Fish Are Friends, Not Food

Today is the last day of Shark Week programming.  I'm saddened by this as I always enjoy learning more about sharks each year.

I will FINish up the week of celebrating this Jawsome event by highlighting some more former sharks that are teammates with Cutch.

After all... fish are friends, not food

I have shown off a few of my former Jupiter Hammerhead, JT Realmuto, and a few Clearwater Threshers too.  

Today I am going to look at another former Clearwater Thresher who is a current teammate of Cutch.  

I am talking about Rhys Hoskins

Now before I go showing off a pair of Rhys & Cutch combos I wanted to talk about Rhys' 2015 season in Clearwater A+ ball.  

In 67 games with the Threshers, Rhys hit at a .317/.394/.510 slash line good for a .904 OPS.  He also collected 39 RBI, 29 BB, and clubbed 8 homers in those 67 games.

Pretty good numbers for the former Clearwater "ninja shark".

Now for the cards...

Above is a dual autograph from the Target exclusive Topps Fire product.  

It is limited to only 25 copies.

Above is the on card autographs of Cutch and Rhys from 2019 Topps Five Star.  It is limited to only 10 copies.

It's Clobberin' Time

One of my favorite Marvel catchphrases was by The Fantastic Four's Thing when he used to say "It's Clobberin Time".

Being said by a giant orange rock guy, you could tell you would be in for some pain.

The Phillies put up a crooked number against the Chicago Cubs yesterday in their attempts to get back in the division race.  They currently sit 4.5 games out of first with the Mets, Braves, and Nationals all playing for the division title.  

The Phillies offense hasn't been the problem for the past few years, it's been historically one of the worse bullpens ever assembled that has kept Philadelphia from making the postseason.  With a majors worse 20 blown saves on the 82 game season thus far, getting to the 9th inning while preserving a lead has been a VERY difficult task for the Phillies.  Hopefully the management team can put together some trades to translate into some more team wins and get the Phillies into the postseason this year.  

When healthy the offense can straight up mash the baseball.

Topps Now released a card earlier this season that celebrated the Phillies 7 HRs in one game which tied a franchise record.

Andrew McCutchen, Rhys Hoskins, and Matt Joyce were all pictured on the front of the card.

The back featured a writeup about the team's 17-3 victory over the Reds and how Cutch hit two homers along with Odubel Herrera.

Do you think the Phillies front office will make a big splash at the deadline to improve the bullpen and will the Phillies make the Postseason this year? 

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. 

Give Me Ideas

In the past I have reached out to try and connect a random thought to an Andrew McCutchen card I own.  I've done this with everything from chimichangas, butterscotch pudding and quotes from Elf, with my favorite of that group being "Six Inch Ribbon Curls"

Give me some ideas to write about.

If not, I'll be forced to show cards like this

I am sure not everyone wants to read about a triple patch card of three Philadelphia Phillies.  I mean it does have the 2013 and 2015 NL MVPs on it and it is numbered to only 9 copies.  The foil pops brightly and the patch on the Cutch portion has nice color breaks, but who wants to read about the Phillies? Anyone? 

If you don't want to read about upper middle tier cards like the above 2020 Triple Threads card, leave a comment below something you want me to relate to something in my collection.  

I will choose a comment at random and if you can stump me, you will win a random prize.

Let's keep it PG13 by the way. 

🔥 A Dual Auto Hit From Retail? 🔥 -or- Why Rhys is calling Cole Tucker, Daddy?

For the past few years Topps has been issuing a retail exclusive set to both Target and Wal-Mart.  Wal-Mart has gotten the hand drawn set known as Topps Gallery.  My favorite though is Target's exclusive release, Topps Fire.

Finding the hits from these products has been incredibly tough to come across.

I remember having a discussion with Brad from Brad's Blog while we were waiting in line for the September 2019 McCutchen signing at the Philly Show about hoping to add one of the McCutchen/Hoskins dual autos.

Well, right around the New Year, I was able to finally secure one.

