Package from Too many Verlanders

 When I got home from work today, I got a surprise package in the mail from Dennis of Too many Verlanders fame. 

About 2 weeks ago, Dennis posted some stuff he got from FB Marketplace, including some trade bait cards, which are included here. First, before I show off the cards, I have to mention that bloggers are the good guys in the hobby, and out of those, Dennis is probably one of the best. He included not only the 3 cards I asked for from the last post, not only a bunch of Rays (he always sends nice cards of favorite teams to guys who are team collectors), but also went the extra effort to look at my Ultimate Topps Project wantlist and knock some cards off of my lists. 

The '04 MLB Showdown Rey Sanchez is my first card from that set from any team. The '05 Bowman BJ Upton relic would've been a hot card back in 2005, and I think because I'm a Rays fan, I still get excited when I get hits/rookies/autographs of Rays guys who have long been discarded into the commons bin. The '08 Topps Moments & Milestones cards must've come from the aforementioned purchase, as I remember seeing some cards from that set in the post. The '08 Upper Deck First Pitch cards might get me finished with the set, I still need to enter my non-Topps Rays to TCDB. 

The 2 Derrick Gibson E-XL cards and the Edwin Moreno autograph were the requested cards. Why do you collect 2 nobodys like them, you ask? Well, Derrick was a huge guy who hit a ton of HRs in the minors in the '90's, but never panned out like I thought he would. In a game I attended, Moreno pitched a no-hitter through 6 or so innings in the 2002 Florida State League Championship Series, and I got a game-used ball from the game, and got him to sign it. One of the most dominating pitching performances I've seen in person. The 1996 Topps cards got me within 27 cards of completing that set, or re-completing it, I should say. As with a number of these sets, I got many cards from them autographed ttm or at games I attended, and when I decided to sell my autographed cards, I ended up breaking up a number of complete sets that I had purchased. Good news is that I did some preliminary looking on cardbarrel.com, and a number of cards can be had for a few nickels each, and I think that might be the way to go. 

Checking out the back of the '96 Topps Andy Benes made me realize how good the 1995 Mariners were. Benes got traded to the Mariners late that year, and went 7-2 for the team, but had an ERA close to 6!  That has to be some kind of record, and just shows what you can do with an offense that features a prime Griffey, A-Rod, Edgar Martinez, Tino Martinez, Jay Buhner, and Paul Sorrento. Not that Benes was a bad pitcher, as he led the NL in K's the year before, but the AL must've had his number in '95. 

The 2002 Topps set is a fun one, which could be one of the first ones I try to complete. The main set shouldn't be too difficult as I have most of Series 1 & 2 (missing 265 cards). The Traded set is going to be a tad tricky. I'm 126 cards short, but the first 110 cards are SPs. I think I have all of the key rookies, so I just need to find any of the SP cards in Chrome versions, as they aren't SPs. They might be a tad more expensive than a normal common, though. I still think I might try to complete it, just because it brings back so many memories from the height of my card collecting in college, and I know so many of the players. 

A number of these cards are also guys I collect, so as a bonus, I not only add cards to my player collections, but I knock cards off of sets as well. Such is the case for Chris Johnson and Corey Kluber. The '12 Topps set has been a challenge for me to list needs on TCDB because all of Series 1 has error and corrected versions of every card. I will have to go in there an manually uncheck variations from some of these sets, which is a royal pain. Darn error/variation collectors!

The set that had the most cards was 2015 Topps. I'm 223 cards away from finishing it, which is a pretty low number, since 2015 was when I kind of got back into really collecting after getting married in 2012. Also included were some of the 2015 Update set, which is 134 cards away from being done, but with some of the rookies, it might take a while. I did get a fairly big one crossed off, as Dennis included the Joey Gallo Rookie Debut card. The Kolten Wong card is an SP, which if not for TCDB, I would've never known. 

The last group includes mainly 2016 Topps/Topps Update, with a stray '18 Topps card at the end. '16 Topps is 247 away from getting done, while the '18 set is only 97 from being finished. Not surprising, as I definitely purchased more packs in 2018. Ah, the good old days of collecting before Covid and flipper brah's. 

I have some cards set aside for Dennis (and a few other bloggers) that I will be adding to and sending off in the near future. Thanks for the great package, Dennis. I will hit you back soon.

