Monday, October 5, 2015

2015 Trevor Cahill and Topps Heritage

Trevor Cahill used to be a decent pitcher. With any luck, he'll be a decent pitcher again as it doesn't seem as if injuries are the problem. He was a combined 43-47 the first 4 years of his career with the A's and D-Backs. That maybe doesn't sound that great but the A's were a sub-.500 team for the three years he was with them. The Diamondbacks were 81-81 in his first year with them (2012). After that things rapidly started going downhill. Cahill ended the 2014 season with a 3-12 record and a 5.61 ERA. But he was still a Diamondback at the end of the 2014 season so his first (that's right, his first) 2015 Topps Heritage card shows him as a D-Back.

2015 Topps Heritage was issued around the beginning of March, much to early to account for the Trade of Cahill to the Braves on April 2nd. Somehow, the Braves looked at Cahill and decided to offer him a 2-year $26,000,000 contract.

So you might think, that if Topps decided to put Cahill in the High Number Series set he'd appear as a Brave, but not so.

In 15 appearances with the Braves, including 3 starts, Cahill was 0-3 with an ERA of 7.52. The Braves released him (remember he has a 2-year $26,000,000 contract) on June 19th. He later signed with the Cubs (on August 18th) much too late to appear in the High Number Series as a Cub.

So what team is Cahill with in his High Number Series card - The Dodgers, of course.

Here's where it takes a little effort to find out why this is. baseball-reference.com does not show and transactions involving the Dodgers although they do show him in the Dodgers minor league system. According to Wikipedia, he signed a minor league contract with the Dodgers on July 2nd. He pitched 1.6 innings for the Arizona Dodgers with an ERA of 16.2. From there he went to the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes for 4 innings and then to the Oklahoma Dodgers but didn't get into any games before he decided to become a free agent. He sure travelled a lot this summer.  I'm guessing that the photo is either from his time with the Arizona Dodgers or is Photoshopped.

1 comment:

Jeff Weiss said...

Nine years later I find this article that answered my exact question about the Dodgers card. Thanks!