A Mini Zapping

Whenever a Zapping shows up in my mailbox, I know I can expect great cards. For the uninitiated, my pal Kenny a/k/a Zippy Zappy a/k/a disnalldat on Twitter a/k/a the World's Ultimate Luis Torrens supercollector will, from time to time, send out fat packs of cards that he calls Zippy Zappings. They are always densely packed with cards and, befitting Kenny's nature of being a fan of minor league baseball rather than the major leagues, they usually feature a significant amount of Bowman cards.

This mini-Zapping from Kenny was not very different. It did feature a couple of random Topps inserts of *gasp* major leaguers, but I'll forgive him for that.

Powered by music provided in Kenny's "What I've Been Listening To... (Pt. 2)" post from earlier this week, let's dive into the Mini Zapping!

The Wombats -- "Emoticons"

My musical tastes since the early 1990s have tended to angle toward Anglophilia very frequently. As a result, it should not be a surprise that I have heard of the scousers known as The Wombats before, and I've listened to them some about 10 years ago. 

Even then, I hadn't listened to them much, and I have not paid attention to them lately. By lately, I mean, "since about 2010." This song, "Emoticons," appeared on Glitterbug, the band's third album. It's a pretty cool song -- very much in the Britpop lexicon. 

Here are those major leaguers that really threw me for a loop coming from a Zippy Zapping -- mini or otherwise. Now, the Fielder is at least in the vein of a Kenny collectible -- what with its rookie leanings and all -- but to get a K-Rod, a Braun/Koufax, or a Jason Kendall card that isn't a Japanese SEGA card is a rare day. It feels almost like a limited edition of some sort. 

It's pretty cool.

The Founders 15: "I Can't Be Satisfied"

It's not often that a song gets me digging into general articles about life in a particular country to try to figure out where it came from, how it came to be, and what its context is. This song did that, though. It started just by listening to the song -- which, to be honest, is a fairly unremarkable funk tune with some guitars thrown in and vocals that would not be out of place had someone said that the song came from Jamaica. But it came from Nigeria.

I admit that I don't know anything about Nigerian pop music of any time period. Wait....I'm reading an article on Pitchfork now (reviewing a 2.5-hour magnum reissue album from 2009 called Nigeria 70: The Definitive Story of the 1970's Funky Lagos) and it mentions a name I've heard: Fela Kuti. Okay. At least I've heard a name before. 

But I've never heard of The Founders 15, and there's very little available online about this band. 

If I'm guessing about this song's meaning, it might have something to do with the whole Biafran secession in the late 1960s and the Nigerian Civil War that followed to get Biafra back into the country. Biafra had support from France, and, odd in that Cold War context, the federal government of Nigeria had support from the Soviet Union and Great Britain. 

The war was fought -- perhaps unsurprisingly -- over oil as much as it was fought over people, independence, or self-determination. Nigeria had fairly significant oil reserves, and Biafra and Nigeria were fighting for dominion over the BP-Shell oil fields and the right to the royalties being paid. Because the French were on one side and the British on the other, the US declared themselves neutral (though, in reality, their support was mostly for the Nigerian government).

The war led to a massive humanitarian crisis in Biafra as well. Millions were close to starvation. Adding to the crisis's receiving coverage was the fact that the Biafrans tended to be Christians while the Nigerians tended to be Muslim. The Nigerians blockaded ports bringing food for the Biafrans, resulting in starvation, and the Nigerian army literally murdered Biafran civilians. Arising out of this conflagration, however, came one good thing: Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

Wow. Tough to come back to baseball cards after learning about all that.

Depressing stories of Civil War and famine followed by depressingly boring cards of guys in generic blue uniforms. It's depression on a far different level, of course, and I'm not trying to draw a direct parallel. 

Tyrone Taylor was the Brewers top prospect or second-best prospect at the beginning of the 2015 season -- but only #93 overall. Since then, his star has faded. He's only 23 years old, but he's about to go into his third season at Double-A Biloxi after hitting .232/.303/.327 last year in 134 games there. Add in the fact that he pulled a hamstring in spring training so that his season won't begin until May, and there has to be genuine concern about him. Call him trade bait?

Speaking of Biloxi, Angel Ortega has started both games for the Shuckers at third base. He's still only 23 years old, but he too needs to show something this year. He doesn't have any power (minor league slugging percentage of .296 in slash line of .235/.270/.296....) or all that much speed and he doesn't have great plate discipline either. He's been a shortstop mainly before this year, but he's at third base at Biloxi thanks to the presences of Mauricio Dubon. Third base won't help him either, what with the very rapidly approaching Lucas Erceg -- who is at High-A Carolina -- and Ortega needs to develop very fast or find himself looking for a new organization or line of work.