I'm hoping to go the main card shop around town and browse for cards I need as well as some trade bait. It seems like there are shops popping up all over town. There is Pops, the main one I go to. There is one, I believe called Premiere Sportscards, in Orange City, which is the one I went to a few days ago.  Then there are a few I haven't been to. One within walking distance of my house, which looks like it might mainly be Pokemon crap. Those 3 have been around the longest, each for 5+years. Of the newer ones, there is one about 2 miles away called 'Gem Mint Cards', which I will probably avoid like the plague just because of the name. Finally, there is another 1 or 2 in downtown DeLand. Seriously, ever since the pandemic, they have been popping up like crazy. 

Besides entering all of the cards Dennis got me into TCDB, I have finished the Cubs earlier today. That makes the Diamondbacks, Braves, Cubs, and Tigers all entered completely into TCDB. There may be a few stragglers of the first 3 teams, such as rookies, combo cards, parallels, jerseys, and the like, but basically I know what I need for each of those teams in any set thanks to TCDB. It is fun to see what players have the most cards, and I can't wait to analyze everything once each and every card is entered. I will keep entering cards until then. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy

2023 Bowman Platinum and LCS trip

 It’s getting the time of year where things start getting crazy around here. Usually, it’s the crazy volume at work due to the Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years holidays. This year, there are just more things we’ve been invited to and a whole new uncharted territory of having a kid that is a year older than last year. This year it seems like we have a ton of Halloween events instead of just the trick or treating that we had last year. We drove to an event about an hour away yesterday in order to meet up with my sister and brother-in-law, we had dinner at Kylers best Benny’s house at a Halloween themed night that Bennys parents threw, and went to another event at a church near their house beforehand. This week I think we might have 1 or 2 events as well. Throw in all these idiot bikers clogging up the roads for Biketoberfest (we’re 45 minutes away from Daytona Beach), Karen’s birthday tomorrow, and Kylers birthday 13 days after that, and I feel exhausted before the real crazy times even get here. 

On the bright side, there have been some chances to get cards during all of the chaos. I can’t even remember when it was, but we went to Wal-Mart at some point in the last week, and I was able to pick up a blaster of 2023 Bowman Platinum. Then a few days later, Karen got her hair done, and since it was so close to my work, Karens mom offered to pick up Kyler from school and watch him so we could grab an early dinner date. After I got off work, I still had some time to kill while Karens appointment was still going on, so I drove to the card shop near my work and killed an hour or so. I finally had my Topps wantlists, and although I didn’t think they would have too many old cards, I was pleasantly surprised. 

Unfortunately, I have cards from both trips combined so you’ll have the ‘23 Bowman Platinums in the same photos from the LCS trip. 

The LCS usually has mainly Pokémon crap and overpriced packs, but I am usually able to find parallels and stuff for my player collections, but while digging through boxes and letting the owner know what I was looking for, he dug out a box from the back of older cards. They don’t have many boxes in the store (only like 4 or 5), so I was really surprised he had this one. It contained ‘78 Topps cards, mostly in numerical order with 5-6 of each card, and some basketball and football cards thrown in. I was surprised to find that ‘78 Topps had checklists, so so nabbed the one I found. I found a few ‘80’s Topps cards of HOFers in other boxes, and I was stoked to find a floating heads Cubs team card. The Bowman Platinum have a cool design but many of the photos are tough to make the players face out on because it’s just a dark design on many teams. 

The ‘78 box had a number of team cards and managers which I scooped up as well. My favorite card from the trip was the 2007 Topps Barry Bonds. It is card #661, and is an SP. I opened a ton of that set in ‘07, and I can’t remember it’s exact story, whether it was included in the complete set or an SP added to the checklist late, but I noticed the card like the day before when I typed out my ‘07 Topps checklist for the blog, and then low and behold, I found it at the LCS the next day. 

While not a Yankees fan, I was happy to find the Billy Martin MGR card. I tried to limit my purchases of favorite players, Rays, and Tigers, but did find some fun ones. We met DeLand native Nick Fortes at a game in Washington in June, and I found 3 of his cards, including the ‘22 TSC. 

