Tigers Gallery Checklist: 2010 Bowman

When I think of Bowman the following words usually come to mind:

Boring
Obsolete
Uninspired
Irrelevant

That, my friends, is why you shouldn't always listen to bloggers.

2010 Bowman has exploded like Eyjafjallajokull and is showing no signs of slowing down. Just today A Cardboard Problem linked us to non-chrome autos of Stephen Strasburg that have sold for over $700. The Cardboard Connection has been all over it from the start. As they reported, within 48 hours over 100 cards sold for over $85 with high sellers bringing in over $500. With the first week in the books, the Top 10 Bowman sales has the cheapest card--A Jason Heyward Gold Refractor Auto that is numbered to 50(!)--selling for $800. $800!

The Dusin Ackley superfractor sold for $1,150 and the Autographed version for $3,495. The Strasburg Superfractor currently has an asking price of $20,000. Things have gotten out of hand.

Sooz thinks that a confluence of events has led to this Bowman explosion, and I'm inclined to agree. Gellman gives Topps a pat on the back for putting out an excellent product, even though they have an exclusive license on baseball cards.

With Chrome Autographs of Austin Jackson and Scott Sizemore, Tigers fans have a reason to be excited too, albeit a more reasonably priced one. Bowman has been, and will always be, about the prospects. That's certainly the case this year. And while this means that some prices have gotten completely out of hand, it also means that more product will be opened, and more base cards, parallels and less coveted autographs--the casualties of case-busting--will be made available for you and me.

Removing our hype-colored glasses, is 2010 Bowman really worth jumping into?

Base Set I'm not one to spit in the face of the hype machine, but we've seen this before, right? Right? Like in 2009, maybe? Look, I realize that the designs are not exactly the same, but come on: black border, red piping (although this year's rookies get Green!), minor modifications. Can you tell the differences between a 1996 Ford Windstar and a 1997 Ford Windstar? Of course not. They're there, but they don't really matter.

We are left with those same adjectives that I'm always left feeling about Bowman. This is another base set that isn't particularly exciting and doesn't really matter. It's the necessary evil of making a set that is really designed to get prospects into our greedy little hands. As in the past, some of the photography is nicely done--Damon and Porcello come to mind--and the checklist is fairly well rounded. In fact, for Tigers fans 2010 Bowman features the first non-photoshopped Tigers cards for Max Scherzer and Johnny Damon and the first major league rookie cards of Austin Jackson and Scott Sizemore.

The best part of the set? The Golden Ratio. 9 base cards for you to happily fill a page with. (Super Bonus--the Master Set is a Golden Ratio too! 27 cards if you collect a version of each) Update: with the addition of the Zach Simons Retail-Only Autograph card, the Golden Ratio is blown all to hell and you're left with one hanger-on on a new page

#33 Magglio Ordonez	#115 Miguel Cabrera	#134 Justin Verlander

#153 Max Scherzer	#156 Johnny Damon	#164 Rick Porcello

#198 Austin Jackson RC	#199 Scott Sizemore RC	#207 Brent Dlugach RC

Prospects There are four prospect cards. Boo! That makes Adam Wilk the hanger on. These prospect cards are plain Jane looking but OMGZ! Prospects! Anyway, Casey Crosby and Cody Satterwhite are your legitimate Tigers prospects here and it's nice to see them on cardboard.

#BP20 Casey Crosby	#BP26 Cody Satterwhite	#BP33 Gustavo Nunez
#BP58 Adam Wilk

Chrome Prospects Must buy Bowman...Chrome Prospects... Same checklist, I picked some different colored refractors out for you for some variety. Refractors are fun.

#BCP20 Casey Crosby (Blue Ref. #/250)	#BCP26 Cody Satterwhite (Refractor #/777)	#BCP33 Gustavo Nunez (Orange Ref. #/25)
#BCP58 Adam Wilk (Gold Ref. #/50)

Autographs and Relics These cards are, surprisingly, the sideshow in Bowman, with the exception of prospect refractor autographs. The relics are almost entirely unimportant. Here we have Scott Sizemore's Futures Game jersey (#/99) The autographs have the potential to be dynamite (as we've seen this year) and the Tigers offerings do not disappoint. No Prospect Autos for the Tigers, but I'd rather have Austin Jackson and Scott Sizemore anyway. These are very nice cards and feature on-card signatures which is a HUGE plus.