Anthony Banda is a great highlight here. He's a very intriguing starting pitching prospect who has developed fantastically in the past couple of years. Unfortunately for Brewers fans, he's done that developing in the Diamondbacks system -- he was traded there in exchange for Gerardo Parra in 2014. 

Finally, there's Zach Quintana. He was traded after the 2014 season to the Atlanta Braves in exchange for spare OF Kyle Wren. He made it to the Carolina League last year in the Braves system -- with the Carolina Mudcats -- before being released at the end of last season. An interesting sidelight: the Brewers and Braves swapped High-A outposts after last season. The Brewers got the Mudcats, and the Braves got the Brevard County Manatees -- which promptly moved to Osceola County and changed its name to the Florida Fire Frogs.

Balance and Composure: "Quake"

It's odd how some bands that got bigger in the "modern rock"/alternative scene in the past decade have eluded me. It seems especially to apply to American bands that sound like this band, Balance and Composure. Perhaps it's just the radio stations -- whether created by Pandora, Spotify, or Amazon or actual radio stations -- that I listen to seem to focus as much on 1990's alternative as they do more recent songs. I don't know.

This song, "Quake," reminds me of any number of bands from that mid-2000s timeframe that sort of emulated Nirvana while mixing in attempts at being "harder" or just yelling/screaming more while singing. It's not bad, but it's not anything unique either. I'd give this song a 5/10 -- I wouldn't skip it if it came on one of those curated stations.  I probably would react with apathy.

I reacted much more positively to these two Bowman Chrome cards. Even more so than the usual Bowman offering putting minor leaguers into the big-league team's uniform, these two cards look very photoshopped. The Nottingham card would not look out of place in that Elite Extra Edition set, other than having a realistic background and actual team colors. The easy reason why these two look the way they do is that both Hader and Nottingham were either completely new (Nottingham) or still pretty new (Hader) to the Brewers organization last spring.

Nottingham was the key part of the Khris Davis trade with the Oakland Athletics before last season. GM David Stearns was familiar with him thanks to Nottingham having been drafted by the Astros in 2013 out of high school. He went to Oakland in exchange for Scott Kazmir during the trade deadline in 2015 before coming to Milwaukee just before spring training in 2016. The jury is still out on Jacob, though. He struggled to hit in Double-A Biloxi last year -- .234/.295/.347 -- and then flopped in the Arizona Fall League (.203/.221/.284). I mean, his OPS in the Arizona Fall League was below Tim Tebow for crying out loud. That's bad.

Hader, of course, was named MLB Pipeline's top left-handed pitching prospect during the 2016-2017 offseason. He's starting the year in Triple-A Colorado Springs at the age of 23. He needs to work on controlling his walks -- that's always been his bugaboo -- but I would anticipate that he will make his big-league debut this year in Milwaukee after the All-Star Break if he looks decent during the first half of the year in the thin air.

Napalm Death: "You Suffer"

It took me longer to copy and paste this into this blogpost than it does to listen to this song.  So, here's another Napalm Death song:

"Unchallenged Hate"

I've said before that I'm a lyrics guy. I like to hear the lyrics to a song and get their message. "Unchallenged Hate" is the opposite of that. To be fair, if you look up the lyrics for this song, they are really deep. I challenge you to find those lyrics in this song.

Napalm Death is thrash metal taken to its nth degree. It's hardcore, dense, thick, and even a little sludgy in terms of its sound. Those issues are probably why the band isn't bigger or why it never turned into Metallica or something. There are better bands that do this same genre better too -- Megadeth, for example. 

The final group of cards that Kenny sent my way are all Asia Black Refractors from the 2015 Bowman Chrome Draft set. 

These cards highlight the farm system before the big trades in 2015 and 2016 that added prospects numbered 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 12, 14, and 16 to the Brewers Top 20 on MLB Pipeline (and #11 Marcos Diplan came over in 2014 from Texas as part of the Yovani Gallardo trade). Of the guys here, though, we have #26 (Nathan Kirby), #15 (Cody Ponce), #25 (Jake Gatewood), #22 (Monte Harrison), #6 (Trent Clark) and #13 Jorge Lopez.  

We've talked about Tyrone Taylor already, so let's talk about Tyler Wager. Wagner made it to the majors with Milwaukee in 2015 and got hit around some. He then was traded with Jean Segura to Arizona for Chase Anderson, Aaron Hill, and rising prospect MIL #5/MLB #63 Isan Diaz. Wagner pitched a little for Arizona in 2016 but then was waived after the season. The Rangers -- who apparently only scout the Milwaukee Brewers -- then signed him.