The Andrelton Simmons ‘16 Donruss parallel is really cool looking. Found some early Bowman Chrome Rays, a few parallels and rookies, and got lucky to pull a Taj Bradley in the ‘23 Bowman Platinum blaster. The ‘94 Triple Play Medalists card was one I couldn’t leave behind. Those cards were hot in ‘94 and I probably have 10 ‘94 Triple Play cards in my entire collection. I was surprised to find the ‘22 Royce Lewis rainbow and ‘22 Topps Chrome Witt in the boxes they were in as most of those cards were quarter and 50 cent ones. The whole stack of cards at the LCS was 30 bucks and I was happy with that, especially with the Bonds SP, a few rookies, parallels, and all of the ‘78’s. Heck, if I go by the TCDB ‘pricing’ thing, the David Freese ‘09 Topps was like 4 bucks (I’d maybe pay 50 cents for it). 

The Bowman Platinum blaster delivered a ton of keepers, probably 3/4 of the blaster for me. Some cards that I would assume are rookies as they all were drafted in 2022, a rookie of the top Rat-Bird hitter, and the 4 ice parallels per blaster. 

I got a bonus along with the 4 regular Ice parallels and pulled a green one of now Mets prospect Drew Gilbert, who was acquired from the ‘Stros in the Justin Verlander trade. I hope this parallel could turn out like the Blue one numbered to 150 that I pulled in a pack of ‘17 Bowman of some Acuna guy. 

The other 2 Nick Fortes cards I already have, but I know Jim (who I mentioned in the last post) needs. He actually texted me that evening after our dinner date and let me know he got my ‘21 Topps Logan Gilbert signed at the Stetson University banquet. Maybe on one of my days off, I’ll head over there and do some trading. 

I’ve been doing a little work on TCDB and have put in a number of my Braves non-Topps cards. I’m on the 1996 cards currently, and I might keep doing that project on off days and put the wantlists for the blog on hold, as I have an official one on TCDB. The site is really a game changer as far as knowing what you have and what you need. Problem is that I just have so much stuff. Dime Box Nick posted the other day that he has 90+binders. While every binder isn’t a 3 or 5 inch one, if I include 1 inch binders, I’m at 98 or so, with plenty of empty ones waiting for me to put cards from my monster boxes in. It might be 1-2 years before everything is put in the site, but it will be worth it. 

I have Monday and Tuesday off work, but Monday will be mostly busy and I plan to head out to Karens work and surprise her with flowers and lunch, and then pick up Kyler from school and have him do a card for her and probably clean the house up at some point as well. Tuesday will probably be the day to do card stuff and if I end up going to a shop, Jim’s house, or anything noteworthy, I might post about it then. 

I just need to find moments in between all of these commitments to relax and have some card time. Or wait til 2024….

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy

Topps commons questions

 I’ve been rapidly trying to make pages on here for each Topps set with my needs on them. It turns out generating wantlists on TCDB is very easy as long as you have all of your ‘haves’ put into the site, which I do. While I probably don’t need to have wantlists on here, I feel it makes it easier for guys who don’t use TCDB. I have 15-20 sets that I’ve finished the wantlists for, and it’s going to be a slow and arduous process in getting the rest up on here, as many sets I have have are probably 500-600 cards away from being complete. I will still keep plugging away at making the blog pages and posting them to my main Ultimate Topps Project page. 

I don’t know how long it will take to finish adding the wantlists to the page, but adding cards to my project is essentially doable now because I have all of the wantlists on my TCDB profile. In a few weeks, Ill be getting a nice check from work, basically 2 weeks worth of pay, and while we’ll probably use some of it for Christmas, bills, and the like, I’m hoping to knock some commons and maybe a few key rookies off of some of the lists. That leaves some questions which I need answers to. 

I plan to meet up with my friend Jim who collect Cardinals and autographs in the next few weeks. He had a slew of doubles, and now that I have some wantlists, I’ll happily try to take some off of his hands. He also will probably have a Logan Gilbert autograph for me as he will be trying to get  an autograph for me at a Stetson University baseball banquet near the end of this month. I’ve went to games in the past and got him stuff signed and it’s fun helping him get cards done and having him help me as well. A few weeks ago, one of my coworkers purchased a new car, and the guy doing the finance actually played in the minors in the 2000’s. I didn’t have any cards of him, but I let Jim know, and sure enough, he had one of his cards and actually had an appointment to get his car serviced there soon. He was able to get the card signed, which was cool. A few months before that, Jim was getting some rehab done on his knee, and the guy at the rehab place was a #1 draft pick for the Indians in 1993, and was on a 1992 Topps Traded team USA card. Jim was able to get him to sign a minor league card for me. It’s kind of funny the former pros you run into and I feel like autograph collectors just have a knack for it. However, that’s a topic for another post. It will be nice to see Jim and hook him up with some Cardinals and seeing what I can find in his dupes box. Perhaps I’ll take a trip to Ocala and do some trading with John as well in the coming weeks. 

