My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 1

Picking my #1 purchase of the year was the easiest card to select in this list. It really wasn’t even close. Brett Anderson is by far the main player that I collect. My collection consists of mostly rookie cards from 2007, but I’m always looking for anything rare of his. Right now I’m working on his 2009 SP Authentic By the Name set. I currently have four of the eight letters. I’m always looking for low numbered inserts and parallels of his as well.

Anderson was drafted in the second round of the 2006 MLB Draft by the Arizona Diamondbacks. He was traded to the A’s in 2007 as part of the Dan Haren trade. Anderson made his major league debut in 2009 and didn’t disappoint. He went 11-11 with a 4.06 ERA and 150 strikeouts with only 45 walks. He struggled with elbow injuries last year and only made 19 starts. When he started, he was dominant. He went 7-6 with a 2.80 ERA and 75 strikeouts with only 22 walks. His slider is his top pitch. It’s a beautiful thing to see him drop that slider on the back foot of a right handed batter for the third strike.

The card pictured is his 2007 Donruss Elite Extra Edition Gold Status Autograph graded BGS 9.5 gem mint. Only five of these cards exist. I purchased this raw on eBay taking a chance that the condition was as good as the seller said it was. It turned out to be an accurate description as it came back a gem from BGS. I was thrilled to just own the card, having it grade so high was icing on the cake.

I’m hopeful that Anderson can stay healthy in 2011 and show everyone that he is one of the elite left handed pitchers in the game.

My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 2

I know, here we go again with the Pirates. I told you when this all started that it would be obvious who my favorite team is by the end of this countdown. I can also reveal that Andrew McCutchen is my favorite Pirate. He plays the game hard and with a smile on his face. There’s nothing to not like about this guy.

The Pirates selected McCutchen with the 11th pick in the first round of the 2005 MLB Draft. McCutchen finally joined the Bucs in 2009 and immediately made a huge impact. He finished fourth in the ROY voting, too low if you ask me. He’s batted .286 each of his two seasons. Last year he eclipsed 30 stolen bases (33) and continued to be one of the best centerfielders in baseball.

The card pictured is his 2005 Bowman Sterling Autographed Jersey rookie graded BGS 9.5 gem mint. This card will the void in my McCutchen collection until I get one of his 2005 Topps Chrome Update Autographs.

The nice thing about collecting Pirates prospects is that their cards are always cheap. If McCutchen played for the Yankees or Red Sox you’d never be able to pick up his cards at their current levels. The bad thing about being a Pirates fan is that McCutchen could end up on the Yankees or Red Sox when he becomes a free agent. Such is life.

My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 3

This card may look familiar to those of you that read the blog regularly as I just picked this card up within the last two weeks. As I’ve already stated, I’m a Pittsburgh Pirates fan. I started my Jameson Taillon collection the minute the Pirates drafted him #2 overall in the 2010 MLB Draft. The Pirates haven’t had a pitcher with this kind of talent in their system in a long time.

The card pictured is his 2009 Upper Deck USA Red Autograph numbered to 25. I try to pick one of these up for every prospect that I’m investing in. I know a lot of collectors/prospectors stop buying Upper Deck USA cards as soon as a Bowman card is produced of the player their collecting/prospecting. I continue to buy the USA because the prices on the base autographs drop significantly. Give me an autographed USA card over a chrome refractor any day of the week. The fact is, if the player becomes a star, the USA cards are going to rocket back up in value.

Baseball America doesn’t release their Pirates Top 10 Prospects until January 12th. I’m guessing that Taillon will top the list. From all indications the sky is the limit for this kid and I can’t wait to track his progress in 2011.

My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 4

Grant Green immediately became one of my prospect targets when he returned a TTM request I sent to him at USC. Any modern player that signs through the mail is alright in my book.

