Edwar Cabrera Debuts Tonight

Rockies prospect Edwar Cabrera will make his MLB debut against the Nationals. I have been excited about Cabrera since last season went he lead the minors with 217 strikeouts. He has not been seen as an elite pitching prospect even though he has had good numbers striking out 577 batters in 469 1/3 minor league innings. This year at AA Tulsa he has held batters to a .186 batting average against, but his strikeout numbers have dropped to 7.5 per 9 innings while averaging less than one base runner per inning. His best pitch is reported to be his change-up to go along with a sinker, but he still needs to develop a third pitch. This is somewhat similar to Juan Nicasio last season who was called up from AA last season and was seen as a pitcher who need to work on secondary pitches to go along with his fastball, but Nicasio preformed well and became a fixture in the Rockies rotation until going on the DL recently. It is always exciting for Rockies fans to see a new pitcher come up in hope we can finally find that top of rotation starter that we are sorely missing.

MLB Rookie Home Leader Auto

No it's not the hyped up Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, Yoenis Cespedes or Jesus Montero. Right now baseball's rookie home run leader is Rockies catcher Wilin Rosario, as well as the rookie leader in RBI until Will Middlebrooks passed him this weekend. Rosario has been a highly regarded prospect for a few season, but this season with the injury to Ramon Hernandez, Rosario has taken the starting job and ran with it. He still suffers from "Pedro Cerrano Syndrome" (Straightball I hit it very much. Curveball, bats are afraid.) but his defense is improving and he looks like a star in the making. His handling of the pitching staff has improved even though Rockies pitching has been putrid this season. He still needs to work on his on base numbers and strikeouts (7 walks to 45 strikeouts) but he is still young and has the raw power to do big things. I picked up this nice on card auto about a month ago, now seemed like a good time to show it off.

Contest Pimp

Andrew over at Andrews Baseball Cards is have a contest

 Check it out

Custom Card: 2012 Gypsy Queen Larry Walker

Something I have been working on for a while is to try and match the filters Topps uses for Gypsy Queen. After some messing around I am getting closer so I decided to share the first version I feel ok with. So here it is, Larry Walker in the "so terrible they are awesome" 1999 Turn Ahead The Clock jerseys. The Rockies have been fairly conservative with their jerseys since 1993, but this one is way out there. The photo might be a little over-processed, but the jersey looks pretty close. I am not totally satisfied with it so there might be new versions in the coming months.

Trade With All The Way To The Backstop

What could be better than turning cards from a division rival into cards of your team. A recently completed trade with All The Way To The Backstop, a kindred spirit in that we both collect catchers and 1992 Pinnacle, and being that he is a Padres fan we probably share a dislike of all things Dodgers and Giants, turned some old Padres cards into Rockies with a few other goodies mixed in. For the Rockies cards everything from 1993's to 2012's. I completely skipped out on this years Bowman so this group is a nice sample with a Pacheco gold and a Tyler Gagnon numbered to 199. Also a few Expos yet to become Rockies in Larry Walker and Andres Galarraga. Finishing it off with some 1992 Pinnacle bringing me to within 46 cards of finishing the set.

Nathan Horton: Bruins Stanley Cup Auto

Nathan Horton 2010-11 Panini Crown Royale Priemiere Date Signatures. Kind of a recurring theme here, key contributors to the 2011 Cup run missing from the 2012 Playoffs. Horton played in 21 playoff games in 2011 until he left the finals with a concussion. Horton scored 8 goals in the 2011 Playoffs, with 3 game winners including two overtime goals in the first round against Montreal. He was limited to 46 games in 2011-12 and missed all of the playoffs with continuing concussion issues.

Contests Pimpage

The Chronicles of Fugi is having a big summer contest, worth checking out

CONTEST

Custom Card: 1970 Topps Wil Nieves

First custom card in a while, newest Rockies catcher Wil Nieves. Nieves was called up from Colorado Springs a few weeks ago when Ramon Hernandez went on the disabled list and is serving as Wilin Rosario's back-up. Nieves was signed by Colorado in December of 2011 to be the third catcher, after stops with the Brewers, Nationals, Yankees and Padres.

I like the simplicity of the 1970 design, although a logo somewhere would have been nice and the lack of team colors make the set kind of bland, but all this considered it's still a nice vintage set.

Rockies from JABO

Not much going on for me card related right now, so far Topps Series 2 is getting a "meh" response from me other than Rafael Betancourt finally getting a Rockies card, so in the interest of keeping up to my at least 3 posts a week goal I have a chance to show off some Rockies from Jabo's Blogarage Team Lot Clearance. He sent about 80 cards with only around 15 I already had. I am pretty high on Jordan Pacheco so his cards are always appreciated, and a couple more guys I collect in Chris Iannetta, Kaz Matsui and Larry Walker. He still has some teams available if you are looking for some cheap cards. Also if anyone knows why mt thumbnails would not be showing up in the reading list please let me know how to fix this.

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Michael Ryder: Bruins Stanley Cup Auto

2011-2012 Upper Deck Signature Sensations Michael Ryder autograph. I paid a little more for this on eBay than I would have liked, but its the first Ryder Bruins auto I have seen since starting this project. It does say Stars on the front, but it doesn't have a team logo and he's in a Bruins jersey so it's close enough for me. Ryder's Bruins career was pretty up and down other than the 2011 Stanley Cup run, he scored 8 goals with 17 points in the playoffs, with two game winnings including an overtime winner against his old team Montreal. He also scored 3 goals in the 7 game final against the Canucks. The Bruins were ultimately unable to replace the offense provided by Ryder and the injured Nathan Horton leading to an early exit this spring.

This puts me at 6 for 22 in autos for Bruins who are named on the Stanley Cup for the 2011 Championship.

2012 Panini Triple Play Preview

I haven't seen too many people mentioning 2012 Panini Triple Play, but the previews really caught my eye. Panini's MLBPA license allows them to make card of baseball players, but they can not use MLB logos. To me this really hurt's their other offerings, but this set featuring vector style art actually looks pretty good, I prefer the "Samurai Jack" art style of these cards to some of the awful sketch cards we have been subjected to in the past. It is nice to see a company market a product to kids instead of making a super high end set with 2 card packs for $300 a pack. From what I have seen this looks like a fun little set, cartoon artwork, and among the inserts are peel off eye-black stickers and cartoons of current players as little kids. I applaud Panini for bringing some goofyness and fun to the hobby that has become all about the "hits".