Kenny, thanks for the great bunch of cards. I'm going to use the rest of your songs for a post tomorrow, so don't worry -- you'll get my take on them too!

A PWE from the Shoebox Legend

The Brewers finished their work on the pre-waiver deadline by sending Gerardo Parra to the Orioles for pitcher Zach Davies, a guy who was drafted out of high school by the Orioles in 2011 and suddenly developed into a real prospect.  He's slight of build -- 6' tall but just 160 pounds -- but he's a 22-year-old who has had good success in Triple-A already this year as a starter.  In their other trade of the day, the team sent Jonathan Broxton to the Cardinals -- meaning that he'll probably turn into the reincarnation of Bruce Sutter thanks to the power of the dark side of the Force -- in exchange for Malik Collymore, a raw athlete built like a linebacker who is still in Rookie ball.

After all that trading, it feels almost cathartic as a Brewers fan to get back to card collecting and hoping that next year will be a little bit better.  A great pick-me-up can in the mail this week from Shane of Shoebox Legends.  He and I have sent cards back and forth several times now, and I was really happy to see a PWE from him in my mailbox this week.

What did Shane send my way? 8 great cards.  Let's count them down:

#8: 2009 Upper Deck Todd Coffey

Coffee spent parts of three seasons in Milwaukee. His BB/K ratio always seemed to indicate that he should have better results than he did, but he was plagued by giving up too many home runs. He's still at it, though -- pitching in relief for Los Diablos Rojos del Mexico (a/k/a the Mexico City Red Devils).

#7: 2014 Panini Prizm Jimmy Nelson

Maybe this card should be #8, since everyone knows my aversion to the no-logo cards and because Nelson looks like he's a member of the airbrushed away Yankees with that gray and blue-turned-to-black that Panini went with here.  He pitched well two nights ago only to watch the bullpen blow the game. I hope Jimmy gets used to being on a bad team for a couple of years.

#6: 2004 Fleer Platinum Name Plates Richie Sexson

It's tough to rate a 4-color patch piece serial numbered to 420 this low. But this card is a mess. A piece of a uniform of a guy traded after the 2003 season, shown with the Brewers in a really unattractive photo but listed on the Diamondbacks thanks to the trade. Why is this a mess? The photo is cropped poorly. The D-backs name looks like no font that should ever show its face outside of a disco album from 1978.  And, well, if it's a Brewers uniform that's cut up, then just don't worry about the trade and just list him as a Brewer.  Ugh.

#5: 1986 Sportflics Teddy Higuera

It's not that there's anything wrong with this card. It's just not as nice as the other cards Shane sent.

#4: 2015 Bowman (Chrome) Prospect Parallel Tyler Wagner

Please pardon the cat hair that makes its debut on Tyler Wagner's first Bowman card. After all the trades that the Brewers made, I fully expect Bowman Chrome or Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects will have about 8 or 10 Brewers farmhands in it.

Ha. Who am I kidding? We'll see the Yankees' 50th best prospect in those two sets before we'll see 10 Brewers.

#3: 2011 Topps Lineage Mini Relic Yovani Gallardo

I'm torn on ranking this card as highly as I have in large part because I already have it in my Gallardo player collection and, then, partly because it's just a piece of white fabric that causes this to be a relic.

#2: 2015 Stadium Club Wily Peralta Gold Foil Parallel

So, this is the first 2015 Stadium Club card I have in my collection, and it's a gold parallel. If Peralta were a player collection for me, it might have ranked #1 overall. It's a good photo, cropped well. My only complaint is not having a background behind Peralta to look at. But that's a minor problem.

I'm hoping that when I go to my local card show tomorrow, I'll be able to pick up the Series 2 Brewers, the Stadium Club Brewers, and whatever other recent releases there have been. With all the turbulence in my work life this year, it's been tough to keep up.

#1: 2015 Stadium Club Contact Sheet Insert Carlos Gomez

A Carlos Gomez Stadium Club insert seems an appropriate way to bring this post to a close. It's a new addition to my Gomez player collection, which is greatly appreciated, just as Gomez's joy in playing the game of baseball was greatly appreciated over his 5-1/2 years in Milwaukee.

Shane, thank you very much for the great cards and the midweek lift that your PWE brought me!

Catching Up with a Trade Post

Back on post #300, I put out an offer to everyone: comment with your collecting interests, then e-mail me your mailing address, and I would send out cards.  That post got a great response and led to me getting rid of a bunch of cards and getting a bunch of Brewers in return (even though I did not ask for a return package).  

