Domonic Brown ON the Ballot but OFF the Roster

There are a couple of these every year, Players on the All-Star Ballot but not on a Major League Roster. This year one of them represents the Philadelphia Phillies

2013 Topps Update #US309 Domonic Brown All-Star

And there is your proof that despite wretched numbers a player like Domonic Brown can indeed be an All-Star and earn an All-Star card. 

For a variety of reasons Dom Brown finds himself back at AAA for the start of the 2015 Season. The demotion is a pretty big statement when you consider how poor the Phillies Offense has been this year.

Dom's big month in May of 2013 earned him both a trip to the All-Star and the burden of high expectations. He hasn't come anywhere near that sort of success since. Part of Brown's issues is that he has no mentionable skill beyond hitting, He is a mediocre fielder at best and a poor runner. Therefore he has to hit to contribute, unfortunately I am not sure if that will ever happen.

E-Ballot
From what I understand this year they will not have paper ballots at games, which is probably the right thing to do, but it brings me a little sadness. I always enjoyed mindlessly punching holes in the ballots during the middle innings.

The use of e-ballots makes one wonder if it would have  been possible to include some player other than Brown on the ballot. Granted the ballots have to be done in advance, but now it is a week rather than months in advance as it was during the paper ballot era.

Of course in the Phils case the options are not very exciting, Jeff Francoeur and Grady Sizemore aren't any much more ballot-worthy than Domonic Brown. 

Sources and Links
MLB
baseball-ref

Swag from Night Owl Cards

Tonight we have another Swag post featuring a couple of highlights from a recent batch of cards that arrived from Night Owl Cards

1988 Fleer Superstars #33 of 44 Mike Schmidt

Mike Schmidt standing in the batter's box wearing the Phillies powder blue road uni evokes his 1987 Base Card. The pix are not from the same session, the above Fleer card appears to be at Wrigley field in Chicago, while the 1987T card appears to be at Montreal.

The 1988 Fleer Superstars was a 44 card set distributed a McCrory's a department store chain (based in York PA) that went out of business in 2001.

2013 Topps #309 Domonic Brown (Green Parallel)

I refer to the Green Topps Instagrams A Christmas cards, especially for the Red teams like the Phillies Reds and Cardinals.

1981 Donruss #284 Sparky Lyle

Sparky Lyle was one of the original hipsters.

At one time Lyle was the manager of the Somerset Patriots of the Atlantic League, he is still involved with the team but in a a more ceremonial role.

1962 Topps #303 Frank Torre

Ok it has some flaws but it is a 1962 Topps of Joe Torre's brother.

There were plenty of other goodies, I just wanted to hit a cross section of the cards sent over by NOC. Not only one of my favorite card writers but a great trader as well.

Sources & Links
Mike Schmidt HoF Index
Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards (Bob Lemke)
Somerset Patriots
Open checklist
Dayton Business Journal

WAR Stories Phillies 2015+ Domonic Brown

Today our Phillies 2015 WAR series takes a look at corner outfielder Domonic Brown.

1963 Topps #32 Domonic Brown

The Phillies demise over the last couple of season has happened for a number of reasons. Diminished production from veterans is the cause most often given, but the inability to develop new talent has also played a role. The flip side of the above Dom Brown card has a cartoon that summarizes the Phillies shortcomings at the lower levels.

1963 Topps #32 Domonic Brown (b-side)

The Phillies 2010 minor league player of the year has generated a 3.0 career WAR in 430 games.

Aside from a great month that made Brown an all-star in 2013 he has been a fairly pedestrian player. His offensive numbers have been mediocre at best, couple that with no other mentionable skill beyond his sporadic hitting and you have the quagmire that is Domonic Brown.

I will put down Brown for 1 good month in 2014 plus some improved defense resulting in a +1.5 WAR.
2012 Topps Heritage
I am a fan of 1963 Topps, it is a set I didn't really see until I returned to collecting as an adult. It is an inspiration for 1983T which is one of my all-time favorite sets.

