#56 - Joe Blanton

What’s that Turtle doin’? This time, here in the middle of the Pitcher parade, we have just driven to the plate. I would hazard a guess that the batter's swing (or not), and the Ump's call are in the process of completion right, now, as we gaze upon Joe Blanton. I would make that claim because Blanton has not begun to relax his body from the end of his delivery motion in any single way that can be seen here. His right, throwing, arm has completed it's follow through all the way back to his torso after releasing the ball, and that is all.

Blanton does seem optimistic on the call and this card almost makes the cut for a sub-collection I like to keep called The Pitcher Is Smiling At Me.

This Pitching card is a little less common than others in that a photo clicked _after_ the Pitcher completes his delivery is not the norm for an 'In Action' card of a Pitcher. This is only the 3rd such card in the set of 24 Pitchers on the checklist so far.

Overall though, this is a nice sunny day baseball card day out in sunny Los Angeles. It has a nice balance of sunlight and shadow created by Blanton himself, which makes one forget this is almost a purely 2-tone card of all white and blue but ultimately works very well thanks to all that sunshine.

One new element on this card is the right shoulder patch Joe is wearing, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of Dodger Stadium. However we will see much better views of that patch on other cards in this set.

Uniform Hero? Normally home Dodger uniforms give a splendid view of the player's # on their baseball cards but such is not the case here. Nevertheless, Blanton did wear #56 for the Dodgers in 2012, but by 2013, he was wearing a different uni # for a different team.

I mentioned a 'Pitcher parade' at the head of this post as we have just passed the half-way point of a very long string of Pitchers on this checklist, likely the longest in the set. Pitchers do seem to favor uniform #s in the 50s; of 21 players that wore #56 in the 2012 season, 17 of them were Pitchers.

Where’d the egg hatch? Blanton is one of the more veteran Sea Turtles in the set, as he was drafted in the 1st round in 2002 by the Oakland A's, right at the core of the action in the book "Moneyball," which does discuss the pre-draft thinking on Blanton some. He was actually Oakland's 2nd pick in the 1st round (24th overall), as the A's had 4 picks in the top 30. This all makes him 33 years old on this card, though he looks not far removed from his Rookie season on the front.

How about the migrations? Blanton's 8 IP 'cup of coffee' debut came in 2004 before joining an A's rotation depleted by trades in 2005. Naturally, he would eventually be traded away from the A's in 2008, off to the Phillies (Josh Outman only really known return piece; not one of Billy Beane's better trades but then Beane is always hamstrung by looming player paydays). Has Beane ever drafted a player who retired from the Oakland A's? Not that all that many MLB players do that any more for any team, but to see a career arc like that in 21st century Oakland would be noticeable.

After that mid-season trade in 2008, Blanton would hit a Home Run while pitching for the Phillies in the World Series, currently the last MLB pitcher to perform the feat. 

Blanton landed on this baseball card via a trade to L.A. on August 3, 2012, a few days after the 'no-waiver' trade deadline which confuses 99% of baseball fans, but does not confuse Topps, who will definitely not print an Update card for a player traded that late in the summer. The return piece for the 'rental' of 2 months of Blanton's contract never made the Majors, well illustrating a common outcome of such trades despite the value casual fans place on them.

Blanton would then sign a contract with the Angels on Dec. 12, 2012 and would not actually pitch an inning for L.A. in the actual year of the Sea Turtle cards. He would appear in the Heritage set, which releases a month after Series One, as a photo-shopped California Angel. All of which probably illustrates something about the lead-time required for Topps to create accurate Topps Baseball cards.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

A player in the Leagues this long runs out of room for the Topps crew to write up a blurb for them, in any set with "full stats" like this one, rather than 5 year stats. It is often a bit of a pity whenever a Lead League in Italics is a counting stat the player would rather not have compiled, although in this case Blanton had such respectable WHIP and ERA figures there that allowing 240 Hits is more a positive indicator of his ability to stay in games — and pitch his rotation spot 100% reliably as this card misses the fact that by starting 34 games in 2007, Blanton should have earned another Lead League in Italics bit of red ink for that.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 228 games started, Blanton is 587 away from Cy Young's all-time record of 815.

Now this is a surprising comparison in a couple ways. For one, this is the first such comparison in the set here on the 56th card. It is also a stat that the card collector can't verify for themselves right on the back of the card. I suspect we might see a few more of these unexpected All-Time stat comparisons sneak up on us as we read the back of each and every card in the set, as composing them had to have been a bit of a chore, really.