Update: There is a retail-only autograph series of cards, including AA Tigers Pitcher Zach Simons that wasn't included in my original post. These cards are not chrome and have clear sticker autographs, although I will say that Simons' card looks particularly nice to me. Maybe it's his signature.

#198 Austin Jackson Auto (Ref. #/500)	#199 Scott Sizemore Auto (Ref. #/500)	#BPA-ZS Zach Simons
#FG-SS Scott Sizemore (#/99)

Inserts We all know that you don't care about the inserts. Well you're a real stick in the mud. Here's what we've got: cards that are designed after the eminently forgettable 1992 Bowman design (why?), a rather nice set detailing the Top 100 (Topps 100, get it?) prospects in baseball, and a cool front and back card featuring a pro player and his prospect equivalent which is pretty neat.

#BT39 Rick Porcello	#BT47 Miguel Cabrera	#BT68 Justin Verlander
#TP9 Austin Jackson	#TP68 Wilkin Ramirez	#TP80 Scott Sizemore
#BE29 Johnny Damon / Slade Heathcott

Having virtuously blown the hype smoke from your eyes, you are now free to evaluate how you feel about Bowman. The best you're going to do is an Austin Jackson autograph, which I must say is a pretty nice little card. Prospect wise, there is some promise from the Tigers. Personally, I'd like to get my hands on some of the refractors and then run down to Lakeland and teach Gustavo Nunez how to hit.

Bowman is what it is and always has been, not that that's a bad thing. Just don't be fooled into thinking that it was sent straight from the gods to cure what ails you.

Grand Galleries: 2010 Topps Opening Day

Topps Opening Day is one of those sets that is relatively useless, but I tend to kind of enjoy nonetheless. I profiled the Detroit Tigers in the Opening Day set earlier this year, and Yes, it's taken me this long to find the necessary images to post a Granderson gallery. Of two cards.

Granderson's card is notable in that it is the first non-secret short printed card of him as a Yankee. It uses the same photoshopped picture as his Topps Series 1 card (#222b), but is in portrait layout instead of landscape. The main feature of Opening Day that I have always liked--different color schemes--is absent in this set, but finds its way in parallel form. A very nice looking blue-bordered parallel (#/2010) is the second Granderson card in the set. Four printing plates round out his offerings--in the interest of aesthetics, I'll show those if and when I ever find an image of them, instead of sticking placeholders in there. Luckily, we've got the Cyan one to kick us off.

As 2010 card sets go, Opening Day is the most meager of Granderson offerings. Shocking that it took me so long to find what I was looking for. Lackluster though it may be, we can't just pick and choose what cards are out there, now can we?

#98 Curtis Granderson	#98 Curtis Granderson Blue (#/2010)	#98 Curtis Granderson Printing Plate (Cyan) 1/1

"Basho," The Grand Scheme Named Himself, "Banana Tree."

Basho!

Slow dulcimer, gavotte and bow, in autumn,
Basho and his friends go out to view the moon;
In summer, gasoline rainbow in the gutter,

The secret courtesy that courses like ichor
Through the old form of the rude, full-scale joke,
Impossible to tell in writing. "Basho"

He named himself, "Banana Tree"

This, from "Impossible To Tell" by Robert Pinsky, the former Poet Laureate. It is worth noting that there is also a basho-bananatree.blogspot.com which may reveal that my intellect may not be as sharp as opening a blog post with poetry would indicate. It's really just the Simpsons. *sigh*

So why "Basho?"  Have you seen this kid?

image from the Detroit News

That's Brennan Boesch. He is awesome. He was called up to the Tigers to fill in for an injured Carlos Guillen and has set the world on fire in the meantime. As it stands now he is hitting a cool .380 and is third on the team with 19 RBIs. He's only played in 19 games. Also, he has come through in all sorts of situations--setting the table, with runners on, vs lefties, vs righties. The kid is good.

