I am going to start this mailday post off with a rant about the Platinum Glove. Ostensibly, the Platinum Glove is an award for the best defensive player in the league. That's the idea anyway. I did not know this coming into this offseason, but apparently the Platinum Glove is determined by a fan vote entirely out of the year's Gold Glove winners. Which means it's a damn popularity contest. This year's winners were Bobby Witt Jr. and Fernando Tatis Jr. Easily the two most popular players among the Gold Glove winners. Witt won it over Ceddanne Rafaela. Witt was definitely a great defensive player and this is probably not the worst of outcomes, but Rafaela was better. Tatis though, should not have won over players like Pete Crow-Armstrong or Patrick Bailey. If Rawlings wants this award to be taken seriously as the singular best defensive player in each league, it needs to remove the fan voting aspect of it, or at the very least diminish it.
With that, we dive into the mailday post.
At last. After another copy of this card simply disappeared into the ether shortly after leaving Miami, FL and I accidentally bought the Sky Blue parallel to replace it, I have the card I should have gotten. Still no idea what the hell happened to the first copy. There has simply been no update since Oct. 1. But now I have one, so I am not as concerned.
Up next is the first of five TCDB trades, so this will not be just a Rafaela post.
1. Nick Robertson. This trade was made up of Rainbow Foil parallels from last year's Topps. Mostly lesser players. Robertson was one of the pitchers acquired when Boston traded Enrique Hernandez back to the Dodgers. He pitched in nine games with a 6.00 ERA, striking out 13 and walking five in 14 innings. He was then traded to the Cardinals for Tyler O'Neill.
2. Nick Pivetta. Pivetta finally had the breakout season I have long thought him capable of. Unfortunately, it happened with the Padres. I will always recall his unhinged antics during the 2021 postseason. He was a lot of fun to watch. I wish he could have achieved more success in Boston.
3. Joe Jacques. Jacques pitched parts of two seasons with the Red Sox, going 2-1 with a 5.08 ERA. He most recently pitched with the Diamondbacks.
4. Chris Murphy. Murphy has now pitched parts of two seasons with the Red Sox and is still with the team. In 43 games, he has pitched 82.1 innings with a 4.15 ERA. He was better this year. It will be interesting to see if he has an expanded role next season.
5. Brandon Walter. I have mentioned before that I always seem to add Murphy and Walter at the same time. The difference is that Walter is now with the Astros and pitched in nine games with Houston in 2025.
6. Kenley Jansen. Currently holding 476 career saves, Jansen wants to keep going for a few more years. I am not sure I see that happening. He did have a 2.59 ERA this season, so at least one more year is certainly possible.
7. Kutter Crawford. Crawford is at a crossroads. He will be 30 years old in 2026. I still think he can be a valuable pitcher, but he may be better off as a long reliever.
Next is trade number two:
1. Roman Anthony. I am so excited to see what Anthony can do in a full Major League season. In just 71 games, he hit .292/.396/.463 with 18 doubles, eight home runs, 32 RBIs and four stolen bases. He had 3.1 bWAR, which is very impressive given he played less than half the season. He is about to explode in my collection. It's not imminent, but it is definitely coming.
2. Roman Anthony. This card gets me up to 11.
3. David Ortiz. Ortiz is probably going to make a run for the second-largest player in my Red Sox collection. He is still a little over a hundred cards fewer than Nomar Garciaparra, but he gets a lot more cards made still.
4. Ceddanne Rafaela. It is always fun to add Rafaela cards in trades.
5. Wilyer Abreu. Abreu is finally starting to get to a more appropriate number of cards in my collection. Probably just in time for him to be traded.
Trade number three:
1. David Ortiz. This card puts me at 792 cards.
2. Trevor Story. Story opted in to his contract for next season. He had a good year, joining the 20/20 club. He made a lot of concerning errors down the stretch though. It will be interesting to see where he plays with Marcelo Mayer in the mix.
3. Kristian Campbell. Campbell had a great first month of the season, but then went into a deep funk that he never really got out of, even in the minors. I am not sure what the team has with him, but I want to see him fit in next season along with Mayer and Anthony.
4. Mookie Betts. I missed a bunch of these insert cards from 2019. I may need to revisit these.
Trade number four will take up two scans:
1. Mookie Betts. Here is another of those inserts. No, this was not intentional, it just worked out this way.
2. Tommy Pham. I talked about Pham yesterday, so no need to rehash anything here.
3. Wilyer Abreu. My second Abreu this week.
4. Ted Williams. It is so nice to see a photo that hasn't been used a million times.
5. Trevor Story.
6. Wilyer Abreu. My third Abreu puts him at 20 cards in my collection.
7. Rafael Devers. Devers ended his Red Sox career with 215 home runs. I still cannot believe he is no longer on the team. I am still pissed about it.
8. Carlos Narvaez. Narvaez had a really nice rookie season, hitting 15 home runs with a line of .241/.306/.419.
9. Connor Wong. I have definitely slowed down on Wong, but I still grab cards occasionally. I still really like him, I am just trying to mentally prepare for him not to be on the team anymore. Maybe I will be wrong. I hope.
10. Connor Wong.
11. Rafael Devers.
I did not get a ton of Ceddanne Rafaela cards this week, but he was still more than anyone else. Here are a couple of 2024 Panini Prizm parallels and a Sapphire Selections insert.
The final TCDB trade is next:
This trade added two Rafaela cards and a Wong.
And closing things out with a couple more Rafaela cards. I bought these just after finding out that he was awarded the Gold Glove. I think he should have won the Platinum Glove, but it did not work out that way.
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