Baseball Beards Part 1

Is it my imagination or are more baseball players wearing beards these days than ever before?  I don't think it's my imagination and tomorrow I'll present some more data. Today, we're just going to look at beards in 2015.  I tediously counted beards in my 2015 baseball cards. I do this kind of thing so you don't have to. I have 2015 cards for 639 different major leaguers. I didn't count prospects, former players or managers. Of this 639, 373 have beards of one kind or another. That's better than 50%. Every other guy in a baseball game has a beard.

What kind of beards to these guys have? Pretty much every kind. According to beards.org there are 11 kinds of beards. But there are a lot of combinations of different types of beards in MLB.

Full Beard

There's a lot of this going on.

Full Beard Mountain Man

Chin Curtain

Chin Curtain with a Chin Strap

Mutton Chops

Friendly Mutton Chops

Goatee and Mustache

Goatee

Extended Goatee

Chin Strap

Goatee with Chin Strap

Balbo

Soul Patch

Soul Patch with Mustache

Your 2015 Astros

I haven't been paying much attention to the Astros. What do you expect when they lost more than 100 games a year from 2011-2013?  The Phillies were not much better but I can get them on MLB.com. I can't get the Astros because they are my home team. The Astros improved some last year, going 72-90 but nobody expected them to go 86-76 this year and make it to Game 5 of the ALDS.  When they started making some noise early in the season I started watching their games on MLB.com the next day. I figured I better get to know these guys in case they are for real.

The Astros were a strange team this year. They struck out a lot (1,392 times) and they hit a lot of home runs (230). They had 11 guys with double figures in home runs and 2 more with 9. They had 691 RBI. Their pitching struck out 1,280 guys and had a team ERA of 3.57. A typical Astro run was either a home run, or a walk, stolen base and a single.  They were fun to watch. And they played pretty good defense.

Infield

Topps #113 Jason Castro

The Astros had 2 catchers, Castro and Hank Conger. The Astros got Conger this year in a trade with the Angles. You only saw Conger in the playoffs doing a robot dance in the dugout when one of his teammates hit a HR. Castro and Conger both hit 11 home runs during the season, and Conger had a slightly better BA, but Conger couldn't throw me out in an attempted steal of 2nd base.

Topps Gypsy Queen #247 Chris Carter

In 2014, Carter hit 37 home runs with a .227 BA. This year he only hit 24 HR and his BA was a dismal .199. He had gotten hot in the last 2-3 weeks of the season which is why he started at first in the playoffs. He hit .294 in the playoffs but with only 1 HR. And he had a lot of trouble with throwing the ball to 2nd base.

Stadium Club #205 Jose Altuve

Altuve has been the Astros stalwart at 2nd base since 2011. He led the league in AB, hits, and steals. His .313 BA was down from last year's .341 but he hit 15 home runs compared to his previous season high of 7. And he was an All-Star. He unfortunately did not perform well in the ALDS, going 3 for 22.

Topps Heritage #563 Carlos Correa

Rookie shortstop Carlos Correa was a real bright spot this year. He was the Astros 1st round draft pick in 2012. After only 22 games at Triple A, he made his major league debut on June 8. He hit .278 with 22 home runs and quickly became the everyday shortstop with his excellent defense. He hit .350 with 2 homers in the ALCS. He has a legitimate shot at AL ROY.

Topps #621 Luis Valbuena

 The Astros got Valbuena from the Cubs in exchange for Dexter Fowler. He made 3rd base his position by having a strong arm. He only hit .224 but had 25 homers. 

Topps Team Sets #HA-5 Evan Gattis

Gattis was mainly the DH, but also played a pretty good 1st base. He hit .247 and led the Astros with 27 home runs. He also hit 11 triples. He was pretty disappointing in the ALCS going 4 for 19 with 1 RBI and 5 strikeouts. 

Outfield

Topps Heritage #694 Preston Tucker

The Astros had a rotating cast of characters in the outfield. Tucker mainly played LF but had games at center and RF. He hit .243 for the season with 13 HR. He was a non-factor in the playoffs going 0-2 in pitch hit opportunities.

Topps Team Sets #HA-7 Colby Rasmus

Rasmus also played in every outfield position. The Astros signed him as a free agent this year. He hit .238 with 25 homers during the season. He was a real force in the ALCS hitting .429 with 3 home runs.

Bowman #482 Carlos Gomez

The Astros acquired Gomez from the Brewers in July. He was not quite the spark the Astros expected but he played hurt most of the time he was here. He made a lot of spectacular plays in center.

Topps Allen & Ginter Mini A and G Back #52 Jake Marisnick

Marisnick had been the center fielder before Gomez but still got a lot of playing time. He hit .236 with 9 home runs. He was 3 for 7 in the ALDS.

Topps Robbed #12 George Springer

Springer was a legitimate ROY candidate in 2014 and was expected to be even better in 2015. Springer plays an aggressive right field and got hurt early in the season, ending up only playing 102 games. Still he raised his batting average to .276 (from .231 in 2014). He only hit .211 in the ALCS.

Pitching

Stadium Club #28 Dallas Keuchel

Keuchel had an exceptional season. He finished 20-8 with a 2.48 ERA. He is the odds-on favorite to win the AL Cy Young Award. He was a fabulous 15-0 at home. One big problem for the Astros this year was their dismal road record. Keuchel was 5-8 on the road. He was 2-0 in the playoffs, one of these being the Wildcard game in New York against the Yankees.

Topps #508 Collin McHugh

In addition to a 20-game winner, the Astros had Collin McHugh at 19-7 with a ERA of 3.89. He was 1-1 against the Royals in the ALDS.