With both Hoskins and Cutch being involved with viral videos over the weekend I thought it was time to finally show this card off.

Here is the card.  It is a dual auto of Rhys Hoskins and Andrew McCutchen.  The card features sticker autos, but with all the flashy vibrant colors it isn't that distracting.

The card is limited to only 20 copies, mine being 12/20.

From MLB.com here is the link that introduced fans to Uncle Larry, Andrew McCutchen's new alter ego.

I can't wait to see more of Uncle Larry in the future.


Speaking of future, Cole Tucker was playing Rhys Hoskins in The Show and made a bold statement that if Rhys hit a HR off Cole, he would name his first born after...(BOOM! HR!)

To see the home run and read more about the future Rhys Tucker click here.

Bad Social Distance Practices

Yesterday I showed off a card with good social distancing practices.  Today I am going to show off an example of bad social distancing.

In today's production of cards it isn't often that we see cards severely miscut like they were in the 90s and earlier.  Occassionally though there are a few cards that get through which should have been trashed.

This extremely miscut card of Andrew McCutchen and Rhys Hoskins from 2019 Bowman Platinum shows what bad quality control looks like.

Look at this.  Andrew and Rhys are literally on top of each other.

****Do Your Part! Stay 6 Feet Apart****

The back is just as bad.

Do you have any severely miscut cards from the past 5 years? 

Came through drippin' but not rippin

It's only 18 more nights until Opening Day is upon us.

With that I thought I would show off a card I got last year that I never blogged about.

Allen & Ginter double rip cards have been out for many years.  The concept of the card is almost like a scratch off lottery ticket to the extreme.

A scratch off not already scratched can start at $1.  If scratched and not a winner, it's useless and the value is nothing.  But if it is a winner you can double, triple, quadruple, or get even more value from "taking the risk".

Double Rip unripped cards go for A LOT of money on the secondary market often selling in the range of $150+ depending on the subject material.  A recent sale of Ernie Banks and Kris Bryant was almost $600. 

The double rips are commonly numbered as DRIP-(number) to indicate Double RIP card.

I have shown a few double rips both ripped and unripped on the blog in the past.

To date, this is my only double rip in tact of Cutch in a uniform that isn't a Pirates uniform.  I missed out on the DRIP of him and Posey in 2018.

If the Phillies are hoping to contend in a very competitive NL East this year they will need big (and healthy) seasons from both Rhys Hoskins and Andrew McCutchen.

Hoskins appeared in all of the Phillies games last year and lead the league in walks with 116.  (It should be noted that it took almost a week for Hoskins or anybody for that matter to surpass McCutchen in that category after Cutch's season ending injury.)  Despite those numbers, Hoskins finished the season with only a 1.5WAR and batted a career worse .226 with an OPS of .819 and OPS+ 110.  He had the 6th highest number of strikeouts in the senior circuit and produced the 10th most outs. 

McCutchen was the second best leadoff hitter in baseball at the time of his injury.  His .378 on base percentage made him a perfect option for the Phillies and a great table setter for the team.  Had he not gotten injured and was on pace for 125 runs scored over the season.  That would have placed him 4th in league behind only Betts, Devers, and Acuna.  Without McCutchen setting the table for the rest of the team after his June 3rd injury, the leadoff spot produced only a .295 OBP (29th in league).

A healthy Cutch and bounce back Rhys will go a long way towards the City of Brotherly Love winning a ticket to the Postseason.

In only 18 more days we get actual baseball games.

Nice Rack!

Not many sealed rack packs or similar items appear in today's market place.  I miss the days of those 1989 Topps with star players on the front.


Topps National Baseball Card Day and Target Exclusive Gypsy Queen packs are the closest thing I can get now.

I grabbed these 3 sealed packs of Phillies mainly because Cutch was on the cover for one of them.

I opened the Cesar and Jake packs and got a Cutch loose in the pack with Cesar.

I kept the Harper and Cutch for my PC and sent the others to Brad when I met up with him at the Philly Show.  He did a recap of what I gave him here.