Two Posts? Unthinkable...

5 Mid-Range to Expensive Players Who You Wish You'd Have Invested In by October 2008

1. David Price
2. Colby Rasmus
3. Chad Billingsley
4. Chris Davis
5. Tim Alderson

I'm going to TRY and not be biased....

Justin Reed and Greg Reynolds are the two most underrated prospects in this year's Bowman Chrome set. Greg Reynolds had a great season before shutting down to injury. 9 BB in 50 IP, a miniscule 0.81 WHIP and a 1.42 ERA, and just 2 homers allowed in 50 innings, a nice stat for a Rockie pitcher. This was also accomplished in the Texas League, in AA, not a pitcher's haven. Reynolds is going for $8. That is astoundingly low. Reed is probably the most raw player in the entire group. Right now, its hard to tell what he could become, but I can tell you that when Justin Reed refractors are going for less than 5 dollars on eBay, something is very, very wrong. He walks, he has speed, and played in mostly pitcher's leagues in 2007. He had 19 XBH in 60 games, or about 60 extrapolated along the whole season. Right now the only problem with Reed is he strikes out WAY too much. 72 times in 60 games is right around 210 in 160. Still though, he's a great investment because he's really, really cheap.

Oh, and by the way I only own one card combined between these two, a Justin Reed X-Fractor auto.

Pack Break- 2006 Bowman Chrome

Target must be the hell of the whole baseball collecting hobby. You go in for your new TV and you buy a couple of packs. Well, let's commence with the mini-break

2006 Bowman Chrome- 1 Pack

124 Adam Eaton
210 Ian Kinsler (RC LOGO PIECE OF BS)
BC172 Manuel Corpas

Woohoo a real RC of a closer! Big money, right. Nope. Manuel Corpas gold refractors can be found for $17. Wow. At least this thing was $1.59.

2007 Bowman Chrome- 1 Pack

BC111 Mike Carp

I'm not going to even bother telling you the other two pieces of OC crap that I got in the pack. Well, all right. It's Chase Utley and Nick Swisher. Not bad players at all. The centering is literally 90/10 on these cards.

Oh yeah, what is up with the 2007 BC Prospects set? It went from a great 2007 black bordered Bowman w/Chrome Prospects set to a hideous set that didn't even feature the 1st Bowman Chrome Card logo on it. I mean, come on, half of the reason I buy the cards are because they have that awesome logo on it. And the 2007 Draft is almost as bad with those white borders. Bowman is a black bordered set. Plain and simple.

2007 Bowman and Lessons to Be Learned

Alright, well 2007 Bowman sucked. I think everyone can agree on that. It's been relegated to the junk wax section of the hobby shop and collectors can pick them up for about $30 a piece. The autographed cards were especially terrible. Only two autos booked for $40 or more, (Okajima Japanese and Miller), and there were only two prospects, Betances and Desmond Jennings, that were worth anything. In my personal box break I got a Kasey Kiker Bowman Auto (sold for $7.57, which must have been a world record), and a Bryan Hansen X-Fractor.

Total Book Value:

Kiker AU $10 BV
Hansen X $5 BV
Betances Chrome x2- $8 BV
Jennings Chrome- $3 BV

Together my box was $26 BV, and I was reasonably lucky in pulling the X-Fractor and the Betances dupe. Basically there was only one in-demand autograph, the Miller.

2006 Bowman has Blanks AND Maybin as chase cards. Those boxes are $60 and certainly not junk. They also featured chromes of Gordon.

What Bowman has to do to be successful is put Bowman, Bowman Chrome, and Bowman Draft as such

Autos
#1- Draft
#2- Chrome
#3- Bowman
#4- Draft
#5- Chrome
#6- Bowman

or something along those lines, with perhaps #7 being a Sterling exclusive auto. It doesn't look like they learned their lesson in 2008, however, because all of their autographs are going to be Price, Moustakas, et al. No one wants a second year of Price, auto or not. Bowman's going to have to change their ways.



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Topps '52 Edition- Horrible Stuff

Year after year, Topps relies on "the oldie" brands as a fallback. While products such as Topps Heritage have been nice, 2007 Topps '52 Rookie Edition is completely worthless. First of all, Upper Deck already has a nicer product, SP Rookie Edition, which uses some neat designs. Second of all, they SHORT-PRINTED the good autos! What the hell are they thinking? I want a chance to pull a nice Joba or Lincecum and not a Ben Francisco which can be found on eBay for 99 cents. I mean, if you're going to have to drop $80 on a box of cards, at least make the checklist nice. There are 3 autos in one box, but who cares if those autos are going to be Brian Esposito, Troy Cate, and Zach Segovia. To make matters worse, Topps.com doesn't even have a checklist for the product.

Also, I've grown to hate the 1952 Topps design. In my opinion, the 52 design is no better than the 54, 56, 57, or 58 designs. It's massively overproduced and now we have yet another year of what is essentially the same product.

Not to mention that there's no need for another stupid Rookie Logo product. I don't want expensive short-printed autos of Hunter Pence when he has one in 2004 SP Rookie Edition. I don't want RC's of Joe Smith. By my estimate, an average collector ripping this $80 box of crap would gain 3 $3 autos and about $10 worth in rookies (of which a Joba SP makes up $8). Stay far away from this product. Very far away. My best card in two packs was a Sean Gallagher rookie that makes him look like a freaking zombie. He has a glazed expression on his face and is deathly pale. Complete waste of 6 bucks.