Blanton would pitch for the Angels in 2013 before one could almost call him a journeyman starter for the rest of his career, if he hadn't largely switched to the bullpen after this card was created. After a season with the Angels additional stops included a 2nd stop in Oakland though injury would prevent him from pitching there, a 2nd stop in Dodger Stadium, as well as time in the bullpens of the Royals, Pirates, and Nationals before he retired after the 2017 season.

With 252 games started of 427 games appearing in, Blanton finished his career 563 away from Cy Young's all-time record.

Subspecies? This is the only Joe Blanton Sea Turtle designed card.

Bling That Shell We have started a new binder page now and this one leads off with a blue on Gold choice, one which will be pretty common in the all parallel set as the blue Sea Turtle baseball diamonds don't mix so well with some of the blue Sea Turtle shells. But these always look classy:

#46 - Craig Kimbrel

What’s that Turtle doin’? It is somewhat surprising to me whenever I find a Craig Kimbrel card that does not show his distinctive pose while he "looks in" for the sign from his Catcher. I know Topps can't use that pose on every Kimbrel card they produce, but they sure do that often enough.

I am glad the Kimbrel card in this set is not one of those cards, as I always find them claustrophobic.

This card is more standard issue Pitching action. I like how the two vertical blue stripes of the Braves uniform help illustrate motion as he draws his right arm back to pitch.

Overall, between the uniform and the logo and the Sea Turtle design, there is a very pleasing amount of red, white, and blue well distributed all over this card. And it is hard to get more "baseball" than that trio of colors.

Uniform Hero? Front and center.

Where’d the egg hatch? Kimbrel was drafted by Atlanta in the 3rd round in 2008. He had also been selected by Atlanta in the 33rd round in 2007, but elected to go to college for one more year.

How about the migrations? He then came up to Atlanta in 2010, posting outstanding #s in just 21 Innings. In 2011, he became the Closer for the Braves, a bullpen role he has fulfilled ever since. He was just 23 years of age at that point, something some other organizations took careful note of in their signings. We will see a card related to that idea, and in my opinion related to Kimbrel's overall succes as well, in the Update set, many years from the date of this blog post.

A standard operating idea in Major League Baseball is that Relievers can't generally achieve peak results, year in and year out, across a long career, as compared to starting Pitchers. It does seem like that particular calculus has defined much of Kimbrel's career since this card was produced.

In 2015, the Braves either really needed a talent infusion, or perhaps they worried that Kimbrel's outstanding results for them could be maintained no longer. They traded him to San Diego along with superfluous outfielder - Upton Jr., for 4 players and a special draft round pick. The Braves received a pair of regularly-on-the-move outfielders, Carlos Quentin and Cameron Maybin, as well as a promising Starter prospect named Matt Wisler who would prove to not quite have regular MLB rotation stuff.

San Diego seems to have reached the same conclusions as Atlanta as they in turn traded him to the Red Sox for 3 players, including current recent starting Padre Centerfielder Manny Margot.

Overall, the Boston Red Sox seem to have been the winner of the transactions, as Kimbrel pitched to nearly identical levels of excellence, year after year, and made 3 AL All-Star teams after doing so 4 times in the NL with Atlanta. Though I suspect many Red Sox fans largely recall his post-season work for Boston, which did not not always go well. 

As I began composing this post just a week into 2019 Spring Training, Kimbrel remained probably the premiere un-signed Free Agent of the year. He was reportedly largely sticking to a demand for a long-term contract of 6 years and no less. But it also seems that the 30 GMs around the 2 Leagues are still considering their traditional standard operating idea for Reliever contracts, so .... Kimbrel eventually settled for a 3 year, $43M deal with the Chicago Cubs. 

Well, it would be 3 years if one doesn't count that he didn't make his first appearance in the 2019 season until June 27th, probably one of the longest Free Agent hold-outs into an active season, ever. As things turned out, I don't expect the friendly confines will be all that friendly for Kimbrel in the 2020s if he can't return to his form of the 2010s. I doubt many Cubs fans will soon forgive him for a pair of Blown Saves during a key pennant race series with their arch-enemies from St. Louis late in September, 2019. 

Nevertheless it would not surprise me at all to see Craig Kimbrel be the All-Star closer for the NL in 2020, and generally sit near the top of the Reliever statistics in MLB once again. Or not. Could go either way, really. That's the way she goes, for the guys out in the bullpen.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

It seems a little surprising that Topps drew a blank here, for such an excellent young player. Normally printing a long raft of minor league stats is done for marginal players about whom it is more difficult to write a positive, pithy text of some kind.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 89 saves, Kimbrel is 519 away from Mariano Rivera's all-time record of 608.