One of the people from whom I heard was Jared from Catching Up with Collecting. Jared's interests in collecting are diverse -- everything from catchers Carlton Fisk, Gary Carter, Jason Varitek, and Jason Kendall, to his favorite teams -- he has five -- to a ton of Boston Red Sox stars.  I can relate to the love for catchers -- having played the position myself for a long time growing up, as my knees some days can attest -- so sending a package to him for me was relatively simple.

Jared then sent me a great stack of Brewers cards. Thankfully, the Brewers are not among his favorite five teams, so he sent me an awesome mix of cards.

We start with a passel of Robin Yount cards, including the card carrying Paul Molitor's praise for Robin as a teammate from the Panini Cooperstown set.  The bottom card is from the 2002 Topps Gallery set Heritage inserts.  At some point and between Cynical Buddha and me, we need to count up both the number of times that the 1975 rookie card gets used and, also, that photo of Yount from the 1988 season (with the H/K patch on his left arm to honor former manager Harvey Kuenn) that has been used so many times that I think it's the only photo Topps has of Robin.

While initially I liked this photo, it was because I was looking past the fact that a good third of the card is dominated by the out-of-focus arm of a first-base coach.  Now that I've really noticed it, I can't unsee it.  Dang it.

Topps Gold, circa 2013.  Hellweg came over to the Brewers from the Angels in the Jean Segura/Zach Greinke trade.  Hellweg is a graduate of St. Dominic HS in O'Fallon, Missouri. He had been rehabilitating from Tommy John surgery since early last year, and the Brewers used up his fourth and final option this year to let him continue his rehabilitation in Colorado Springs.  Before the injury, he -- and not Jimmy Nelson -- was probably the Brewers' top pitching prospect.

I'm not sure what's going on under Rob Picciolo's (pronounced "PEACH-uh-lo") eyes here. It might be the scan, or I just never cared enough to look at Rob Picciolo's 1984 Donruss card before. The very antithesis of a "Moneyball" player, Picciolo walked 25 times in 1720 career plate appearances.  

This card is proof that, in the 1980s, the card companies made cards for literally everyone who appeared in a major league game.  To wit, in 1983, Picciolo played in 14 games and came to bat 29 times.  No, he did not spend any time in the minor leagues that year.  In fact, because of his 1 sac fly in 1983, his OBP was lower than his batting average -- a .222/.214/.333 slash line.  

Josh Prince currently has more cards in the 2013 Panini Prizm set (10, including all the parallels) than he does major league plate appearances (9, racked up in 2013).  Prince was on his way back down the Brewers' chain after that high point in 2013 -- appearing only in Double-A Huntsville in 2014.  He's now a Double-A player in the Detroit system with Erie.

Tyler Wagner pitched for the Runnin' Utes of Utah in college before the Brewers drafted him in the fourth round in 2012.  He has worked his way up in the system step by step.  In 2014, he pitched very well as an age-appropriate player in the Florida State League, and he has started off well with the Biloxi Shuckers this season.  

As an aside, the Brewers moved their Double-A team from Huntsville, Alabama, to Biloxi, Mississippi, in the off season.  The only problem: the Biloxi stadium will not be ready for the team to occupy it before May at the earliest.  As a result, the Shuckers opened their "home" season by playing five games in four days last week against Jacksonville in Jacksonville. They will also be playing "home" games in May 6 against the Mississippi Braves at the Braves' home stadium in Pearl, Mississippi and the team will reappear in Huntsville for some home games starting on May 16.

In case someone with the Shuckers is reading blogs, please remember I am both a Brewers fan and a construction lawyer with good connections in Mississippi.  No, I'm not advertising, I'm just saying.

These Hometown Heroes cards with the dark blue uniforms are not nearly as offensive-looking to me as the powder blue one that Robin Yount is wearing.  Note that the Sheets parallel is the elusive "ZIP Code" parallel, as Panini shows off its knowledge of major league zip codes.  The great thing is that I believe I need all of these for player collections.  

Martin Maldonado is now the Brewers starting catcher as Jonathan Lucroy heals up after suffering a broken toe.  Maldonado has never been much of an offensive force.  Even after spending parts of 2004 through 2012 in the minor leagues -- a total of 1965 plate appearances -- he totaled only 31 home runs and 71 doubles for a .333 SLG.  But, he has one hell of a cannon behind home plate:

The guy threw out Billy Hamilton on a pitch he had to short-hop out of the dirt.  It's his defense that keeps him in the league, but he's stretched if he has to play regularly.

I'm still thinking, though, that Panini needs to do the "Catchers of Major League Baseball" series.  No logos needed!

And, if Panini did a set like that, I guarantee that both me and a certain Jared from Catching Up With Collecting would go for the complete set.

Thanks, Jared, for the great cards!