Monday, April 5, 2021

Monsters of Baseball?


I was going through some old articles I had bookmarked just in case there were ever a need to show off some cards relating to it and stumbled across a little gem about the Philadelphia Phillies.

Wow, have things changed a lot in 5 years.

Look at this article from 2016.
It discusses how the Phillies will again become a juggernaut in Major League Baseball with a monster payroll supporting home grown stars like Mikael Franco, Odubel Herrera, Jerad Eickoff, Vince Velasquez, and Aaron Nola.  

Well they were right about Nola.

It also mentioned the Phillies flexibility to add talent to the "historic free agent class" of 2018 when guys like Matt Harvey and Jose Fernandez will be available along with Bryce Harper and Manny Machado.

The article goes on to talk about their farm system and the expectation of JP Crawford "becoming a star" and Cornelius Randolph being the best prep bat in the previous year's draft.  

It wasn't too long ago that I did a post about the Pirates fall from success and how only 1 player remains with the team that won 98 games in 2015 (Gregory Polanco) and many of their top prospects coming out of that season have all been traded and are no longer a part of the organization (Josh Bell, Jameson Taillon, Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows, Harold Ramirez, Reese McGuire, Nick Kingham).

Monsters of baseball?

I think not.

Good start to the 2021 season for the Phillies by sweeping by the Braves?  
Yes I think so.
I really like the Bryce Harper card above from 2020 Topps.  I may seek out some of it's parallels to chase.  

To wrap things up I will show 3 cards of Cutch in a Phillies uniform.
2019 Topps Fire Dual Auto with Rhys Hoskins limited to 20 copies
2019 Allen & Ginter Double Rip with Rhys Hoskins limited to 25 copies
2019 Topps Museum bat barrel nameplate 1/1

Each Phillies sweep this year will be followed up with a post featuring Cutch in Phillies gear.  Among the cards posted will be at least 1/1 during each sweep. 

4 comments:

  1. The bat barrel is a great card! Funny to look back on that, and just goes to show how hard it is for young players/prospects to hit. But they were right about landing a big free agent in Harper!

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  2. That Harper card was a favorite of mine from the 2020 set. It's always fun to look back at older articles and see what folks thought.

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  3. I do remember the hype around that young crop of Phillies. Can't win them all.

    P.S. Sweet bat barrel card.

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  4. Awesome bat barrel those are tough to come by. I remember the Harper off season the talk was non stop until they signd him.

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