Once the excitement over 2015 Topps dies down a bit we will start looking 2015 Heritage and it's inspiration 1966 Topps. 

Sources n Links
Phillies 2015 WAR Index
baseball-ref
Cardboard Connection 

2014 Topps Stadium Club Group Break Swag from Nachos Grande

Couple of cards from a recent Nachos Grande group break. Unfortunately, Topps came up a little short on coallation and there were some duplicate autographs/hits in the break. Regardless 2014TSC has some quality photography and some fun shots.

2014 Topps Stadium Club #167 Domonic Brown

One of the blogs I miss most is Dinged Corners. I bring this up here because they had a collection of players smiling cards. If they are still collecting the above Dom Brown card surely would be a candidate.

When I first saw this card I also noticed that Brown is being interviewed by CSNPhilly broadcaster Gregg Murphy. I asked Mr Murphy about this via Twitter (@GMurphCSN) He noted "My Best side for sure"
 
Flip It

2014 Topps Stadium Club #165 Cole Hamels (A&B sides)

As mentioned above the collation among the boxes in the break wasn't great. A product of this was getting two Cole Hamels cards, which makes it easy to display the front & back of 2014 TSC in a single photo.  

Nice Pix, kind of a Meh back. basically a 6 year old blurb, minimalist demographic info and stats. I would think TSC would be better suited for more SABRmetric stats than WHIP.

Parallels

2014 Topps Stadium Club Gold Parallel #170 Ryan Howard

According to Cardboard Connection gold foil parallels appear one per master box. The card is running at a BIN of $3 on ebay


Bonus Cards

2010 UD Pure Heat #PH-13 Ryan Howard

Nacho's Grande being the good Group Breaker that he is threw in some bonus box breaks and cards. This is a nice Ryan Howard Die Cut by 2010 UD.  This was an unlicensed product and we don't see the Phillies nickname on the front, however it is on the text of the cards b-side.

Pure Heat is a 15 card insert set of 2010 UD. Among the 15 cards are 2 Phillies - Howard and #PH-4 Cole Hamels.

1989 Donruss #549 Darren Daulton

The 1989 Darrren Daulton Donruss Card is noteworthy for featuring the Phils Catcher posing in a right-handed batting stance. Earliest this year The Phillies Collector Blog asked Daulton about the card/pix and got the scoop from the subject himself. Happy to get this card as a bonus in the Group Break.

Sources & Links
Cardboard Connection
ebay 
Baseball Cardpedia
Phillies Collector

Swag from Night Owl Cards - 2014 Topps #296 Domonic Brown

Team Phungo took a mini staycation during the early part of this week, unfortunately we had to return to the real world and all of it's concerns yesterday. The stress of the first workaday under the early AM of DST was mitigated a bit by fun card package from Greg over at Night Owl Cards that I received upon arriving home.

2014 Topps Red #296 Domonic Brown

Dom Brown is the Phillies only young star. Ok, "star" may be a bit generous. Browns first couple of season have been mixed. There was a couple of weeks early in 2013 when Dom hit the cover off the ball, Phils fans like myself are hopeful that this is a glimpse into who Domonic Brown will be in the future.

2014

Brown is having a lousy spring. He his hitting .107 through his first 28 ABs, before hitting a triple on Wednesday he was yet to collect and extra base hit. I am hoping for much bigger things from Domonic in the regular season. His 27 dingers in 2013 led the team, although the bulk of those came during the aforementioned 12 home run outburst in May. If Brown can come up with similar power and reach base a tad more that would make me happy. Dom can also be a bit comical in the field this shows up in his dWAR number which is a negative, Brown is young enough that hopefully he can turn this around as well.

