Rookie Reflections

We are nearing the three quarter mark for the 2021 season.

Ke'Bryan Hayes was an early pick to win the Rookie of the Year thanks to his September call up last year when he won Rookie of the Month.  Despite only 95 at bats last year he still came in 6th place for Rookie of Year voting due to his 1.124 OPS and 199 OPS+ (nearly twice as good as average player). 

He started off the 2021 season the same way he finished up the 2020 season, by blasting a HR in his first at bat.  

Card prices soared!!! And his base Bowman Chrome Auto (of which I have 4) climbed up to $600 each during Opening Day.  The following day, he injured his hand and was put on the IL for an extended stay of a few months.  

He is still having a productive season while not looking like Mike Schmidt at his prime.

While providing Gold Glove level defense, he has also privided the Pirates with a glimpse into the future with his bat.  

In only 73 games played (due to the COVID shortened season and a hand injury this season) he has amassed 3.3 WAR.  

Over a full season, he could provide up to 7 WAR which would put him into some elite company at the hot corner.  Here are a list of players to get to 7+ WAR in a season over the past 5 years

Kris Bryant 2016 MVP season

Josh Donaldson 2016 (4th place MVP)

Nolan Arenado 2019 (6th place MVP)

Matt Chapman 2018 & 2019 seasons (finished top 7 MVP both years)

Manny Machado 2016 (5th place MVP)

If Ke'Bryan Hayes can get healthy and consistently repeat his September 2020 month, he may become the next Pittsburgh Pirate to gain MVP votes, something the Pirates haven't had since Andrew McCutchen.

Dynamic Duals is a Topps On Demand product that provides collectors with one dual (sticker) autograph card, a 25 card base set, and a combination of 2 parallels or insert cards.  There are three insert sets to collect: Manager's Dream, Cooperstown Combo, and Rookie Reflections.  Above is the base card to the insert series called Rookie Reflections that looks at this year's rookie class and compares them to players of the same franchise. 

These inserts can fall 1 per set ($149.99 MSRP per set) and include pairings with names like

Jo Adell & Mike Trout

Ryan Mountcastle & Eddie Murray

Joey Bart & Buster Posey

Tristan McKenzie & CC Sabathia

Dylan Carlson & Albert Pujols

Bobby Dalbec & Nomar Garciapara

Casey Mize & Justin Verlander

Christian Pache & Ronald Acuna

Alec Bohm & Mike Schmidt

There are color parallels to chase as well.  The red is /10 and the gold is a 1/1.

Which rookies have you enjoyed the most this year?

Strange Rules are afoot with the Hayes, K.

So as I was packing up all my McCutchen cards and collectibles in general, I was talking to my girlfriend about the hobby and things got off on a tangent when trying to defend some of the standard rules we use while collecting.

I came across a small stash of Ke'Bryan Hayes cards that I had purchased 5+ years ago before I shifted my collecting focus to be just Collecting Cutch and started to explain to her how much these cards are worth now and she was shocked.

3 base rookie autographs that currently sell in the $400-$450 range, a BGS 9.5 with 10 auto, and the 1/1 Magenta Printing Plate auto.  Not a bad stash.

How about a 1/1 Superfractor from 2016 Bowman Top 100 Prospects?

Or some more autographs from Bowman?

The dual auto with his dad is serially numbered 12/25 (paging Gavin)

Laundry tags and Buttons and prime patches and acetate autographs all from Panini and Leaf products

Speaking of Leaf...

I am currently looking to move these via other social media accounts instead of eBay as they don't fit where my collection is currently at.

Click here to remember the origin of how I became CollectingCutch.

I had to explain some of the rules regarding card collecting and it got me thinking that some of them are just stupid...

For example why do people pay more for a rookie card in 2009 Topps Update than a 1st All Star Game appearance in 2011 Topps Update two years later that may have a smaller print run and is from the most famous flagship baseball set of modern times?

Why do supercollectors collect 5-20+ parallels of basically the same card, but with different borders?

Why do people in the hobby even collect tiny pieces of cardboard that could just be printed on photostock and hung on the walls?

All interesting points and it really got me thinking about how I am going to collect going forward.  Fortunately I have at least 1K cards in my collection I never showed off on here so there will still be content as things settle down on the moving front.

I did order my first card since moving out of the old apartment.

It's a Ke'Bryan Hayes Project70 card by Alex Pardee.  Something about the oddness of this card reminds me of those awesome Metal Universe cards from the mid 90s where the hottest stars were on alien worlds or fighting tentacles or atop a pyramid.  Weird stuff is awesome.  

Are you down with SCC?

Ever since I made that post about DMX and the limited number of rap songs I like, I have found myself listening to more of the popular rap songs from my youth.

Sport Card Collector aka SCC got me thinking of the OPP.

My brain works in the most bizarre ways.

Matt sent me an unexpected PWE featuring 2 Ke'Bryan Hayes 2018 Heritage Minors cards along with a 2018 Topps Update base and 2018 Topps Archives base of my main PC, Andrew McCutchen.

I am hoping to see Ke'Bryan get a call up in the 2019 season.  He's our top position prospect heading into the season.