NL Wild Card: 2013 Topps Chrome Gerrit Cole (rc)

In tonight's Wild Card game the Host Pirates will be sending out their ace Gerrit Cole.


2013 Topps Chrome #210 Gerrit Cole (RC)

I believe this is from the bonus parallels that showed up with racks of 2013T Chrome. The combo of the Pirates Black & Yellow with the Topps Orange parallel and the season this is the perfect Halloween card.

I will be rooting for the cross-state Pirates tonight and hope they don't run into any unfriendly ghosts.

With Jake Arrieta going for the Cubs and Cole (19-8, 2.60 ERA, 148 ERA+, 4.5 WAR) for the Pirates, I am expecting an exciting pitching matchup with some bizarre batting hero in tonight's winner or go home special. 

Sources and Links
2015 Playoff Index
baseball-ref

WAR Stories Phillies 2015+ Ben Revere

Today we return to our 2015 Phillies WAR projections 

2013 Topps Chrome Refractor #90 Ben Revere

Ben Revere is good at one thing hitting singles. Even his plus speed doesn't seem to translate game changing stolen bases or stellar defense.


Revere's odd statistical career makes him hard to project. An example is the conundrum of his 2014 season, he led the NL in hits (184) but his .325 OBP ranked 40th among the NLs 65 qualified batters. He did have the best Offensive WAR year of his career +2.4 but his dWAR was -2.2,

They aren't really any contemporary comps for Revere. I looked back at some old Baseball America Prospect Handbooks which suggested a ceiling of Brett Gardner. At this point I would be happy with an Austin Jackson. A sobering thought is that Willy Taveras is closer than those two outfielders. Revere is entering his age 27 season - Taveras has been wallowing away in the minors since finishing his age 28 season in 2010. With Ben Revere having no peripheral skill beyond the one base hit, I seriously wonder if he will be in the majors beyond 2016.

2015 Phungo Verdict
Ben Revere is a replacement player 2015 projected WAR = 0. For our running track of the Phillies 2015 WAR projections click here


Refractor
I don't get as excited about refractors as other folks, but I was pretty happy to find this card in a dime box last September


Sources and Links
WAR Stories 2015+ Phillies
Baseball-ref

2014 Playoff Cards Giants Hunter Pence 2013 Topps Chrome #2

Today we turn our Playoff cards postings to the San Francisco Giants and our old friend Hunter Pence.

2013 Topps Chrome #2 Hunter Pence 

The photo on this card captures so much Hunter Pence. The High Leg Step is the trademark of his swing. We also see the choked up bat, the single batting glove, and the old school high socks.

The icing is Hunter's wild eyes just peeking out beneath his batting helmet.

Instagrams

2013 Topps #3 Hunter Pence
2013 Topps Chrome #2 Hunter Pence

Chrome and all those parallels are really just instagrams. Once the base card is created all the heavy lifting has rally been done. All the parallels, Chromes, Silks, Rainbows and other variations are just taken the originals and putting them through an intagram facility.

In the scan above the original actually looks a bit better than the Chrome card. There is a lot of whitespace on the border of 2013 Topps - likely to make the instagramming even easier, however I like the overall design. The rounded plate area and the light fringing behind the team logo proved a good frame for the Topps photos.

Sources & Links
2014 Playoff Cards 
Baseball Cardpedia
baseball-ref

Philly Show 2014 09 28 - Dime Box

As Promised Monday night we our now featuring our VF show Dime Box posting. I love the cheap bins, The shear disorganization fits my personality and I always find stuff that I had either forgotten about or never knew existed.

Since the onslaught of playoff postings has featured so many other teams, we will lead off with a Phillies Card.

2013 Topps Chrome Refractor #90 Ben Revere

Refractor for a dime, much better than the 15 base card "Value Pack" I just shelled out $5 for at Target.

Allen Ginter Inserts

Various A&G Inserts

Any time I see A&G inserts in a dime box, I pick em up. I am sure somebody needs anything I don't want to keep.

Sketch Cards

A&G Sketchers

These are staying in the Phungo Collection. I wasn't building this set but when one can pick up over half of the 24 card set in one day, it becomes part of the dime box search list. 

Vintage Dimes
1971 Topps Dimers 

I  knocked out 23 cards from my 1971 Topps Checker. A couple of the highlights are in the fan, the rest are even more common. The Manny Sanguillen card is a favorite among the lot.

Dime Box Card All-Stars
A couple of cards from this dime box were distinguished enough to get there own features at Phungo:
1981 Topps Record Breakers #206 Mike Schmidt
2013 Topps #WBC-5 Hanley Ramirez 
2003 Bowman Draft #BDP137 JJ Hardy  

Source & Links
Philly Show 2014 09 28 Index
Baseball Cardpedia

2013 WS Game 5: 2013 Topps Chrome #43 Adam Wainwright (Orange Parallel)

The 2013 World Series is now down to a best of three. I am not sure that it is a classic, but there sure have been some oddities notably and overturned call and an obstruction ruling,

2013 Topps Chrome #43 Adam Wainwright (Orange Parallel)

In game 5 Adam Wainwright will be hoping for a better start then he had in Game 1. The Cardinals defense didn't help Wainwright, and he was hurt by the overturned call.  Regardless if those issues crop up tonight he will need to find a way out of the jams.    

2013 Topps Chrome Orange 
The last few years Topps Chrome has offered "Value" packs which are basically three 4-card packs with three Orange Parallel cards.  This is one of the orange parallels that I picked up in the single value pack that I picked up a few weeks back.
 
2013 PostSeason Cardinals
Matt Adams
Lance Lynn
Michael Wacha 

Orlando Cepeda


2013 PostSeason Red Sox
Clay Buchholz
David Ortiz
Dustin Pedroia 
Shane Victorino

Carl Yastrzemski
Jose Iglesias (Now with Tigers)

Sources
baseball-ref.com 

2013 Topps Chrome #210 Gerrit Cole (RC)

Congrats to the Pirates and Rookie Starter Gerrit Cole

2013 Topps Chrome #210 Gerrit Cole (RC)

Near as I can tell this is Gerrit Cole's first card since reaching the Majors (he is not in Series 1 or 2), so we have a true rookie card here. Actually this is a parallel of his RC, the base would be straight chrome rather than orange.   

Mostly I wanted to post this card before it gets end off to its future home with the Pirates Treasure Room.