More Cards from the Bubble Man

Things are blowin' up. 

Another day, another wonderful bubble mailer from Bob at The Best Bubble. This one was full of Cardinals and Trail Blazers, with a really nice dual jersey card for my favorite personal collection. Let's dig in, as they say.

Right off the bat, here's a red Crown Royale parallel of a red clad J.D. Drew. Drew's lasting legacy is that he brought Adam Wainwright to town, who continues to soldier on as we speak. J.D. Drew cards make me happy in this roundabout way.

The Final Boss may have returned to his native country to continue his career, but the cards (and the parallels... oh the parallels) live on. This is one of those fancy Prism (not Prizm!) refractors that some have compared to fish scales. I can see it.

Here's that memorabilia card that I hinted at. Check out the baby blue swatch for Ozzie's section. It's a little out of place with the picture they used of him, but I like it. Let's just hope that not all of Upper Deck's shenanigans resulted in phony jersey cards. Isn't that more of a Panini thing?

Also as mentioned previously, there were Blazers cards. Nice! Wesley is a favorite of the blog, so this is doubly nice. I've complained about this Trail Blazers logo recently, but another older one that I never thought would see the light of day again resurfaced at the 2000's Decade Night on Sunday... let's just say I appreciate this one a little bit more after being reminded of this particular travesty.

Jarrett Jack helped usher in the era of the Blazers wearing "Portland" across their road uniforms, something that would continue today if Nike didn't eliminate the entire concept of home and road uniforms.

Big thanks again to Bob!

Phungo Pack Break 2013

The (not-so) new year's first pack break.

I haven't been bustin' packs and crackin' wax so much lately, so it was nice to see a well-constructed pack arrived to me by snail mail. Phungo packs always seem to be suspiciously tailored towards my collecting habits, but I'm not one to complain. That company called Topps likes to stack my packs full of guys like Alex Rodriguez and Rickie Weeks, so I was bound to catch a break. The new design for 2014 is already out, by the way.

3 - Jaime Garcia (2012 Topps Gold Sparkle) - I unfortunately scanned this one too close to the pack wrapper, so it came out all blurry because lasers or something.

150 - Ryan Ludwick (2010 Topps 206 Piedmont Mini) - I wonder if there will be a new retro set this year from Topps. They did 206 for 2 years, National Chicle for 1 and Gypsy Queen has had a 3 year run. I'm not huge fans of any of those, but I'd have to say that the 2010 Topps 206 set had the cleanest design.

US93 - Adam Wainwright (2013 Topps Update) - I'm still mad about this game. The NL team played like absolute garbage as the offense was virtually shut down. The game was boring. And Wainwright didn't even pitch, because he had started just a couple of days before the game. A certain team I like could have used the home field advantage.

510 - Ryan Ludwick (2009 Topps Gold 0043/2009) - Lots of gold in this pack!

536 - Khalil Greene (2009 Topps Gold 1646/2009) - I wasn't able to find out much about whatever became of Khalil Greene, who reportedly struggled with Social Anxiety Disorder. I saw him play with the Portland Beavers and was excited when the Cardinals brought him aboard, but it wasn't meant to be.

429 - Skip Schumaker (2011 Topps Gold 1586/2011) - Cardinals legend Mike Shannon recently re-upped to continue on as the radio voice of the Cards. I miss him talking about the "Schu Man", even though Schumaker's performance on the field is fairly replaceable.

212 - Jim Edmonds (2006 Topps Allen & Ginter's) - Yeah! Great player in the modern debut of a great set.

19 - Carlos Beltran - Here we get into the meat of the Phungo cards.

41 - Scott Rolen - I don't think Rolen has retired yet, but it seems like the announcement is looming.

62 - Jose Molina - Ahh! I feel like I narrowly missed out on a Molina brother that I collect.

Halladay vs. Holliday - Here's one of those special black framed inserts that the kids are always talking about. I wonder if Phungo got any shots of Roy in what proved to be the final season of his career. I guess I'll have to wait until I get to open a 2014 Phungo pack.

