Orioles Victory Card # 6: Still in the trade game

 Baltimore Orioles Victory Number 6: 5-2 over the Texas Rangers

1991 O-Pee-Chee Ben McDonald

The O's managed to keep the losing streak to just two games (and only a day!) as they dropped a double-header to the Mariners. They had passable pitching in both games as Matt Harvey and Bruce Zimmerman pitched well enough to pick up some victories but the Baltimore offense couldn't come through against Seattle.

They did bounce back in the first game against the Texas Rangers as they managed to put up five runs (two more than they did in fourteen innings on Thursday). Cedric Mullins picked up two more hits and D.J. Stewart hit his first home run of the year. Good times!

As for me, I had a couple of trades come in through the mail. While everyone is jumping into the sports card market and dropping thousands of dollars on boxes they have no intention of ever opening, I've been plugging away picking up cheap Orioles cards through trades. 

I'm not going to lie, after getting furloughed at the beginning of the pandemic last spring, trading cards with strangers online was one of the few things that helped get me though the days (that and Porch Beers with The Wife). Putting together trades, pulling cards, and walking to the post office was a great way to kill a couple of hours every day. So that was nice. I'm not sure how many trades I made last year, but it was quite a bit. 

The Orioles collection has grown while the duplicates of other random players has dwindled. Yes, I have managed to sell a few cards along the way. Not enough to cover what I've spent already (I'm lucky to have a pretty good local card store) but, enough to fund a few decent single card purchases here and there. 

Oh yeah, that reminds me about my quest from last year where I wanted to give away 2,000 cards more than I took in over the year. Did that happen? Nope. I believe I ended up about even, but the dream of reducing the collection by one entire shoe box went by the way side. No, quests this year, but I am tracking the ins and outs to see how many I add. (So far the number is +1212).

One of the cards that came in a recent trade is pictured above. It's a 1991 (an underrated set) O-Pee-Chee Ben McDonald. But, wait you say, how do you know it's an OPC? It says "Topps" on the front. Well, I know because it came from a Canadian collector and he had labeled it as such. If I had seen this card in the wild, I wouldn't have noticed because the only way to tell is to look at the back of the card.

There is the tell-tale sign - French. Also, down in the bottom right corner is the OPC information. I'm slowly putting together the O's team set from these cards (along with all of the other Orioles cards in existence). It's a cool little variant (and another Eddie Murray to track down). 

Ben is filling in as the color commentator on some of the O's games this year as well as calling SEC baseball. One of the neat things is that he will, at some point, get to talk about his nephew, Mac Sceroler. The big right-hander was picked up by the Orioles via the Rule V draft from the Cincinnati Reds. He, along with Tyler Wells, are a couple of Rule V kids trying to stick with the ball club all year long.

Sceroler went to college in Louisiana like his uncle, not LSU but Southeastern Louisiana University (alma mater of former O, Wade Miley) before being drafted in the 5th round by the Reds. He made it all the way up to A ball in 2018 and 2019. It'll be tough for him to make the jump all the way up to the majors, but the O's are going to try and work him into low-leverage situations. With their starting rotation there will be plenty of chances for innings.

Here is Uncle Ben talking about Mac prior to the season (Ben's segment starts at about the 4:30 mark). McDonald is a pretty fun voice to have in the booth. With his easy going nature and Southern drawl it's just a treat to listen to him break down baseball (and say "Orioles"). 

Orioles Victory Card #5: Checking in on an ex-O

 Baltimore Orioles Victory Number 5: 8-7 over the Seattle Mariners

2020 Topps Gypsy Queen Hanser Alberto

After a sweep by the Red Sox, the Orioles managed to right the ship with a walk-off win against the Seattle Mariners in the second game of a double header. They had battled back to send the first game into extra innings, but couldn't pull off the victory. In the second game they battled back from a four-run deficit, blew a two-run lead, and then won in the bottom of the 7th when Ramon Urias lined a single back up the middle that plated Rio Ruiz with the winning run.