 More Swag

2013 Topps Opening Day #M-2 Phillie Phanatic
2013 Allen & Ginter's mini #247 Ryan Howard

Another Phils player that the Phanatic has high hopes for is Ryan Howard, who we talked about last week in our Phillies 2014+ feature. Here we have a nice 2013 A&G mini of Mr Howard. For whatever reason there seems to be a lot of cards of Howard in the field, which is a bit of a mystery as he is often a liability with the glove.

2002 Donruss Originals #233 Rated Rookie Anderson Machado

Nice retro card from somebody other than Topps here. Machado never held on at the major league level. He has been kicking around the minors and according to Baseball-ref was last spotted in the Italian League.

1992 Sargento Mootown Snackers #16 Terry Mulholland

Definitely one for the Phungo type collection here. Never saw any cards from this issue. Also one of my player collections is dedicated Mulholland, at some point I will get organized enough to post some checkers for those palyers.

Even More Swag

A nice mix of Inseerts, Oddballs, Stars, and Rememember Me cards. Thanks to NOC for all the Phils cards and the nice variety.

NitPicking 2011 Topps Vintage Chrome: #VC47 Domonic Brown

What a difference a fortnight makes.  You go a abroad for a few weeks and floundering prospect turns into a the most dangerous hitter in the league. With each passing game the Phillies look more and more like a .500 team, but at least Domonic Brown gives fans a reason to look forward to the future. 

2011 Topps Vintage Chrome #VC47 Domonic Brown

Shortly before hitting the road I posted the first Phungo Card of Dom Brown and noted he was doing well but:

"he is going to need to hit better than .250 with a .301 OBP for the Phils to succeed"

Well I don't think Dom Brown reads Phungo, but if he does, I would like to think he was inspired.  Since that posting on Monday May 13th he has been on fire.  He has batted .355 with 13 Homers and 29 RBIs in 24 games. His slugging percentage rose 187 points over the period of 93ABs, pretty good for a man already 132 bats into his season.  His 162 game projection for the period is 88 Home Runs and 223 Hits.  Oh and 41 Stolen bases as well.

Symmetry 

1996 Topps Charlies Hayes #255

This is a bit odd, one player is batting and the other is in the field but the Dom Brown card on the Left sort of evokes the Charlie Hayes pose on the right.  Both players in shades heads tilted in roughly the same direction.

Nitpicking 2011 Topps Vintage Chrome Inserts
Maybe I get a a bit more uppity then I should when Topps is messing up minor details when just making cards of a design they have already produced.   But if your to lazy to come up w/ new designs you deserve to be harassed.  

There are a couple of issues I found with the 1996 redux in 2011 all minor but interesting.

First off there is a change that I like - the 2011 variety has the player name in bright yellow.  It is much easier to read then the originals.  This is a noteworthy difference but a bonus.

Now for the differences I attribute to pure laziness on Topps part. 
1) the inset pix next to the players name isn't angled
2) B-side: The photo on the flip side of the card is a recycle of the front shot.  This wasn't done in 1996.
3) B-side: What is with the home plate color? 

 Here is your overanalysis on the differnces:

Inset pix

1996 Topps #385 Heathlciff Slocumb

Check the inset pix next to Heathcliff's name.  It is angled slightly forward, dont' see it? check the 'P' on Slocumb's cap - much more italicized on the inset.  It is kind of a cool feature gives the whole card just a touch of forward movement.  I don't think this happens on every 1996 Topps card but it occurs on a lot of them.  Near as I can tell Topps didn't do this with any Vintage Chrome cards.

Flip-Side

We can clearly see violations on the both the picture and the Home Plate graphic.

Brown's b-side pix matches the photo at the top of the post from the front.  While Charlie Hayes has an new pix on the back.

The second issue boggles my mind a bit more.  Why the red pate on the Dom Brown card?  I think in 1996 the Plate graphic came in either green or red, but the Red was reserved for AL players, while NLers like the Phillies are on a green plate. Not sure if this was the intention but the colors match the ones uses for the NL and AL stat books that were available commercially in the 80s and early 90s.