43 - Adam Wainwright (2013 Topps Chrome Orange Refractor) - Well, this is glorious.

477 - Yadier Molina (2013 Topps Heritage Black Retail) - Let's just pretend that's not a piece of hair that got stuck to the scanner tray.

54 - Jaime Garcia (2013 Topps Target Red) - I'm crossing my fingers that Jaime will be able to bounce back this season from some more bad luck with injuries.
 

21 - Yadier Molina - I didn't miss out on Yadi after all!

Khalil Greene Watch: Day Whatever, and One More Contest

It's been awhile since I've done this. I don't remember what day we're on, and I don't want to look for fear of ruining tonight's Cardinals game for me (I tape the majority of the games because of my work schedule.) Go here if you don't know what this is all about.

Cesar Izturis, 2008: 135 G, 414 AB, .263 BA, .628 OPS

Khalil Greene, 2009: 58 G, 148 AB, .209 BA, .644 OPS

I'll have another update at the end of the regular season. Tyler Greene has dropped off of the scene, as Brendan Ryan secured the full-time starting shortstop duties and has done extremely well. Khalil's rebirth as a 3rd baseman lasted all of about a week, but he's now back in the fold as a backup 3B/pinch-hitter. He's actually done extremely well in exactly one respect this season: with runners in scoring position. Check out this line: .387 BA, 18 RBI and 1.031 OPS in 41 plate appearances with RISP. Small sample size, yes, but I don't mind seeing him pinch hit with runners on.

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I forgot about one contest the predated all of the other contests I mentioned in my last post. Thorzul Will Rule has a Trade and Win contest where you can send in cards you don't want, eliminate pesky needs from his want list and possibly win a prize when all is said and done. For me, it was an always welcome opportunity to get rid of some cards from the early-'90s but for you, perhaps, it will be an opportunity to win something nice.

Greene Watch: Day 47

I've considered retiring this little feature because the speculation surrounding what is wrong with Khalil Greene is just becoming sad. The Cardinals will probably make a decision on him (DL? DFA? Conversion to starting pitcher...?) at some point between now and tonight's 7:00 PDT game against the Giants, if that decision hasn't been made already, because Ryan Ludwick is due to come off the DL. Meanwhile, Tyler Greene got shipped back to Memphis and has become one of my favorite players in the organization for no apparent reason. The above picture is from Wednesday morning's Redbirds/Beavers game. I'll have more from that at a later time.

Again, the whole point of this was not to suggest that the Cardinals made a bad decision (although it certainly looks like that's what happened) but just that there were other options available. Using the fairly ineffective Izturis as a measuring stick, I wasn't sure that Khalil could do much better. I'm not rooting against him - he's a Cardinals and for all I know is not an unlikeable guy.

Cesar Izturis, 2008: 135 G, 414 AB, .263 BA, .628 OPS
Khalil Greene, 2009: 38 G, 105 AB, .200 BA, .582 OPS
Tyler Greene, 2009: 13 G, 38 AB, .263 BA, .800 OPS

Oh, it looks like the decision was already made...

Greene Watch: Day 28

A new Greene has entered the fray!

Brendan Ryan hit the DL after playing some restaurant quality defense for the times that he was used and Khalil hit the non-DL limbo for a stretch (currently that's where Rick Ankiel is at) so Tyler Greene finally got his first call to the majors. It just so happens that he also plays shortstop. Like the much more heralded Colby Rasmus, Tyler was also a 2005 first round draft pick. My first impressions are that he covers more ground than Khalil in the field and has a pretty good arm. The primary questions about T. Greene have been focused on his work at the plate, or lack thereof. Personally, I am more interested in seeing him get ABs this year than Khalil, but with the Cardinals jumping out to an early season lead in the standings, I'm not sure that rookies are always going to get a fair shot at playing time as the season goes on. I picked up this autographed for only a couple of bucks last December with the knowledge that Tyler was on the 40-man roster and hadn't really done anything to play his way out of the organization, but hadn't done much to impress anyone either. I'm feeling pretty good about the card now.