Baseball America recently rated Green the #1 prospect in the A’s organization. That bodes well for my ever-growing collection of his cards. He’ll start 2011 in AA and work his way up to AAA at some point. He’s projected to be playing shortstop for the A’s sometime in 2012. Green’s bat is there and consistent, the concern is his fielding. His arm is on the fringe to play shortstop in the majors.

For every prospect I collect, I always try to land a Donruss Elite Extra Edition Status Autograph numbered to 5. They’re obviously very hard to find, but I’ve been successful with a couple of the players I collect. This is another one of those cards that I saw on eBay and knew that I had to win, no matter what the price ended at. The price, if I recall, was somewhere in the $65 range, a bargain in my opinion.

My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 5

This is another card that I knew I had to own when it hit eBay. I’d been looking for the 2006 Christian Colon Aflac regular version for a long time. I’d already picked up the promo version a while back. I couldn’t believe my luck when the first one I ever saw was graded a PSA 10 gem mint. I really couldn’t believe my luck when another one showed up on eBay just weeks later. I obviously bought both of them.

Colon is one of the players that I’ve been collecting for almost a year. I’ve amassed a huge collection of his Upper Deck USA autographed and memorabilia cards. I also picked up a nice stash of his 2010 Bowman Chrome USA cards.

The Royals took Colon with the 4th overall pick in the 2010 MLB Draft out of Cal State Fullerton and quickly signed him for slot money. Colon got some good experience under his belt by signing quickly which should get him to AA this year, well ahead of his fellow first round picks. If all goes as planned, Colon could be the Royals stating shortstop in 2012. Their system is loaded with talent that will be arriving from 2011-2013. The Royals are poised to have a really good team for a 4-5 year span if they play their cards right.

I couldn’t resist inserting a tiny rant about Topps before closing this post. Topps claims that only 250 of each Aflac regular version exist. This card absolutely proves that number isn’t correct. Colon was part of the Debut Cuts set in 2010 Topps Pro Debut Baseball. That set used cut autographs from 2006 Aflac regular version cards and the Colon was numbered to 200. 2010 Bowman Draft also included Colon in the Aflac buyback autographs. Understandably, the Colon is low numbered (/49) because they used up a lot of them in the Pro Debut Cuts set. That adds up to 249 of these cards that Topps has released in their 2010 products. I obviously own two of these so that puts us up to 251. If you search eBay you’ll find a couple more out there, putting us up to 253. How many were produced? Who knows. I know one thing, it’s still a very rare card and I’m excited to have two gem mint copies in my collection.

My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 6

When I saw this card on eBay I just knew it had to be mine. This is where I’ll give away the MLB team that I’m a fan of, that’s right, the Pittsburgh Pirates. It’s been a tough 18 years, but things are looking up because of recent draft picks like Stetson Allie.

The Pirates took Allie in the second round of the 2010 MLB Draft and Jameson Taillon in the first round. They were the two hardest throwing right handed pitchers available in the draft. The Bucs thought so much of Allie that they gave him a 2.25 million dollar signing bonus. Amounts like that are typically reserved for first round draft picks.

This card is Allie’s 2010 Donruss Elite Extra Edition Status Autograph. Only 50 copies were made and this one is graded BGS 9.5 gem mint.

Investing in high school draft picks can take a long time to pan out, especially if it takes the player a long time to adjust to the rigors of a full minor league season. In this case, Allie plays for my favorite team so I’m not worried about this one sitting on the shelf for a few years.

My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 7

This is the only card on my list that I actually pulled from a pack of cards. Sadly, it was one of my better pulls of 2010. Not to bash the card, but I’d hope for something better than this card for my pull of the year.

Zack Wheeler was rated the #3 prospect in the Giants organization by Baseball America entering last season. The two players in front of him were Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner, now with the Giants. This means that Wheeler could earn the #1 spot in the Giants organization when Baseball America releases its 2011 Giants top ten on January 26th.

