Walk the Plank is almost a cliché by now as well. The guy opens up more top-end cards on a regular basis than I see in a year living in the card show lands here in Atlanta. His recent mailer to me brought to mind Harlan Howard -- it contained three cards and Matt's truth that he had stocked up again on Brewers.

Relying on Harlan's line, here are three songs to go with the three cards.

Ry Cooder, "Three Chords and the Truth"

It's not an exciting video for sure -- basically someone just put up the cover art for the album and uploaded the song. It's a bluesy five-minute song of three chords and Ry Cooder's truth. It's worth a listen -- it sort of reminds me of early 1970s Rolling Stones in some respects.

Corey Knebel's truth is that he attended the University of Texas at Austin and was a Detroit Tigers' first round draft pick (39th overall) in 2013. He signed shortly thereafter, and by the next May he was already in the major leagues with Detroit. He didn't do all that well in his first exposure to the majors, but he was still in demand enough to be sent to the Texas Rangers in a 2014 July trade with Jake Thompson for Joakim Soria. 

Neither Thompson nor Knebel made it through the 2015 season as a Ranger. Thompson went to Philadelphia as part of the Cole Hamels trade, and Knebel came to Milwaukee with the already departed Luis Sardinas and minor league pitcher Marcos Diplan in the Yovani Gallardo trade in January of 2015. Knebel just got recalled from Triple-A a couple of days ago. If the Brewers trade Jeremy Jeffress and/or Will Smith away by the end of July, don't be surprised if Knebel and Tyler Thornburg share closing duties to see whom the long term closer is.

Mrs. Jay Barker, er, Sara Evans: "Three Chords and the Truth"

Look, Sara Evans looks really good now, especially since she is now 45 years old. I mean, that's older than me and I don't look that good.  

</insert charity laugh>

In this video from 1997, Sara was around 25 years old. Let's just say that she was displaying her best fastball in this video. She is gorgeous and, to top it off, this song really allows her to show off her vocal abilities -- unlike all the overdubbed stuff that literally everyone puts out these days.

And I am not even that big of a country music fan. But, if it sounded like this more often, I might listen more often. Instead, it's Florida-Georgia Line and Luke Bryan singing songs that make them sound like 40-year-old overgrown bro frat boys thinking they are still 23. 

Taylor Jungmann actually attended the same high school (Georgetown (TX) HS) as Corey Knebel, and he also attended the University of Texas. Jungmann was the Brewers 1st Round pick -- 12th overall -- in 2011. Two picks later, the Marlins selected Jose Fernandez, and 6 picks later, the Athletics selected VandyBoy Sonny Gray. 

On the bright side, Jungmann is a better hitter than either Fernandez or Gray. Jungmann looked decent last year, but this year he has been a train wreck. He's been demoted to Double-A Biloxi after 20-2/3 innings of 9.15 ERA ball in Milwaukee and 31 innings of 9.87 ERA pitching in Colorado Springs. Usually ERA does not tell a complete story, but in that neighborhood there are only horror stories.

U2: "All Along The Watchtower"

In their version of the Bob Dylan classic which Jimi Hendrix appropriated and made his own on Electric Ladyland, U2 added lines to the song that did not appear in previous versions. In particular, in the bridge of the song, Bono sings, "All I got is a red guitar. Three chords, and the Truth. All I got is a red guitar. The rest is up to you."

Because I was a big U2 fan in high school -- they lost me for a while with that Zooropa stuff, though some of those songs are now okay -- I must have listened to Rattle and Hum from first song ("Helter Skelter") to last ("All I Want Is You") dozens, if not hundreds, of times. Keep in mind -- I grew up in the country, didn't go to the cool kid parties, and I spent a lot of time in my bedroom going through magazines to find evidence for debate topics. 

I know -- it's a complete shock that I wasn't at the cool kid parties after that last revelation.

To be fair, though, Matt did send me a revelation as well:



It's a Jonathan Lucroy 2016 Topps Clear serial numbered 3 of 10! Holy moly. This is my first of the acetate cards that Topps has put out the past several years, and I must admit that I am impressed -- it is a good looking card on both sides of it.

Lucroy is in the news so much lately for trade rumors that I half expected him to be dating Taylor Swift at this point. One day, it's Texas. The next day, it's Boston. Then, it's Cleveland. 

To be honest, I'm okay with him getting traded if it means a good return. I'm also okay if Lucroy retires as a Brewer after a contract extension after the 2018 season. Either way, it's a win for the team.

But, with three printing plates and this clear out of the way, do I need to go for the rainbow?

Maybe. Of course, there is that framed version of which there are only 16. That one might be tough to come by too...or...

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!