And he loves his mom:

He has contributed in every way, with clutch hits and aggressive swings and extra-base power. But, uh, no, he wasn't going to meld even further with a snazzy haircut.

"I couldn't do it -- I didn't want to see my mom cry," Boesch said, chuckling. "But it's so easy to fit in here because the veterans go out of their way to make the rookies feel comfortable. If I have a bad at-bat, Johnny (Damon) has something positive to say almost every time. Of course, I think you fit in when you produce."

So no team mohawk for The Banana Tree. Also, compliments:

Maybe once a year comes a hitter that really stands out to me, a rookie hitter. This guy is impressive.

That's from Mark Teixeira. Not too shabby.

Anyway, every time I hear his name, which has been often considering how well he has hit I think "Basho," and then in my head go "Banana Tree." So from now on, that's what I'm calling him. Get on it now, it's going to be a thing.

Switching it up As you might have noticed, something funny is happening with Carlos Guillen. Once he is healthy again, he will be the Tigers' starting second baseman, marking the sixth (!) position that he has played for the team since 2007.

This is the forced-hand that the Tigers had to play with The Banana Tree (it'll catch on) crushing the ball all over the place. Who cares if some nerd thinks that it's not going to last.

Long-term, despite the fast start I still see Boesch as a .230-.250 hitter with a weak on-base percentage, albeit with enough power in his bat to be useful if deployed properly in a platoon role. He has a decent throwing arm and can swipe a base occasionally, but isn't going to keep himself employed with his defense alone. Tigers fans should enjoy the hot start while it lasts, but eventually Boesch will come to earth.

Shove it, math. You can't keep The Banana Tree down.

Anyway, the Guillen move is the end result of a more seismic shift of the team's roster composition. Scherzer and Sizemore have been sent down to AAA. Armando Galarraga is back up, and pitched the team to a big win yesterday. Danny Worth fills in at Second Base, making him the Fifth position player to make his major league debut with the Tigers this season. I'm not in the mood to look this sort of thing up, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that has never happened before in Tigers history, September call-ups excluded. [Update: Bless You Boys tells us that the last time five Tigers made their major league debut in the same season was during the first five games of 1922.]

All of this caps off a convoluted few days that saw Ryan Raburn sent down Alfredo Figaro called up, the sent back down, Casper Wells up, presumably down, then not, then Sizemore and Scherzer down and Galarraga and Worth up.

Just keep winning, I guess, and I'll stop staring so hard trying to figure out what's happening.

Ernie v. Bo An eternal battle in heaven? Way back when I talked about an the old story that concludes with Ernie Harwell was fired by Bo Schembechler and the world imploded upon itself.

Some digging (and revisionist history?) may change things a little bit. In this version, both Bo and Ernie are the good guys, just the way it always was and always should be (Hat Tip to mgoblog:

…But it’s not true that he wanted Harwell fired — not even close. The Tigers — very stupidly, in my opinion — hired a Chicago consulting firm to analyze their marketing approach, and the firm recommended they fire Harwell to attract a younger audience. If hiring the firm was stupid, their advice was even dumber — and showed absolutely no understanding of Tiger baseball culture. One line I had to cut about Harwell was his remarkable cult following among younger fans.

Schembechler, against their advice, got Harwell an extra year, but he did not prevent the firing. He did, however, take the fall for Monaghan, et al, thinking such loyalty was expected and would be returned. He was wrong about that, too, of course, but that’s the sequence of events, and Bo’s (relatively) limited role in the story.

That quote is actually attributable to John Bacon, who commented on his blog, but I strongly recommend the MVictors summary.

The bottom line: Everybody knows that Ernie and Bo are great American Heroes and if you don't like you can just go and move to Stenchburg.