I’ll probably update TCDB and my list after that and then look at doing some purchases. My question is what is the best site to purchase commons on?  I knew of Just Commons (which I believe is CardBarrel now) and Sport Lots, but are there any other sites where you can buy commons for nickels and dimes?  Is it just a pipe dream?  I grew up in the ‘90’s and most commons were a nickel or dime, and while inflation has raised prices, I just don’t get how some of these newer base Topps commons are going for 50 cents to a dollar. There are jokers on a junk era FB page trying to sell lots of stars with their basic Topps cards and junk era rookie cards for a dollar or two each. I just don’t get who is paying that kind of money for the cards. 

I’m trying to make a trade with a guy on the group. He sounds like your typical ‘collected in the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s, quit, and came back during Covid’ guy. He sounds like he’s going after current rookies and I think he’s into grading, which is fine if that’s your thing.  He has a ‘20 Topps Gold Randy Arozarena (Cardinals uni), a 2019 Topps Chrome x-fractor autograph of Brandon Lowe, and 38 or so commons off of my lists from 1987-1990 Topps. He’s asking for current rookies. I have an extra ‘18 Topps Update Ronald Acuna card, so I offered it but asked if there are any Tigers or a few more commons to sweeten up the deal. 

I feel like Acuna could be a once in a generation player who had a historic season, and has the potential to be in the HOF. Lowe is a streaky hitter who has been injured the past 2 years, and while Arozarena has had some good seasons, both aren’t on the level of Acuna. I’m pretty sure he’s going to grade the Acuna, and even if it is an 8 it’s going to increase the value. I’m not going to grade the Acuna, or the Lowe or Arozarena if I get them. It’s just not me. Bottom line, Acuna isn’t worth less than a stack of commons and the Gold Randy and Lowe autographed xfractor no matter how low they are numbered.

 I offered a ‘18 Topps Update Juan Soto rookie which I think is more of the level of a fair trade, but he declined. Now he wants me to throw in some parallels with the Acuna, but I still think he’s getting the better end of the deal and doesn’t have a real grasp on the value of any of the cards involved. Perhaps I don’t, but I think the stats and injury history back up my reasoning. 

So my questions. What’s a fair trade for the Gold Randy, Lowe auto, and stack of commons?  What sites can I get cheap commons from?  Any other sites besides Card Barrel or Sport Lots?  Do I scour eBay for starter sets and hope for no dupes? 

I’ll probably make some trades on TCDB once I get more and more of my stuff in the site, and maybe that’s the best move. Slowly but surely I will get this project rolling and knock cards/sets off of my list. Thanks in advance for the help. 

Thanks for taking the time to check out my latest post and answer my common questions. 

-Jeremy

All of my Topps are logged into TCDB

This afternoon, I was able to finish logging in the final Topps card of the evil Yankee$ into TCDB and finally get a grasp on how many complete Topps sets I have. The results were a tad surprising. 

The site shows I am between 50-100 cards short of a few sets, which I figured. Other ones surprised me and showed I was a handful short. A few are probably just due to missing a checkbox or two, and I expect to remedy that soon as I will be jotting down a list of a few cards that I think I have and going through boxes/binders in search of them. Others show that I purchased sets that I hoped were complete but were 1-10 cards short. No big deal, I will just have to find those cards in a dime box, get through trades, or purchase online somewhere. 

The next part will be going through each Topps and Topps Traded/Update set that is not complete and marking each one I don’t have so it will go on my wantlist. From there, I’ll make a page for each set on here, and type out a wantlist, as well as providing a link to TCDB on each page. 

 

I have started a PAGE with each Topps set listed. Each set will eventually have a link to its own page on my blog with needed cards listed and the aforementioned TCDB wantlist link. Hope that’s not to confusing to follow, but just visit the page and click on a few links and see what I mean. 