Topps Heritage #605 Lance McCullers

Rookie Lance McCullers was 6-7 with an acceptable ERA of 3.22. He struck out 129 while only walking 43. He held the Royals to 2 runs in 6.1 innings in Game 4, the one that the relief staff game up 7 runs in the 8th and 9th innings to lose 9-6.

Topps Team Sets #HA-13 Luke Gregerson

The Astros signed free agent Gregerson to a 3-year contract last December. Although he's only had 19 saves in 6-year career, the Astros made him their closer. He responded with 31 saves and a 7-3 record. He got a save in all 3 wins the Astros had in the ALCS. 

The 1990s Baseball Card Face-off - 1991 Bowman vs. 1993 Stadium Club

Check this post to see my methodology.

Two posts in a row!

Here's where we left off:

Today's face-off doesn't look like it's going to be much of a fight.

1991 Bowman vs. 1993 Stadium Club

1991 Bowman #183 Jeff Bagwell

1991 Bowman #529 Andy Van Slyke

1991 Bowman was a Stage 1 card but with two innovations. One was gold foil stamping on some of the cards. I showed the Bagwell card as an example (he was the NL Rookie of the Year in 1991, not an MVP). Winners of the 1990 Silver Slugger award had a small crossed bat gold stamp is another example. There were a few others. The other innovation was in the presentation of player stats, but Bowman had been doing this since it's inception in 1989. Most of the cards are posed shots with the occasional action photo.

1993 Stadium Club #2 Greg Maddux

1993 Stadium Club #562 Will Clark

1993 was the third year for Stadium Club, and although it hadn't changed much since 1991, it was still pretty much the design standard. Glossy full bleed printing front and back, with a front design that worked well even on horizontal cards. The design was combined with great photography. Showing the player's first Topps card on the back was getting a little old and this would be the last year Stadium Club would have this feature. 

The Result: As I said above, not much of a fight here. With no thought at all, I'm going with 1993 Stadium Club.

The updated bracket.

The 1990s Baseball Card Face-off - 1998 Pinnacle vs 1998 Topps Gold Label

Sorry for my lack of posts recently but your favorite retired baseball card blogger has been busy with other stuff. Let's get back to the 1990s Face-Off.

Check this post to see my methodology.

In the last post, we opened up the Babe Ruth 2nd Quartile. Here were the results.

1998 Pinnacle vs 1998 Topps Gold Label

1998 Pinnacle #67 Paul Molitor

1998 Pinnacle #83 Derek Bell

 After three straight years of Pinnacle with massive amounts of gold foil on the front of the cards, the 1998 version was a bit understated with just a small amount of holofoil on the front. Also by this time Pinnacle was in trouble and went under in 1998. No more Pinnacle until Panini revived the brand 2013. 1998 Pinnacle wasn't a bad looking set. The fronts were full-bleed and glossy. The player's position is shown in the bit of foil beneath the players name. The backs were also glossy with a player photo partially obscured by full career stats. The player's team logo appears very small along with other logos at the bottom of the back of the card, which is a little odd. As is often the case the design doesn't work as well on a horizontal card.

1998 Topps Gold Label #4 Andres Gallarraga

1998 Topps Gold Label #7 Derek Jeter

1998 Topps Gold Label is another of the very few sets from the 1990s of which I don't own any cards. I got these images from thetradingcarddb.com. Other years of this product always remind me of 1993 Flair. Good card stock, heavy gloss, double photo on the front. It's much more of a premium card than 1998 Pinnacle. I've liked every Gold Label card I've ever seen.

The Results: I was going to go against the grain here and pick 1998 Pinnacle because it's a regular old baseball card vs 1998 Topps Gold Label's top shelf appeal. But when I asked my self, which would I rather add to my collection, I have to go with 1998 Topps Gold Label.

Movie Review - The Martian

I'd read the book last year and really liked it.

When I heard that a movie version was coming out in 2015, I was pretty excited but expected to be disappointed. My wife and I went to see it last Sunday and I was not disappointed.

I consider the book to be 'hard' science fiction but in a different sense than I usually mean it. All the science and engineering in it is based on actual science, not speculative stuff like warp drives and alien species. There's some suspension of disbelief involved in that if you know anything about the current state of NASA's plans for a Mars visit, a lot of problems that don't seem to have solutions get solved.

Mark Watney gets stranded on Mars by a wind and sand storm much stronger than anything expected. Apparently this is the most unbelievable part of the book and the movie. There just isn't enough gravity on Mars to produce such a storm.

The book spent a lot of time with Mark as he figures out how the "science the shit out of" his predicament. Lots of calculations and Mark talking to himself. Much of this is cut down in the movie and it's just as well. It's one thing to read about Mark calculating how long is Mars grown potatoes are going to last but actually watching him doing the calculations would be a bit tedious.

The movie was very faithful to the book. Mark in the book is a wise-cracking astronaut and I thought Matt Damon did a good job of getting that across. Mark in the book is about the most determined man you could imagine multiplied by 10. This comes across in the movie a bit like cock-eyed optimism but Damon never goes over the top with it.

Back on earth,  NASA first tries to cover its ass, making Watney a dead hero. But after Watney makes contact and they realize he is still alive, the powers that be at NASA realize that they have to mount some sort of rescue mission. They try to do it as cheaply as possible in the beginning but as Watney faces setbacks, NASA takes on the challenge whole-heartedly.

Is Watney rescued? Well, the trailers I saw didn't say so you're going to have to see the movie or read the book. As with just about everything else, the movie follows the book pretty closely.

In case you've forgotten, this isn't the fist movie about an American astronaut stranded on Mars. There was this 1964 movie which has more action but doesn't seem as realistic.

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.