Where's Curtis? Once upon a time Curtis Granderson was the end all and be all of this blog. Then he was a Yankee and then he got hurt. We still love Curtis over here though, so we are saddened to learn that his recovery is not progressing particularly well.

Joe Girardi pegged Granderson's return in the area of 15-18 more days.

Granderson hit off a tee and threw in the outfield Friday for the first time since going on the DL May 1 after suffering the injury in that day's game. He won't try running until today.

"I haven't done any lateral movement," Granderson said. "I haven't done any starting and stopping and that's going to be the big test. Whenever we finally try that stuff out that will be a big evaluation in terms of how soon I can come back."

The sooner the better, I say. Baseball is a better game with Curtis Granderson in it. Also, I maintain that he will proceed to have an excellent season with the Yankees, despite his troubles prior to his injury. Baseball is a game of hot and cold.

What is this, High School? High school coaches are notorious for making roster and playing time decisions on factors other than how good a player actually is. If you played a sport then you know this. Well apparently, it extends beyond the halls of High School.

"I liked Jim as a catcher. He handled the pitchers well. It looked like he knew what he was doing, I was happy with him. In fact, I caught him more than I caught Gene Lamont until I got orders from Detroit to catch Lamont instead.

That was his former manager in AA. Jim Leyland was the victim, not so much of managerial politics or buffoonery, but by a decision by the higher-ups who liked Gene Lamont's upside more. Lamont is now Leyland's bench coach, FWIW.

It's sad, though. There have been numerous reports that indicate that Leyland would give up everything to have made it to the Major Leagues. In a different era he would have. As his former manager explains

"There were only eight teams in each league," he said. "He could have played in the majors later. Sure he could have. Nowadays you don't have to be a great hitter to catch in the majors. Just handle the pitchers -- and Jim could do that.

No wonder he sticks behind Gerald Laird.

Misc. Justin Verlander is too pretty for a Mohawk, I guess I need to apologize to Jason Davies for drawing him with such feminine eyes. Detroit is looking create an ordinance that would require teams to pay for the use of police and crowd control at games at events. The fact that this hasn't been in place for the last decade, at least, is indicative of the horrible mismanagement of city government. I've been a huge fan of just about everything Dave Bing has said since he took office. Michigan won the National Championship in (club) Lacrosse. This is their 3rd straight National Championship. Can we have D-I now plz? More Guillen at second base talk.

What $13 Million Can Buy You

A Shortstop


A Third Baseman


A First Baseman


A Left Fielder


A Designated Hitter


And a Second Baseman:


Come to think of it Carlos, I'm dumbfounded too.

Tigers Gallery Checklist: 2010 Topps Pro Debut

The big-ish news in Tigers world right now is that Casper Wells is getting called up to the club to make his Major League Debut today. With that happening, I couldn't think of anything more appropriate than posting up a gallery of 2010 Topps Pro Debut which, coincidentally, features Casper Wells as the very first Tigers Card.

I love Pro Debut. Wait, let me qualify that. Pro Debut is not my favorite set nor am I going gaga over it, but I love it for what it is: a nice Minor League set. While many may complain about a "rehashed design" or a checklist that features so many totally obscure names that you don't really know what to do with, I have a completely different take. To me, this set is a supplement to Topps' 2010 flagship offering. By keeping the design consistent, the team collector can add these minor league cards right to the team set, while using the color and logo differentiation to keep things fresh. In all, the set has everything you would want. Ok, everything I would want. Nice pictures of game-action minor leaguers, multiple minor league teams, minor league logos--the works.

My only gripe is that from a Tigers standpoint, this set is barely more than a West Michigan Whitecaps team set. The degree to which the set skews towards that team (and, I would imagine, that level of minors in general) is a little bothersome. Would it have been too much to ask to get ONE Toledo Mudhen?

I also have to ask myself, what exactly is the point of this set? That's not entirely fair, as the point of the set is to be a minor league set, nothing more, nothing less. But what is the point of Bowman that everyone is going all crazy over? Aren't the Bowman Prospects and the Topps Pro Debut pretty much the same? I'm still struggling with that one, and I'm not sure how things will evolve if Topps continues producing Pro Debut in the future.