While not earth shattering, TCDB says I have completed the 1985-1989 Topps Traded sets, the 1991-1993 Topps base sets (including the 1991 and 1992 Traded sets), 1995 Topps, and the 2019-2023 Topps base sets (including the 2019-2022 Update sets). Those were sets I hoped would be complete since I purchased them completed, but as this exercise has taught me, you can’t take that for granted. 

I’ll start getting some of these wantlists for Topps sets finished and posted to the main page, and get more non-Topps (meaning probably cards I’m willing to trade) uploaded to TCDB. It’s going to be fun to be able to bring wantlists to card shops and the like and be able to easily see what I need. Might be time for a trip to the LCS in a few weeks. It’s also going to be fun to input non-Topps stuff into the site. In a year or so it’s really going to pay off and I will be able to see how many junk wax sets I actually have completed or very close to complete. Thanks for following this project so far. 

-Jeremy

Same stuff, different day

 It seems like while waiting for the final baseball card products to hit the shelves in retail stores that the same products are being stocked at Wal-Mart, Target, and the like. For me, it generally means ‘23 Allen & Ginter, ‘23 Topps Chrome, and discounted blasters of ‘22 Bowman Platinum, ‘22 Topps Heritage High Number, and ‘22 Topps Gallery. With the itch to open packs being great sometimes, that means that I’ve opened some of the same products multiple times recently. Since I don’t really care for Ginter, I’ve opened a good amount of ‘22 Heritage High Number, and don’t think there will be many Rays or Tigers in ‘22 Gallery, that means you’ve been getting many posts about ‘22 Bowman Platinum and ‘23 Topps Chrome. And you’ll be getting more today….

We recently made 2 trips to Wally World, and I picked up blasters of both of them. While not earth shattering, I think each blaster delivered in different ways. Let’s start with the ‘22 Bowman Platinum. 

A few of the base cards have already been pulled in previous blasters, but I won’t know for sure until I put these in my monster boxes of cards to be put in binders. 

Where this box really hit for me was the Rays and Tigers. Shane Baz will be back for 2024, and there’s still hope for him to become the ace that he was becoming in 2022. His card could come in handy then. I feel Brujan is just going to be a bench guy bouncing from team to team, and the last guy may not be in MLB much longer. Should the worst happen, I’m probably not going to go out of the way to acquire his cards, but if they come to me via trades I probably won’t pitch them. Yankee fans still accept cards of John Wetteland, Mel Hall, and Chad Curtis, right?  Not that the Rays have much room to talk. I think when the final verdict comes out on Franco, I’m going to do a post about the Rays and some of the questionable players they have employed and ask the question why. 

Back to the cards, the Torkelson and Jobe cards are nice ones that will go to my rookie card binders since I already have copies for my Tiger ones. I also pulled nice rookies of CJ Abrams, annoying Phillie Brandon Marsh and his teammate Bryson Stott. I was hoping Marsh would be able to afford a beard cut and haircut with the NL Champion prize money, but I guess not. Only 4 Ice Parallels and no numbered parallels today, but it was an ‘A’ last name hot box with Alonso, Alvarez, and Aguilar being 3 last names of the 4 that I pulled. 

The Chrome box was less of a box that catered to my collection needs, but it still had some good cards. I only got 2 Rat-Bird cards out of the blasters, but their Game 1 loss and 9-2 score presently in the top of the 4th makes that all better. Won’t make the Rays loss better, but if the AL playoffs go the way they have this round, I’d be fine. I’d love to see the Rangers, Astros, Braves, and Diamondbacks advance with the Rangers winning it all, but mark my words, the Rangers, Astros, Braves and Dodgers will advance with the Braves beating the Astros 4 games to 2. It would be nice to see new blood win it all, and everyone besides Texas has won a title, and all but Arizona, Philly, Baltimore, Minnesota, and Texas have won in the past 3 seasons. With Philly, Baltimore, and LA on my crap list for beating Tampa in the World Series or this year’s playoffs, and Minnesota being on it for being a thorn in Detroit’s side, it doesn’t leave too many teams to root for even if I don’t care about having a new team winning. 