What really makes this card special is the grade given to it by Beckett Grading. It earned the elusive BGS 10 Pristine grade, my first card to ever receive this grade. This is his autographed Xfractor from 2009 Bowman Chrome Draft, only 225 produced.

I never could figure out why the autograph received a 9 grade. I’ve had a couple come back that way with no explanation.

My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 8

Well how do you like that? Another Aflac card. Like I said yesterday, I love these cards because it’s the very first card produced of every player in the set and the regular versions are limited to 250 copies. These cards are handed out at the Aflac All-American game so it can be challenging to find nice mint copies.

I picked up this Matt Purke BGS 9.5 on eBay early on in the 2010 college baseball season. I’m not quite sure what this card would go for today as you never see them. I just know that I was really excited to find this card, let alone graded BGS 9.5 gem mint.

TCU will enter the 2011 NCAA Baseball season ranked #1 in the country. Purke will look to build on his incredible 2010 freshman season where he went 16-0 with a 3.02 ERA and 142 strikeouts with just 34 walks. Two of those wins came in the College World Series where he went 2-0 with a 1.35 ERA.

Purke was drafted 14th overall by the Texas Rangers in the 2009 MLB Draft, but Texas failed to sign him. You can be sure that he’ll go higher than 14th if he decides to enter the 2011 MLB Draft in June.

My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 9

It’s funny, the first two cards I’m posting are of prospects in the Minnesota Twins organization, but that’s not my favorite team.

This is a card that I searched almost two years for. Topps/Bowman puts out their Aflac All-American set every year, only producing 250 of each card. More common promotional versions were released in 2006 and 2007 and I already had one of those. Landing the regular version at a reasonable price always eluded me. It wasn’t until Hicks had a slow start to his 2010 that I was able to pick one up.

I’m a big fan of the Aflac cards as they’re always going to be the first card produced of any player featured in the set. Being that they’re limited to 250 make them even more desirable in my mind. Also consider that many of them are given to the players and many are purchased back by Topps and released as buy-back autographs, or more recently cut autographs in 2010 Pro Debut Baseball. This makes the non-autographed versions one of the most rare cards you’ll ever find for players featured in the sets.

Hicks is rated the #2 prospect in the Minnesota Twins organization by Baseball America, formerly #1. He’s 21 years old and will begin his 2011 season in HiA at Fort Myers. He’s projected to be a five tool center fielder with good power.

My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 10

Over the next five days I’m going to count down my ten favorite card purchases of 2010, two per day. As I was going through my cards tonight I realized that I’m partial to my favorite team and a particular type of card. You’ll notice these trends over the next five days. I only have a couple players I collect and they both have a card represented in this list.

On New Years Day I’m going list a card, or list of cards that I’m most looking forward to purchasing in 2011. Hopefully I’ll be able to show off those cards during the year as I obtain them.

Most of you are going to say who is Liam Hendriks? Well, as you can see from the card pictured, he pitched for Team Australia in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. He’s 21 years old, from Perth Australia and had a fantastic 2010 season between LoA and HiA in the minors.

Hendriks is in the Minnesota Twins organization. He split 2010 between Beloit (LoA) and Fort Myers (HiA), posting a combined 1.74 ERA in 108.2 innings pitched He had an 8-4 record, 105 strikeouts, just 12 walks and a 0.84 WHIP. Baseball America ranks him the #6 prospect overall in the Twins organization. Among pitchers he ranks #2 just behind #1 overall Twins prospect Kyle Gibson.

The card pictured is his 2009 Bowman Sterling World Baseball Classic Game Jersey Black Refractor numbered 24/25. This was his only card until 2010 Bowman Chrome came out this year. I’ve purchased quite a few of 2010 Bowman Chrome autographs but I still prefer this card as it is very hard to find. I spent almost the entire year looking for this version after I’d already picked up the base, refractor, blue refractor and gold refractor versions. I was thrilled to finally add this one to my rainbow.