Currently, Urias is the only reserve infielder on the roster. That's the joys of having a 14-player pitching staff along with 5 outfielders currently. It'll be interesting to see if that changes throughout the season, or when Austin Hayes returns. Ryan McKenna is most likely to go back to the alternate site once Hayes is healthy, but it's also possible that DJ Stewart may go back down as well.

One of the reasons that Urias is on the roster at all is because the organization opted to let Hanser Alberto walk in the off-season. The amiable infielder went through a waiver journey prior to the 2019 season where he was claimed four times, twice by the Orioles.

He rewarded them with a fantastic season slashing .305/.329/.422 in 139 games while playing second, third, left field, and right field. He also tossed an inning of relief. All together he posted a 3.6 WAR, not bad for a waiver-wire pick up making $578,000.

That was good enough to bump his salary in 2020 to $1.65 million, a figure he agreed to with the Orioles prior to going to arbitration. He justified the raise in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season as he slashed .283/.306/.393.  While the numbers weren't as gaudy as what he posted in 2019, he absolutely destroyed left-handed pitching with a .375/.396/.521 slash line. For much of the season he was hitting well over .400 against lefties. The numbers are slightly more impressive when you realize that he doesn't walk, like ever. He posted 2.9% and 2.2% walk rates in his two seasons with the Birds.

In a sense, he's the opposite of the modern day hitter, and a throwback player that was more prevalent in the 1970's and 80's. He doesn't hit the ball hard (82.3 MPH average exit velocity), but he doesn't strike out a lot either carrying a 12.3 K rate over his career. He sprays the ball all over the field, pulling the ball just 36.6% of the time over his career. 

Another good season on a bad team meant he was looking at another raise in the off-season, to the tune of over $2 million. The Orioles decided they didn't want to pay that and non-tendered him. At the end of January the Kansas City Royals signed him to a minor-league deal that would guarantee $1.65 million if he made the roster and another $350k in potential bonuses.

It was kind of odd that all he could garner was a minor-league deal, but teams might have been concerned about his low walk rate and tendency to swing at anything vaguely resembling a strike. Well, their loss is the Royals gain. With a strong spring training he earned a spot as a back-up infielder. While he's not going to unseat Whitt Merrifield as Kansas City's starting second baseman, he should find plenty of playing time backing up Merrifield, Nicky Lopez at short, and Hunter Dozier at third. 

So far in 2021 he's appeared in seven games and started four. Early on  his bat is taking time to warm up: .222/.222/.389. In the limited sample size, he's actually hitting better against righties (.235) than lefties (.200), but he's only had five plate appearances against southpaws so far. That number will go up as the season moves on.

Not only is he a useful ballplayer, he has fun on the field and his teammates really seem to enjoy playing with him. 

I can understand why the Orioles would let him go this season. He isn't going to be part of the next contending team and they wanted to do as much as possible to slash their payroll, but it really sucks that he's not playing in front of fans in Camden Yards. It's players like him that help make a long season tolerable. Hopefully they appreciate him in Kansas City and he gets a shot at the post season.

Orioles 2021 Victory Card #4: Streak Breaker

 Baltimore Orioles Victory #4: 4-3 over the New York Yankees

2021 Panini Donruss Anthony Santander

It took a couple of extra innings, but the O's finally beat the New York Yankees in Yankee Stadium. They had lost their previous twelve games in New York so it was nice to finally get one. It was Anthony Santander that played the hero as he homered and threw out the tying run at home plate in the 11th inning.

To celebrate I picked up a box of 2021 Panini Donruss. Did I pay too much for a product that doesn't have a MLB license? Probably, but it was still a fun rip. There are a ton of parallels, some numbered, some not, and each box has, on average, three autographs or memorabilia cards. I pulled two autos and a Kirby Puckett jersey card. The base cards are fairly nice with a simple design. 

They do take variations to a new level with nickname versions of the player (Jose Altuve is "Gigante") and the city (St. Louis is "The Lou").  I think there are mask variations as well. 

If this was priced below $100 it would be a perfect box to rip. Will I buy more? Depends on what else is available. 