No really big name rookies, although Bello seems like he could be good for Boston and I like Montero for Arizona. Grissom could be a fixture for Atlanta, although he disappointed this season. Alvarez also seems like he is a nice hitter for New York, so his might be a good pull as well. The refractors were generally a disappointment, with an unknown rookie for the A’s, a sepia refractor of Michael Massey that is somehow a double after only 3 blasters (!!!), a Tatis (Padre$ suck!), and a Twin. The pink ones are fine with me. I was really hoping Seattle would get in the playoffs this year, and they would’ve been my dark horse to win it all this year. They’ll be in it the next few years. Raleigh looks like he’ll be a nice catcher for them. Marte wasn’t a bad pull either, just never been a fan/hater of either the Mets or Marte, but I’ll take it over a Yankee/Padre/Rat-Bird/Twin/Guardian any day. 

The other card that intrigues me some is the Ohtani card. I’ve busted a few Chrome blasters the last 2 years, but haven’t pulled any guys for the MVP promotion, but Ohtani might have a chance to win the award this year. Maybe Seager has a chance or maybe one of the Rat-Bird guys, but I think only Seager has a shot at beating Ohtani, and with his dual-position and putting up those numbers in an injury shortened season, I think I have a good shot. Now I’ll have to decide whether to redeem it or keep it. Do I go after another blaster to try to get an Olson or Acuna for the NL award? 

I’m almost done with my Topps card logging. I’m halfway done with the Rangers, then just have the Jays and Yankee$, and USA and a few smaller defunct teams, which should only take a few hours total. Just a few more weeks and I should have some lists appearing on here. 

Whenever the final checklists from’23 Topps Update make their appearance, I’ll get to updating the ‘23 Topps page of my Topps missing players pages. I may be concentrating on the baseball card portion of the blog but I’m still going to do the customs. I just want to get need lists up at least so I can work on completing some physical sets. 

While I’m on the subject of customs, I got one set printed for my big project and I’m in the process of printing more, cutting them out, and I’ll mail some out to the customer this week for a small event related to the subjects. From there, we’ll see how many sets I need to make, and I’ll try to finish those soon and expect a post on the whole thing when I get clearance. 

2023 Topps Update should be out in a week or so, and while that might be a good choice to get packs of besides the 2 products I’ve been blasting lately, I plan on just purchasing a hand collated set, so buying packs probably won’t be a good idea. I figure ‘23 Heritage High Number, ‘23 Bowman Platinum, ‘23 Topps Gallery, ‘23 Mozaic, and ‘23 Archives will be out soon enough, so we might get a chance of pace finally. I’m sure some of you guys sure hope so. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy

Playoff predictions

 I figured I would get this post done before the playoffs start. Here are my predictions for the playoffs this year. 

Rays vs. Rangers

I think the Rays can win this one in 3 games. They will probably have a game with no offense (probably Glasnow’s start), but Eflin will be money, and they will walk off the other game. 

Blue Jays vs. Twins

Jays have more offense and better pitching. 2 game sweep. 

Brewers vs. D-Backs

Brewers will lose the game Gallen starts against them, but Arizona is young and Milwaukee has playoff experience. 

Marlins vs. Phillies

Phillies are winning this one in a sweep, but only because it’s against the Marlins. They are still a fluke team. 

Rays vs. Orioles

The Rat-Birds pitching will finally be exposed as overrated and Playoff Randy comes out. Rays in 5 in a blowout final game. 

Jays vs. Astros

Astros bats come alive and Toronto shows how they still need starting pitching. Astros in 4. 

Dodgers vs. Brewers

Dodgers sweep this one easy. If Burnes weren’t pitching for Milwaukee, they would’ve knocked out all 3 Brewers starters before 4 innings

Braves vs. Phillies

Braves blow out Phillies in 3 with Acuna hitting 3 Bombs in Game 2

Rays vs. Astros

The Rays carriage finally turns into a pumpkin as the Astros win in 5. 

Dodgers vs. Braves

Braves win a tight series in 6 games but it will feel like it was a lot closer and should’ve went 7. 

Braves vs. Astros

The Braves win the World Series over the Astros and we’re actually the better team this time around. In a 5 game series, Olson will hit 4 HRs and in the MVP. 

There you go. Just keep in mind, had the Rays not lost 3/5 of their rotation and guys like Franco for the season, Tampa Bay would’ve taken the AL for a spin and given the Bravos a run for their money and it would’ve probably been a 7 game World Series that could’ve swung either way. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy