4 Perfect Prospecting Pointers For Prognosticators!
Patrick Imhoff shares a handful of great tips for baseball card collectors looking to add great Bowman 1st prospect cards to their collection!
Each Happy Hobby Sports Card Newsletter For Collectors has a handful of great sports card subjects, helping sports card collectors working with limited budgets!
This Week’s Newsletter Highlights!
⚾ PATRICK’S “4 PRIME PROSPECTING POINTERS!”
⚾ BASEBALL CARD TRIVIA!
🏈 CARDS THAT MAKE US HAPPY!
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⚾ PATRICK’S “4 PRIME PROSPECTING POINTERS!”
Happy Hobbyist Patrick Imhoff shares several tips to help you find the best deals to build the collection you want.
1. Know Your Minor League Ballparks!
Ballparks can either be hitter friendly or pitcher friendly. A top hitting prospect that is struggling may just be playing in a pitcher-friendly park. When sellers sour on this player, this is when you strike. The next promotion for that player may be to a hitter’s park where they can truly shine.
2. Former 1st-Round Draft Picks
Revisit some of the recent drafts and see which players appear to be struggling. Guys taken in Round 1 usually have tons of tools and lots of potential. Not everyone shines immediately, especially the high school picks. A 21-year-old former 1st- round pick that is still in High Class A ball is still on pace to be a solid star, even if they spent three years in Class A. Consider this: They are still ahead of some college draftees. Look for players other collectors have lost patience with and given up on.
3. Keep an Eye on MLB Rosters
Who is playing shortstop on your favorite team? Is it an All-Star locked up for 10 years or is it a depth player on a one-year contract? This makes a big difference when looking at prospects in that organization. A shortstop in Triple-A or Double-A that has good numbers has a path to the big leagues and a much better shot at a callup on the team with the guy on the one-year deal.
4. Know How Big-League Clubs Spend Money
There is a difference between the Dodgers and the Pirates. The Dodgers sign the best free agents available, making their prospects a little bit less valuable to them. The Pirates need their prospects to hit, and they will get every chance to play in the big leagues, which makes them a little bit more valuable.
Every other week,
shares, “Patrick’s Prime Prospect Picks,” where he chooses a 1st Bowman card with possible upside!⚾ BASEBALL CARD TRIVIA!
Send me the answer to this question – you could win this free card from me: 1993 Topps Stadium Club Emmitt Smith #85!
Which card manufacturer was initially known as American Leaf Tobacco Company, before becoming a chewing gum manufacturer?
Email your answer to gonoscards@gmail.com and you can win this 1993 Topps Stadium Club Emmitt Smith #85 card! Rather than take the first person who answers it right, I’m going to do a random drawing of all the people who answer this question before midnight, Friday, May 9. The winner will be announced in the May 15 newsletter.
From April 24 newsletter: Which MLB player was the first to get a second Topps Living card? Answer this question before midnight, Friday, May 2. The winner will also be announced in the May 15 newsletter.
From April 17 newsletter: Since Bowman had the rights to baseball cards with gum in the packs in 1951, Topps believed they could avoid a lawsuit if they packaged their 1951 Topps cards with what other type of candy? Answer: Taffy/Caramel Candy. Prize: 2010 Topps Jackie Robinson Vintage All-Time Legends #VLC12 in that classic 1976 Topps design! The winner will be announced in the May 15 newsletter.
🏈 CARDS THAT MAKE US HAPPY! 1984 Topps John Elway #63
Outside of the fact John Elway’s rookie card is the keystone card of the 1984 Topps Football set, the card itself is just a pleasure to look at!
The 1984 Topps Football design has great angles and awesome colors for each team that really stand out (especially for the Dolphins cards, in my opinion, which is great news for Dan Marino, Mark Duper and Dwight Stephenson’s rookie cards). I also love that the name sits atop the card – as you’re opening a pack, you might see the name first, which is unusual. Elway’s rookie card is tough to grade because of defects and centering, as there are only 191 PSA 10s on PSA’s population report.
Outside of the 1986 Topps Football set, with the slanted white yard lines across the green borders (see Jerry Rice RC), I believe the 1984 set is the next-best design of the ‘80s.
Elway’s photo might seem weird/boring, but he’s one of the more recognized footballers from that era, so I’m glad it’s not a helmeted photo. He also seems to be flicking his fingers, like, “Gimme that football – I’ll show you a deep ball!”
Of course, this card could’ve looked much different if he agreed to play for the Baltimore Colts, who drafted him first overall in the famous 1983 NFL Draft. Elway didn’t want to play for the Colts, so he threatened to pursue a baseball career with the Yankees, who had drafted him just a couple years earlier. Remember, rookie cards used to come out the year after they were drafted. It would be a few more years before a player’s rookie card came out in the same year he was drafted. (Maybe 1989, when the Lions drafted Barry Sanders with the third overall pick, followed by 1989 Score and 1989 Pro Set coming out with Barry Sanders rookie cards in the same year.)
This Elway card and the 1984 Topps Football set also brings to mind what could have been. What if the USFL never existed. Or at least, what if the 1984 Topps USFL set was combined with the 1984 Topps NFL set? Topps had combined the ABA and NBA cards of the early ‘70s into one set, including my all-time favorite basketball card set ever: 1972 Topps Basketball.
If Topps combined the 1984 NFL and USFL sets into one, we could have had a set that included rookie cards of these superstars:
John Elway, QB, Denver (HOF)
Dan Marino, QB, Miami (HOF)
Jim Kelly, QB, Buffalo (HOF)
Steve Young, QB, San Francisco (HOF)
Eric Dickerson, RB, L.A. Rams (HOF)
Roger Craig, RB, San Francisco
Herschel Walker, RB, Dallas
Jim Covert, OL, Chicago (HOF)
Russ Grimm, OL, Washington (HOF)
Dwight Stephenson, OL, Miami (HOF)
Jackie Slater, OL, L.A. Rams (HOF)
Reggie White, DL, Philadelphia (HOF)
Howie Long, DL, L.A. Raiders (HOF)
Rickey Jackson, LB, New Orleans (HOF)
Darrell Green, DB, Washington (HOF)
Morten Anderson, K, New Orleans (HOF)
What could have been! Also, check out this awesome video of when my wife gave me two packs of 1984 Topps Football, and I pulled two Hall-of-Famers from the list above – including a guy whose name rhymes with Schmohn Schmelway!
Coming Next Week!
⚾ BATTLE “PARALLEL FATIGUE” WITH A NEW VINTAGE PROJECT!
⚾ PATRICK’S ROOKIE CARD TIPS!
⚾ BASEBALL CARD TRIVIA!
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Podcast Music: "I dunno" by grapes - 2008 - Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (3.0)
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Patrick is the Prospect guru! Great pointers here, these go beyond the stat line which may be deceiving such as a park which favors pitchers.
Excellent, Patrick! Those are some great points. I downloaded the MiLB app before spring training ended and have been casually watching live minor league games featuring the Mets’ farm teams. I recently watched Mets prospect Carson Benge, whose Bowman 1st card I own, record his first four-hit game. That app is another fantastic way to keep track of players.