Connor Wong had a big game today. He had four hits in four at-bats with two home runs and three RBIs. We will see if he gets a Topps Now card tomorrow.
Anyway, here are a bunch of the 2024 Topps parallels. The first one is the True Photo variation. These are not serial-numbered, so I am not sure how rare they are. The second is the Holiday Rabbits parallel, serial-numbered to 50. The third is the Independence Day, serial-numbered to 76. And the fourth is the black parallel, numbered to 73.
Today's post is some rando stuff that I've gotten in recently, along with a blaster break.
Up first is a two-card TCDB trade with some boxed oddball cards from the 1980's:
1. Wade Boggs. Unfortunately, I was not collecting at the height of the oddball craze in the 1980's when you could walk into Rite-Aid and pick up a special box of cards. So, I still have to work to find some of these things.
2. Mike Greenwell. Greenwell was once one of the brightest young stars in the game and looked like a superstar for years to come. After 1988 though he just sort of settled into being a good, occasionally very good, player. He still hit .303 for his career, which is often overlooked.
Up next is a blaster of 2024 Topps:
1. Masataka Yoshida. Yoshida started off the season a little slowly, but has started getting it going in recent days.
2. Ceddanne Rafaela. Rafaela signed an extension shockingly. His defense has been terrific, but there have been some growing pains offensively. He's a bit of a free swinger, which is a bit problematic. We will see where that leads. He will likely settle in at shortstop for this season.
3. Kenley Jansen. He has had a couple of rough outings but seems to be stabilizing. I still think he is going to get traded.
1. Keith Foulke. This was a one-card deal that got me a jersey relic of Boston's closer for the 2004 season. That season he was 5-3 with a 2.17 ERA, 79 strikeouts against 15 walks in 83 innings, and saving 32 games. Unfortunately, he was never again a reliable closer, but he made a big impact in 2004.
1. Trevor Story. Unfortunately, one of my big predictions for the year will not come true. Story suffered a season-ending shoulder injury a couple weeks ago. I really thought he was going to be healthy this season and turn in a 20/20, Gold Glove season.
2. Manny Ramirez. Ramirez is still playing professional baseball in Asia and just hit a home run the other day. He says he is not officially retired.
3. Bobby Dalbec. One of my more negative predictions was that Dalbec would be released by the Red Sox. That hasn't happened yet, but considering he has just one hit in 32 plate appearances with 18 strikeouts, it probably is not far off.
4. J.D. Martinez. Martinez had a bounceback season last year with the Dodgers but has yet to play for the Mets this season.
5. Alex Verdugo. I expect his tenure with the Yankees to be short. I just do not see him enjoying the much more strict clubhouse culture of the Yankees. He's not playing great right now either.
McCarty was a member of the 2004 World Champion Red Sox, hitting .258/.327/.404 with four home runs in 89 games as a bench player and even had a 2.45 ERA in 3.2 innings with four strikeouts. He was a top prospect for the Twins in the early 1990's but just never seemed to find his way into regular playing time. He also played with the Giants, Mariners, Royals, Devil Rays and A's. He spent his last three seasons with the Red Sox from 2003 to 2005. I always liked McCarty and he was a subject of my Unknown Heroes series.
The next couple of packages were a couple of the 2024 Topps parallel cards. This is the Orange Crackle Foil and the Aqua parallels. Wong has started the year off fairly well. As of today, he is hitting .342/.333/.605 with three home runs and eight RBIs. For awhile there it looked like Reese McGuire was going to overtake Wong for playing time, but that has changed this week. Wong had a really bad game defensively last week, but seems to have come back around.
I am way behind. I have a long way to catch up. I have spent a bunch of time lately getting all of my Red Sox cards into binders, something I have been neglecting for about the last three years or so. But recently, my parents gave me the card collections of my brothers (who did not want them) and I picked up three binders that I could use for my cards. So, here we are. This is two of the recent TCDB packages.
1. Ellis Burks. Burks is one of those players that has much better numbers than I remember. For his career, he hit .291/.363/.510 with 352 home runs, 1,206 RBIs and 2,107 hits. Those are some very impressive career numbers.