I have a small sampling of 2011 VCs and all of them are NL and all of them feature red plates.  I don't get it - sheer laziness on Topps part.  


More Recycling

This is a reuse of the image on the b-Side of the Dom Brown VC card isn't the end of this cards duplication.  The pix on this card first appeared on the Dom Brown 2011 Topps base card that sparked a "Twink Controversy" among collectors.  You can read more about the base card and the Twink in this column at The Phillies Room


Sources
Baseball-Ref
BaseballCardPedia.com
RadiCards

2013 Phungo Cards Domonic Brown

2013 Phungo #9 Domonic Brown

Day off for the Phillies today and we are going to post a Phungo Card.  Dom Brown had a game tying hit in the 9th inning of the Phils game yesterday.  Good to see as the Phils need to get more offense from their outfield.  Brown has a decent 6 homers and 18 RBIs as the Phillies near the quarter pole - but he is going to need to hit better than .250 with a .301 OBP for the Phils to succeed.

Phungo Card

This photo was taken on August 8 of last year when the Phillies hosted the Braves.  Phils had a bad 7th inning and some random fan bestowed tix to great seats behind the Braves dugout to us, so I ended up snapping a bunch of close up shots from in the final couple innings of the outing. At least team Phungo got something out of a night when the Phillies got crushed.

For more snapshots from this game click here. 

2012 Topps Value Pack

Value Boxes are back for 2012.  I have limited my pickups for 2012 to a Hanger and Rack for Flagship and a Blaster and a Rack for Heritage. 

With that few cards in the collection, I figured adding a Value Box would not dupe up to many cards I had already picked up.  The Box went for $15.10 at a big box store - (14.99 +/- PA Sales Tax/Store Discount Card)     


Highlights

2012 Topps Heritage #296 Jim Thome

2012 Topps #259 Michael Stutes
2012 Topps #307 Vance Worley
2012 Topps #98 Dominic Brown

The Worley is a dupe.  I also got a dupe of the NL Pitching leaders in one of my Heritage packs.

2012 Topps Heritage #279 Matt Kemp
2012 Topps Heritage #108 Vladimir Guerrero

Both Michael Taylor RCs (#253, #407)

2012 Topps Inserts - Of course the Thome here is my favorite.  The Koufax is the bonus GG.  Golden Greats is probably my favorite of the 2012 inserts, so getting 2 of those is a bonus for me.   

2012 Topps Bonus Chrome #MBC1 Mickey Mantle

The Stats

Flagship
30 Base Cards including 3 Phils Base Cards
2 Golden Greats (Ripken, DiMaggio)
1 Golden Giveaway (Braun) 
1 Timeless Talents (Molitor-Braun)
1 Golden Moments (Ellsbury)
1 Gold Standard (Seaver)
1 Walk Off (Thome)
1 Gold Futures (Kimbrel)
1 87 Mini (Bourn) 
1 GoldRefractor thingy (Juan Nicasio - Rockies)  
Note - I don't believe packs are retailer specific, so there are no red or blue parallels.    

Heritage
16 Base (1.5 Phils - Thome, NL pitching leaders)
2 Floating Head Stickers (Starlin Castro, Nelson Cruz)  

Bonus
1 Golden Giveaway (Koufax)
Mickey Mantle Chrome teaser Card


For The Collector - Value Box??? 


Click here for yesterday's dollar cents analysis of what is in a Topps Value Box.

Sources and Links
Vladimir Guerrero HOF Index

1983 Topps Roy Halladay

Once again this year on MLB.com they have come out with their fantasy rankings. 

As part of the project they have created an image of each ranked player on a 1983 Topps Card:

1983 Faux Topps Roy Halladay

1983 Faux Topps Domonic Brown

1983 Faux Topps Bryce Harper

To find the cards of your favorite players check this link.

Last year MLB and Topps the fantasy preview was done using 1987 Topps.