Tigers Gallery Checklist: 2010 Disabled American Veterans (DAV)

Has it been a year already? Last season I kicked off this feature--creating thumbnail galleries for Detroit Tigers team sets--with the 2009 Disabled American Veterans release. Well, they're back. I'd like to sincerely thank Stephen Burkett for reaching out to me and sending these cards unsolicited. I learned from the return address on his package, that he's behind ABS Sketch Cards, which you'll often see floating around on eBay. Heck, you can even contact him to commission a sketch card of any player you want! Thanks again Steve.

As for these cards, I'm very impressed (again) with what DAV has put together. In particular, they beat Topps to the punch on player selection with Avila, Kelly, Raburn and Coke--none of whom have 2010 Topps cards (yet). The design is like a non-chromey 2010 Finest and looks very nice. As an "oddball" set, these fit right into what I love about collecting, and given that they make them for many MLB and MiLB teams, are worth looking into for your own collection.

Base Set Simple and sweet. Cards with no parallels or inserts, just like the good ol' days:

#24 Alex Avila	#25 Austin Jackson	#26 Don Kelly
#27 Gates Brown	#28 Willie Horton	#29 Joel Zumaya
#30 Mario Impemba	#31 Phil Coke	#32 Rick Porcello
#33 Ryan Perry	#34 Ryan Raburn

The Alfredo Sounds Good

2009 Topps #CHR25 Alfredo Figaro RC

With yesterday's rainout and Dontrelle Willis' on-again, off-again illness, it seems like the Tigers wanted an extra arm that they could deploy as necessary. Bless You Boys tipped us to this last night, and then pointed us to the Tigers' twitter feed this morning, which gives us the 140 characters of detail. To wit: Alfredo Figaro IN, Ryan Raburn Optioned OUT.

So there it is.

2009 DAV #154 Ryan Raburn

Raburn, shown here in one of his few (only?) 2009 cards, was batting a sweet .213, but with five doubles and a triple making up six of his 10 hits. He produced well for the Tigers last year, but with the Brandon Boesch show stealing our hearts since Carlos Guillen's injury, Raburn, and his current struggles, were expendable.

As for Figaro?

In 5 games with the club last year (of which he started 3), he was 2-2 with a 6.35 ERA, a .324 BAA, a 1.94 WHIP, 16 strikeouts and 10 walks over his 17 innings. Yikes. On the plus side, the 25 year old has been solid in AAA this season. He's 4-1 in his six starts, sports a 2.55 ERA and a 1.24 WHIP, and in his 35.1 innings has struck out 27 and only walked 10. Mmmmm. Seasoning.

It remains to be seen how Figaro will be deployed--he had been starting in AAA, but I don't see much room in the Tigers rotation at the moment--so it is possible that he is a bit of doubleheader insurance and will stay on the roster as a long reliever/spot starter until Carlos Guillen returns from the DL.

Tigers Checklist: 2009 DAV

2009 Tigers Master Checklist Here

In recognition of the upcoming Veteran's Day and last week's tragedy at Ft. Hood, I knew the perfect set with which to unveil my new checklisting mechanism. This has been my ultimate goal for some time, but I never really knew how to pull it off. Hopefully, this is something that I can do for each release, even if some of them require multiple posts. In the next day or two, I will retroactively create a "Checklists" page where all of the galleries can be found. This will be conveniently located in the sidebar. Obviously, there will be some tweaks etc., but for now I'm just hopeful that this works as expected and is a sign of things to come. Any feedback is much, much appreciated.

The Disabled American Veterans release cards each year--this particular set was a stadium giveaway at Comerica Park that my dad was nice enough to snag for me and bring when my family visited us in Baltimore. So with that, here are your 2009 DAV Detroit Tigers.

update: tweaked so that clicking on thumbnail opens a full size picture in new window.

#146 Willie Horton	#147 Jeremy Bonderman	#148 Gates Brown
#149 Mario Impemba	#150 Edwin Jackson	#151 Brandon Lyon
#152 Nate Robertson	#153 Zach Miner	#154 Ryan Raburn
#155 Bobby Seay