Orioles 2021 Victory Card #3: Sweeeeepppp

 Baltimore Orioles Victory Number 3: 11-3 over the Boston Red Sox

2006 Upper Deck SP Legendary Cuts Cal Ripken

I'm not going to lie. I wasn't sure I was going to resurrect this series this year, waiting until literally the last minute to start writing about the O's. So, it's not a surprise that I wasn't expecting them to win three games in a row. The good news is that I do have plenty of new Orioles cards to post, just not sure what to write about.

So, it'll be a short one today. The O's took the Red Sox to the woodshed on Sunday to complete the sweep while getting decent starting pitching from Bruce Zimmerman. Seeing the offense click was nice as well and gives me some hope that at least a portion of the wins will keep coming throughout the season. Austin Hayes getting hurt was a bummer, but Cedric Mullins raking through an entire weekend softens the blow a bit.

Now the Yankees loom large, and they aren't in a great mood having dropped two out of three to the Blue Jays. A couple of wins over the next few days will really get people talking about the Birds.

Orioles 2021 Victory Card Post #2: The New Guys help out

 Baltimore Orioles Victory #2: 4-2 over the Boston Red Sox

1991 Leaf Ernie Whitt

While the future of the organization is heavily reliant on home-grown talent, the present needs some help from outside of the organization. On Saturday, it was three guys brought in from other organizations that helped key the win. 

First it was reclamation project Matt Harvey getting the nod as the starting pitcher. "The Dark Knight" made it into the fifth inning while allowing only two runs. It wasn't a dominating start as he scattered six hits in his 4.2 innings of work, but he only walked one and touched 94 mph with his fastball a couple of times. It'll be interesting to see how he progresses throughout the season as the number two pitcher on the staff. The best case scenario for the Orioles is that he continues to make solid starts and some teams in contention come calling and the O's can move him for some more prospect depth.

Following Harvey in the game was Adam Plutko, a reliever that Baltimore picked up in a trade at the end of Spring Training. He worked out of the jam he inherited from Harvey and pitched 2.1 innings of shutout ball to pick up the win. Plutko is one of many bullpen arms that is expected to work multiple innings in games throughout the season as the young starters get used to the major leagues. There are going to be days when the starter doesn't get out of the third or fourth inning and the bullpen is going to have to stretch it out. 

On the offensive side it was Maikel Franco providing the big hit with a two-run single. Another late addition to the roster, Franco is in the same boat as Harvey. A solid start to the season with the O's could lead to a trade to a contender later this summer. In the meantime he fills a hole in the line-up at third base.

This season is going to be a nice mix of young prospects and veterans looking to rebuild their career. Is that a formula built for a successful playoff run? Not really, but based on just two games it looks like the O's are at least going to be a bit frisky early on and teams won't be able to take them lightly. 

Orioles 2021 Victory Card Post #1: Not a bad way to kick off a season

 Baltimore Orioles Victory Number 1: 3-0 over the Boston Red Sox

2020 Topps John Means

The first win is out of the way, that means there will be no 0-21 start! It's the little things in life that matter when you root for a team that realistically has no shot at making the playoffs. So, it's always nice to start the season with a win. That goes doubly so when the win comes at the expense of the Boston Red Sox.

As for the game itself, John Means looked like the ace of the staff. Rookie Ryan Mountcastle had the big hit. The bullpen locked it down and Rio Ruiz is apparently the second coming of Roberto Alomar at second base. It was also nice to see the other team make a crucial fielding error that led to extra outs and runs for the Orioles.

Means was dealing in his first career opening day start and really seemed to have figured out the fine line between throwing heat and mixing in his most effective pitch, his change-up. Last season when he returned from injury throwing 94-95, he seemed to get away from using his change-up to get hitters out and tried to over power them which led to some not so pretty results. Against the Red Sox he backed it down a bit and took a little more off the offspeed, which kept the hitters way off balance.