2. Dwight Evans. A lot of Evans's numbers are even better than those of Burks. He hit .272/.370/.470 with 385 home runs, 1,384 RBIs and 2,446 hits. Given that he played in a much weaker offensive time period and has eight Gold Gloves to his name makes him a good candidate for the Hall of Fame.
3. Coco Crisp. I remember when Boston acquired Crisp, he looked like a younger version of Johnny Damon. Injuries slowed him down in 2006 and he was basically an average player in his three years in Boston. Good, but not what he was expected to be.
4. Alexi Ogando. Here's a guy that people probably forget spent time in Boston. He was 3-1 with a 3.99 ERA as a reliever with the Red Sox in 2015.
5. David Price. Price's contract is probably largely a bust, but he was a massive part of their 2018 World Championship. I still believe he should have been the World Series MVP, going 2-0 in three games with a 1.98 ERA, ten strikeouts and six walks in 14 innings pitched.
6. Garrett Whitlock. Whitlock is still Boston's greatest acquisition in the Rule 5 Draft even though he has been mostly inconsistent since his amazing season in 2021. He is a part of the rotation this season and has been pretty good until an injury last night.
7. David Ortiz. This is a shot of Ortiz delivering his terrific speech after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, an event that solidified Ortiz as a folk hero. This was one of his greatest moments.
8. Caleb Hamilton. Yeah, this card features several other players, but Hamilton is the only one I care about. This was a short print from last year's Heritage. Hamilton played in five games in 2023 for Boston and was hitless (though he did walk once) in six plate appearances.
1. Jon Lester. Lester will be on the Hall of Fame ballot for 2027. He has an interesting case, enhanced by postseason success and intriguing storylines such as his cancer fight and helping the Cubs win their first World Series in over a century.
2. Chris Sale. Sale's Red Sox stint started off so well, but he has been absolutely wrecked by injuries since 2018.
3. David Price.
4. Xander Bogaerts. Padres fans are already complaining about Bogaerts. It's going to be a difficult contract for him to live up to.
5. J.D. Martinez. Martinez is going to be with the Mets this season, but has yet to play a game for them.
6. Jeff McNeely. I remember when McNeely was a major Red Sox prospect. He was going to be the fastest player on the team since Tommy Harper. Well, he was fast, stealing six bases in just 21 Major League games. I don't really know why he never got another shot. He hit .297/.409/.378 in his only shot with Boston, but he had a rough year in the minors in 1994 and then was traded to the Cardinals in the Luis Alicea deal and never made it back.
7. Julio Lugo. Lugo was another fast Red Sox player. He led the team with 33 stolen bases in 2007, but a 65 OPS+ and being an adventure on defense caused the team to look for other options at shortstop.
8. Adrian Gonzalez. Gonzalez was definitely the offensive force Boston wanted when they finally acquired him, hitting .338/.410/.548 with 27 home runs, 117 RBIs and a league-leading 213 hits. But he was not the clubhouse leader he was expected to be and caused some issues that led to him being packaged in the giant Dodgers deal in 2012.
I am way behind again. I haven't been posting much because work is busy. I will try to eventually catch back up.
Up first is a Zippy-Zapping:
This is a TTM auto of former Red Sox prospect Cole Brannen. Brannen was Boston's second-round pick in the 2017 draft, the one in which current starter Tanner Houck was the team's first-round choice. Brannen made it to High-A ball, but never hit higher than .231 and never developed any power. It just did not work out for him and he was released in Spring of 2022.
Thanks for the card Kenny!
I do this occasionally. Actually, I'm not even sure if I can say that. I know I have done it before. Maybe a couple times. Anyway, here is the Red Sox Opening Day Roster for 2024 along with some predictions. A lot of my predictions are somewhat positive. I really do think this team has some good, young talent. This is a year to determine what it is that they have and supplement it going forward. I do not think this team will contend, but they will win some games. I do think they will be active during the trading period, hopefully bringing in young pitching.