Bottom line for me: this set is cheap, fun and introduces you to one of the best things in all of professional sports, Minor League team names and logos. A little more diversity among my teams would be nice, as would including minor league cards of players while slightly more of a "Prospect" status, but in all, I'm glad that we have a legit minor league set to call our own for the first time in who knows how long.

Base Set The base set is the bread and butter of things in Pro Debut. Designed after Topps' flagship design for 2010, the "swoosh" varies with team colors and appropriate minor league logos are affixed. That is my favorite part. It's hard to say whether I would have liked Pro Debut as much with a different design that would have muted the minor league angle (e.g. 2007 Topps). Good representation among Tigers' minor league clubs although, as I already mentioned, there are a whole lot of Whitecaps goin' on. Not much in the way of star power, but could be some major leaguers in the mix. Casper Wells, after tonight's game, will be the first.

FWIW, a few nice parallel versions exist: Blue (#/249), Gold (#/50) and Red (1/1). Topps gets bonus points for limiting the number of parallels to a reasonable amount. Also some cards have a (meaningless) "Pro Debut" stamp on them, indicating that this is the first professional card of said player. With the rookie card rules being what they are, I see no point to this, but whatever.

#14 Casper Wells	#16 Robbie Weinhardt	93 Edwin Gomez
#130 Wade Gaynor	#182 Gustavo Nunez	#201 Brandon Douglas
#204 Billy Nowlin	#210 Bryan Pounds	#213 Mark Sorenson
#214 Jordan Lennerton	#217 Erik Crichton

Inserts The inserts--at least the inserts that Tigers farmhands are in--are simple: All Stars. Pro Debut highlights All Stars from all levels of the minor leagues, and the Tigers have a few including, current backup catcher and starting catcher of the future Alex Avila. Austin Jackson is featured in this insert set, but it is as a Scranton Yankee as a AAA All Star. Not a Tigers card. Simple set, perfectly fine, I probably won't collect it unless Topps' flagship All Star cards take the same design, which I would doubt because they're kind of bland.

Also, how old are these players? I'm looking at you Michael Rockett and Deik Scram.

#A-4 John Murrian	#A-27 Michael Rockett	#AA-2 Deik Scram
#AA-6 Alex Avila

Relics Not much in the way of Tiger "hits," but we do get one: Current Tigers' second baseman Scott Sizemore with a big 'ol red swatch of futures jersey. There is a base version numbered to 139 copies, and a gold bordered version numbered to 25. A relatively nice looking card of Sizemore (his first relic card, AFAIK), that could fit seamlessly in with the Tigers flagship set.

#FGR-21 Scott Sizemore Jersey (#/139)

Your Wish Is My Command

2010 Bowman is live and everybody seems to be fawning over things like $1000 Stephen Strasburg cards with no picture. Which is all well and good, I guess, but I'm just happy to have my wishes granted so quickly. Tigers rookies Austin Jackson and Scott Sizemore have, for the first time, official major league rookie cards and, as importantly, official autographed major league rookie cards. And they're shiny!

2010 Bowman #198 Austin Jackson Chrome Refractor RC Auto (#/500)

2010 Bowman #199 Scott Sizemore Chrome Refractor RC Auto (#/500)

As you very well may know, I choose to show refractors whenever I can, because refractors are just the coolest thing and they tend to scan better, which makes available pictures of refractor cards much nicer.

Now that the Bowman cards are out in the wild, I will put together a gallery, to go with the Pro Debut and Chicle galleries that I owe you (but which are pretty much done, I swear!). In the meantime, please continue salivating over shiny on-card autograph cards of the next great Tigers. Or, if you've got an extra $20,000 to spare, there's always more Strasburgs to go around.

Side note: How nice is Scott Sizemore's signature? He may have one of the nicest autographs going right now. Kind of puts Jackson to shame. It certainly embarrasses these guys.

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.