As for Mountcastle, it looked like he was going to greet his first opening day with a grand slam but the Green Monster (and perhaps the slightly deadened 2021 baseballs) turned it into a double. Still, it was an excellent at-bat for the rookie as he turned on a pitch well inside and muscled it onto the wall. He probably won't sustain the crazy .398 BABIP he put up in his truncated season last year, but it looks like he's still driving the ball when he makes contact.

I don't have many expectations for the O's this season. Try not to lose 100 games, get some quality looks at young pitchers like Dean Kramer and Keegan Aikin. Hopefully Austin Hayes is healthy for the entire season and Cedric Mullins rakes as a pure left-handed hitter. The payoff for the rebuild is still two years away at least (although they could be a frisky young team next season). 

The best part is that baseball is back and on schedule to play a full 162 games. Settle in for a long, hopefully enjoyable, season. 

Hey. Welcome back readers - How about a 2020 Topps Error Card?

 It's been awhile around these parts. Since the last post, 2020 baseball began, the Baltimore Orioles flirted with a playoff spot and are still on pace to hit the over in their win total, and the Tampa Bay Lightning made it back to the Eastern Conference Final. Guess which one of those is occupying most of my time?

On the baseball card front, things are still moving forward. Lots of trades (sitting at a -780 trade differential), a little bit of retail purchasing, and just one box of cards purchased. Most of the 2020 cards I've picked up this year have been through trades and a couple of group breaks. One of those was a 2020 Topps Series II half'-case break which led to me having quite a few Orioles cards.

When they came in a couple of months ago I logged them and set them aside. They're still sitting on the desk ready to be put away along with some other random cards. The life of a card collector - the sorting is never done. For once, it's a good thing because another card I picked up today sent me back to that pile to verify something. 

As far as I can tell, Topps made a mistake in their base set that no one has written about other than a few Twitter users, at least that I'm aware of after searching on the internet for roughly five minutes. Can you spot the error?

Yeah, that's not Pedro Severino. 

Did I, a life-long Orioles fan, notice it when I first received the card? Nope. It wasn't until today, when I broke open a Topps Orioles team set that I noticed the mistake. Yes, the team set, which is basically all of the Orioles cards from the flagship with a different numbering system, has the same error. A quick check of his 2020 Topps Heritage card shows that they used the correct photo. So at least he can show his grandkids that card.

Imagine working all your life to get your picture on a baseball card and when it comes out - it's not you. Granted, it's card manufacturing in the 21st century so luckily Severino, who didn't play consistently until last year, still has 250+ other cards that most likely have his face on it, but if you only knew him from this card you would think he was a left-handed hitter.

As far as I can tell (again 5 minutes of research) that is a photo of Anthony Santander, the switch-hitting, former Rule V draft pick, internationally known star, who had a breakout 2019 season that has rolled over to 2020.

Good for Santander to find a way to get an extra card in the series. His base card features the awesome flag jersey that the O's wore last year:

It also highlights one of the fun parts of figuring out who is who (who is whom? whom is whom? whom is who) on cards. As you can notice on the Severino card, Santander is wearing orange batting gloves. In his actual card the right-fielder is wearing black batting gloves. There are also photos of him from last year wearing grey gloves.

He also used a couple of different bats last season. One was a black bat with a brown handle. That's not the bat seen on the Severino card.  A few minutes of paging through Getty Photos ensured that he used the combo of the orange gloves, black-handle/light barrel bat without long sleeves. Yes, this is how I spend my hours these days.

Of course, this wouldn't be the first time the wrong photo has been used for a player, most notably is probably the 1987 Donruss Opening Day Barry Bonds card that had a photo of Johnny Ray. Unlike the Bonds card, there is no known correction to the Severino card. And since Severino isn't quite a Bondsian figure in baseball, this error isn't going to go for big bucks on the secondary market.

It'll linger on checklists and price guides with the dubious (UER) tag indicating it's an uncorrected error, you know like half of the early Donruss cards. Hopefully, if fans are ever allowed to interact with players ever again someone will get both players to sign a version of the card and it'll make the rounds as a nice little novelty. 

I suppose it would only be fair that Topps flip the roles in 2021 and release a Santander card featuring Severino on the front.