If a collector has read any of this card back feature previous to flipping this card over, they will already know exactly which record will be considered here.

After the 2019 season, Kimbrel had 346 saves. Though Rivera's record finally settled at 652 Saves, this is definitely an all-time record comparison that one could see becoming much, ummm, closer, in seasons to come.

Subspecies? Players who make the All-Star team in their first full season certainly get plenty of attention from everyone, including Topps. This card image is also included in Opening Day and Chrome, but has no other variations.

Bling That Shell This card is the 9th on it's page, and I haven't used a Gold card yet, so.....

And that means it is also time to look at a completed page, the way I hope to enjoy the entire set some day. My preferences for picking a parallel color for the blue Sea Turtles led me to use three /x cards on this page, which, along with using an Opening Day Blue parallel, allowed me to skip using an Emerald card on this page. I hope I can keep that general not-use one parallel idea trending as I build more pages:

#22 - Clayton Kershaw

What’s that Turtle doin’? I doubt there is any other checklist of Topps Baseball cards that needs 22 cards before a 2nd Pitcher is found. And now here we are, for probably the best Pitcher in the whole set.

The card is strong. The line of Kershaw's left leg and his solid torso, half-way through his motion, then illustrate where a substantial portion of the power of his pitches comes from, making his thin chain necklace snap forward. Then a 2nd strong line is created by his billowing uniform lifting up "Dodgers" to line up with his golden left arm.

This particular framing of a Kershaw snapshot would probably look just as strong on an overcast day at the ballpark. Instead, Clayton is leaning almost directly into some later afternoon sun, perfectly lighting up the proceedings.

A far more subtle part of the card is supplied by Dodger Stadium as it quietly fades into the twilight, letting the Ace appear to be pitching in front of a painting as he is just about to paint a corner of Home Plate, again.

Plenty of Pitcher cards are boring. Not this one.

Uniform Hero? No kid collecting the 2013 Topps Baseball Dodgers is ever going to forget this Uniform #, nor likely this baseball card #, either. This is our fifth sequential card to include the Uni # in the photograph.

Where’d the egg hatch? Kershaw was drafted - not surprisingly, as it turns out - by the Dodgers in the 1st round in 2006, as the 7th pick overall. What that dry factoid doesn't reveal is that he was drafted just out of High School. Normally in media coverage leading up to the Draft each year in early summer, there are a lot of heebie-jeebies declared over the risks of using a high pick on a High School Pitcher. This makes it more common for 1st Round Pitchers to come from the College ranks.

Kershaw debuted with the Dodgers just 2 years later, at Age 20, which perhaps is the exception that proves the rule, or something. No risk, no reward, seems the more fitting aphorism.

How about the migrations? Does anyone really expect that the Dodgers would ever let go a Pitcher like Clayton Kershaw? His latest contract extension took all of 6 days after the end of the World Series to complete negotiations, keeping him signed with L.A. through 2021.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

Sure, it is easy to chuckle at the fate of the Topps card back writer when they have to dream up something positive to say about about some former hot Rookie now battling the Mendoza Line to stay up in The Show.

But imagine, instead, about having to write something creative and not just yet more repetitive news-of-the-obvious sports cliches about the premiere players in the Leagues. Would you have expected to end up thinking about Taylor Swift _and_ Sandy Koufax when you turned this card over? How did that happen?

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 974 strikeouts, Kershaw is 4,740 away from Nolan Ryan's all-time record of 5,714.

Now if this is not the first card in the set that you had turned over in order to absorb every little baseball factoid you possibly could, well, you might be thinking ahead of time that if anyone in 2013 Major League Baseball could break an All-Time pitching record — it would be Clayton Kershaw.

Until you started thinking about the reality of chasing none other than Nolan Ryan. An apt choice here on the part of Topps. But Nolan freakin' Ryan? Give Kershaw a chance at somethin'!

After the 2018 season, Clayton Kershaw has 2,275 Ks, which is still not half-way there, though good for 8th on the Active list, where Kershaw is the youngest Pitcher in the top 10.

Subspecies? For a star like this, there should be little surprise that he appears on numerous Topps checklists, annually, including the Sea Turtle versions of Opening Day and Chrome. Although I would never expect a Pitcher to feature on a "Great Catch" themed card, there is one Short Print variant of this card, inserted with Series Two, of the "Autographs" aka "Fan Interaction" type. I have yet to 'collect' one of those.

