Sunday, March 9, 2014

My Trinity of 2013 Leaf Trinity

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Part of being poor means you never have the coolest cards... unless you're lucky. I've gotten pretty lucky lately thanks to 2013 Leaf Trinity Baseball. I'm not a prospector, but I collect Royals prospects like there's no tomorrow. My current crush is Sean Manaea, a high-ceiling stud who has yet to toss a pitch in professional ball. When I saw the bad boys below pop up on Ebay over the last few months, I was all over it. Best part is I didn't spend more than $20 on any of them!


This glass card is my most recent PC grab. I expected it to be just a clear chunk of plastic, but no, it's seriously a piece of glass. Leaf printed on the front and back sides of the glass to give it that awesome shadow effect. If you can grab one of these "cards", I say go for it, because they're ten times more beautiful in person.


This card is what got me started. I saw the auction ending on Ebay a month or two ago and did my usual low-ball bid not expecting to win. But lookie here, I did win, and I won BIG! 

Since Manaea hasn't pitched in the pros yet, I assumed it was from his jersey at Indiana State. Problem is, it could just as well have been from one of the Royals powder blues that he tossed on real quick just to say it was "player worn". 



I'm leaning toward it being from an Royals uni based on the size of the "a". The patch itself is maybe 2" by 1.5", and the "a" design seems to match up better. This high Ebay listing pretty much confirms it. That's okay though, it's still a beauty!



Lastly, I needed to pick this one up to complete my personal "trinity". "Prospectors" are going nuts for Hunter Dozier and I'm not sure why. The Royals took him 8th in the 2013 Draft despite most scouts predicting he'd fall into the 2nd round. Doing so allowed them to offer Dozier an under-slot bonus and draft Manaea at 34 overall and offer him an over-slot bonus that he'd actually sign. 

At one point Manaea was being considered for the top spot in the draft, but a hip injury caused him to drop. All signs say that he's 100% recovered from the injury, so it all depends on how he develops from here out. I see Dozier as a solid David Freese type of player which would be an improvement over what we have right now, but not worthy of the ridiculously high prices most of his cards go for. For comparison, I grabbed that incredible Manaea card for $15, and this not quite as incredible Dozier for $20. Nothing against Hunter. It's confusing logic like that that keeps me away from "prospecting" cards.

3 comments:

  1. I don't prospect and have never heard of Manaea... but I sure hope he makes a huge splash for you. Those cards are awesome... especially the acetate card.

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    1. Thanks Fuji! Best part, is it's not even an acetate card, it's like a 125 pt piece of glass!

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    2. What? That's even cooler. Congratulations. Might have to track one down for my collection.

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