Khalil returned to the starting lineup last night. Let's see where they stand now:

Cesar Izturis, 2008: 135 G, 414 AB, .263 BA, .628 OPS
Khalil Greene, 2009: 24 G, 69 AB, .217 BA, .665 OPS
Tyler Greene, 2009: 4 G, 16 AB, .188 BA, .485 OPS

Khalil Greene Watch: Day 16

Cesar Izturis, 2008: 135 G, 414 AB, .263 BA, .628 OPS
Khalil Greene, 2009: 15 G, 50 AB, .220 BA, .710 OPS

Card courtesy of Dinged Corners - more on that later. Terrible Photoshop job, by the way. Big sports weekend kicking off in just hours - another Cubs/Cards series, two Blazers games in Houston and some sort of series between two teams that ESPN and FOX are in love with. Oh, and the NFL Draft. Bleh.

Khalil Greene Watch

The Cardinals traded for Khalil Greene this offseason, committing 6.5 million dollars to a shortstop who is coming off a season where he ranked, offensively, among the worst full-time players in all of Major League Baseball. Greene had one season in which he showed a considerable amount of power and a several other solid seasons with the bat, but it seemed to be a really strange deal when you consider that the team would be paying Greene more than twice as much as Cesar Izturis, last year's starting shortstop. Izturis is very offensively-challenged, yet even he managed to outhit Khalil last season.

I watched Greene as a young Portland Beaver and rooted for him, so I am definitely conflicted. While he didn't turn out to be as disappointing as, say, Sean Burroughs, he definitely seems to fall more towards the category of mildly disappointing prospects that San Diego has turned out since the Beavers return in 2001. (Jason Bay and Xavier Nady were among the actual successes, but of course, like Greene, they no longer play for the Padres.)

For my crude statistical analysis, I'll accept the defensive comparison between the two players as a wash and just use two offensive categories: batting average and OPS. Please note that I am not trying to make the case that the Cardinals should have retained the services of Cesar Izturis. I just think - at this point - that the money could have been spent more wisely and that there were better alternatives out there. Prove me wrong, Khalil!

Cesar Izturis, 2008: 135 G, 414 AB, .263 BA, .628 OPS
Khalil Greene, 2009: 6 G, 21 AB, .190 BA, .530 OPS

Khalil Greene is also a Cardinal

Khalil Greene was reportedly traded yesterday to the Cardinals from the Padres for reliever Mark Worrell (no relation to Todd) and a PTBNL. I have mixed reactions to this. As much as I like to root for ex-Portland Beavers, like Jason Bay (not so much since he joined the Red Sox) and Xavier Nady, I never really latched onto Greene even though he's spent his entire major league career so far with the parent club Padres. And I like the Padres. Greene was always the Golden Boy shortstop, but I felt like he never really made anything of himself. In 2007, he finally had what most would term a breakout season, but it seems like an aberration now after this past season. If he can produce somewhere in between that season and his truly awful 2008, he might be a marginal improvement over Cesar Izturis. His batting averages are always low, however, and he doesn't make up for it by getting on base any other way. Fortunately, the Cards are only stuck with him for a year if things don't go well. From the field, he should be solid but probably not spectacular.

In the exchange, the Cards send over apparently disgruntled reliever Mark Worrell, who is best known for hitting a 3-run home run in his brief stint in the Cardinals' bullpen last year. That feat got him an autographed card in the 2008 Topps Updates & Highlights set, but not a base card. I'm still interested in getting ahold of that card despite the trade, but now I'd probably only be willing to spend $1.50 on eBay for it instead of $2.00.

My Dodger-loving friend keeps reminding me that at least the Cards aren't stuck with Orlando Cabrera and a big contract. I suppose, in that sense, he's right. It sure would've been nice to get Rafael Furcal or Yunel Escobar, however...