2013 Topps Chrome also delivers a Kershaw photo variation card featuring a post-At Bat return to the dugout, which is so scarce I hesitate to guess how many times "super" should be repeated before the "short" appellation.

There is also an autographed version of this very card, issued with a sticker auto as part of the customer loyalty 'Wrapper Redemption' packs in the winter of 2013. It is numbered to /35 and I seriously doubt I will ever see one of those with my own eyes, let alone be able to afford one if one were ever for sale, ever again.

Later in the set, Kershaw will make a very nice cameo on another player's card, which is reminiscent of this card, from the 5 card checklist issued with All-Star edition of the Factory Set, which I do have:

This is an interesting card in a couple ways. As we know from the back of the card, Kershaw had pitched 2 Complete Games in 2012, and normally these 'Battery Mate' photos on baseball cards are taken at the end of a game. 

However this picture has a specific visual clue - what appears to be a memorial type ribbon on Kershaw's left breast. This is highly likely to be the Sandy Hook / Newtown, CT memorial patch worn by all teams for one game, after the terrible school shooting in December, 2012. Here is an example:

The one game? That was on Opening Day, April 1st, 2013. It is basically horrifying that such a tragedy can lead me to using this kind of clue to identify the specific date of a photograph on a baseball card and is unfortunate I couldn't have done this more simply with some Opening Day bunting in the background or something.

Nonetheless, that does reveal that the All-Star Game set special card is probably the first Sea Turtle card issued to actually use a photograph from the 2013 regular season. And Baseball Reference, as handy as ever, reveals that this is indeed a Complete Game Win celebration shot, much like the #4 - Yadier Molina card, as on Opening Day of the 2013 season, Clayton Kershaw pitched a 4 hit Shutout of the visiting San Francisco Giants, which is just about the most perfect way Dodgers fans could want a season to open.

Bling That Shell Picking a parallel for this particular card was an easy decision that came at the start of the project, and a lucky one, as I would certainly not want to attempt to purchase one. I pulled this one from a pack:

#9 - Dee Gordon

What’s that Turtle doin’? This is another long-time standard live action baseball card image - a middle infielder attempting to create a Double Play.

Fortunately for the card, Oakland wore their Home Alternate, solid color uniforms that day, supplying this card with a helpful extra dollop of primary bright color.

One potential color missing here is the classic red of the Uni # the Dodgers wear, blocked by Dee's glove. His glove does pleasantly line up with the "Los Angeles" of the road uniform. Although half of all MLB teams are wearing a road uniform in every game, by no means do road uniforms supply half of all baseball card action shots, which is definitely for the better. But for the sake of assembling a team set each year, it is always nice to have at least one card with a well executed road uni shot.

Uniform Hero? Yep. Dee Gordon has worn #9 for his entire career.

Where’d the egg hatch? Gordon was drafted by the Dodgers in the 4th round in 2008. He debuted in L.A. in 2011, when he received one of the more bodacious RC logo Rookie Cards of the 2010s, in 2011 Topps Update.

How about the migrations? Dee played for the Dodgers through 2014, when he had his best season in L.A., playing 148 games and leading the League in Steals for the first time with 64, and Triples with 12. Despite that, he was traded to Miami Marlins after the season. In Miami his career blossomed significantly and he led the NL in Steals once again - and Batting Average at .338.

At the beginning of the 2016 season, his 2nd in Miami, he was suspended for 80 games for failing a test for PEDs, supplying a bit of irony to his checklist position adjacent to Ryan Braun.

At the end of the 2016 season, he hit probably one of the most famous Home Runs in Marlins franchise history, in the team's first At Bat after learning of the previous day's death of their young Ace Jose Fernandez. The next year he again led the NL in Steals and hit over .300, but was traded to Seattle for 3 prospects after the season, in the midst of a deep re-build in Miami.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

It is always nice to read of Major Leaguers of the past on a card back, even when mentioned somewhat obliquely.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 56 stolen bases, Gordon is 1,350 away from Rickey Henderson's all-time record of 1,406.

This is our first consideration of the Henderson record, and an apt choice for a Dee Gordon card, even this early in his career. But I do not think we will see this particular "Chase" considered often in the set.

Gordon has since led the NL in Steals three times and a current card would be well lit up with various League Leads in Italics.

At the conclusion of play in 2018, Dee has stolen 308 bases and is 31 years old.

Subspecies? Gordon is our first player who does not appear in either 2013 Opening Day or Chrome, making this a unique card in the Topps pantheon. Except, of course, for the parallels....

Bling That Shell The first binder page is filling up now, and it is time for a classic Topps selection - the Gold parallel, numbered to the year of the set: