Trade With Sports Cards Ate My Brain: Gerrit Cole's Auto Is Finally Mine! Plus Rickey, Bison, Longoria, Utley, and Dunn.

I completed my first trade with Scott from Sports Cards Ate My Brain. I was altered through someone else's blog to the fact that Scott had just received a redemption that was available for the taking. When I saw it, I absolutely had to make an offer and do whatever it took to acquire the card. We e-mailed a bit and soon thereafter the below stunner arrived in my mailbox.

Finally! It took some time, but I can finally check a Gerrit Cole autograph off of my Bucket List of cards I need to own. Cole is a UCLA grad on top of being the Pirates' Number 1 overall selection two years ago in the 2011 Draft. Numbered 071/199, the card features a fantastic three-color patch with a lot of stitching. The scan doesn't do the patch near enough justice. The Cole was the crux of the deal, but Scott and I worked out a much larger deal that netted each of us some great cards.

I managed to pry a fantastic Rickey Henderson relic from my newest trading partner. Numbered 043/150, it's just my second relic of the Hall of Famer, and first that pictures him as a Dodger. I'm assuming hoping going to convince myself the relic came from a Dodgers' home uniform.

Next in line, the Matt Kemp portion of the post. Scott sent along a sweet 2010 Kemp Ginter relic, which makes number a lot for me. Roughly. Seriously, I love Kemp's 2010 Ginter jersey relic. I would take 'em all if I could get my hands on them. The trade also netted me a nice gold border parallel numbered 1193/2010.

Back to my love for all things Bruins with this sweet Chase Utley hit. I'm always happy to pick up an Utley item to add to my PC of the once-upon-a-time-but-didn't-sign Dodgers' draft pick.

I card drafted away my only Adam Dunn relic, so I had to pick up a replacement given the opportunity. Dunn has long been one of my favorite non-Dodgers - I actually have a Dunn Cincy jersey - so grabbing a piece of lumber from the prodigious slugger's bat was an easy decision, particularly when you take into consideration it's a Ginter relic with that swell red border.

And finally, a mess of Evan Longorias, highlighted by two hits of the Rays' third baseman. Ginter and Gypsy Queen relics; there may be no sweeter combination. I'm sure I cleaned Scott out of Longoria RCs, and I'm thrilled to add them to my growing but modest collection of the former Long Beach State Dirtbag. The Chrome, Masterpieces, and Ginter are by far my favorites of the bunch.

Thanks for the phenomenal trade Scott! I look forward to many more in the future!

Trade With Thoughts & Sox: Sutton, Snider, Pedro, Garvey, 1992 UD

My second trade with Adam from Thoughts & Sox. Follow this friendly link to read up on our first deal.

Adam posted some trade bait a while back, and I hopped on the Dodgers. He sent those, a nice '81 Stolen Base Leaders card, and near about the entire Dodgers' Team Set from 1992 Upper Deck (19 of 30). Which includes a nice rookie/early card of Pedro. Oh, what could have been.

I had one of the remaining eleven '92 UD cards needed for the team set, so I've added the remaining ten to my Want List. I never intended to, but what the hell, I'm close enough that I may as well take a shot at completing the team set.

1979 Sutton, a pair of 1983 Garveys.

If anyone wants one of the Garveys, let me know.

Action Valenzuela!

Much thanks Adam! I have some cards in mind that I'll be sending to you, one in particular I think you'll enjoy - just need to grab it from it's current resting place. Keep an eye out for the postman; I plan to send something out in the next few weeks. Hopefully the cards will be to your liking. And if they are, post them!

Rick Sutcliffe Really Should Not Talk. Ever. Again.

During last night's game between Boston and Tampa Bay on Wednesday Night Baseball, former Dodgers 1st Round Pick and Cy Young Award Winner (and keep in mind Bartolo Colon holds the latter distinction as well) Rick Sutcliffe was talking about recent HOF inductee and former Dodger Rickey Henderson. Sutcliffe was wondering aloud whether there were any current players who compared to the greatest leadoff hitter the game has ever seen. His conclusion: the Rays' Carl Crawford and Boston's Jacoby Ellsbury.

Before we move on, let's reminisce at some of the finer work of Mr. Sutcliffe (looked for video, found that video has been removed after copyright claims from MLB).

While it is obviously unfair to compare a player, or in this case two, to one of the greatest and most unique players in the history of the sport, let's play along for fun. Henderson combined power, speed, and elite on-base skills to become the HOFer he rightly is. With Crawford and Ellsbury only 28 and 25, respectively, their careers are far from over, so let's limit ourselves to Henderson's seasons at age 27 and 24 to compare him to CC (at 27) and JE (at 24) during their 2008 seasons.

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*Numbers from Baseball Reference and FanGraphs.*

Rickey - 1986 Season, Age 27, New York Yankees, CF

Games: 153
OBP: .358
OPS+: 125
Total Bases: 285
HR: 28
BB: 89
SB: 87
wOBA: .384
BB%: 12.8%
ISO: .206

Crawford - 2008 Season, Age 27, Tampa Bay Rays, LF

Games: 109
OBP: .319
OPS+: 87
Total Bases: 177
HR: 8
BB: 30
SB: 25
wOBA: .319
BB%: 6.3%
ISO: .126

Rickey- 1983 Season, Age 24, Oakland A's, LF

Games: 145
OBP: .414
OPS+: 139
Total Bases: 216
HR: 9
BB: 103
SB: 108
wOBA: .407
BB%: 16.7%
ISO: .129

Ellsbury - 2008 Season, Age 24 , Boston Red Sox, CF

Games: 145
OBP: .336
OPS+: 87
Total Bases: 218
HR: 9
BB: 41
SB: 50
wOBA: .333
BB%: 6.9%
ISO: .114

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Crawford has a career OBP of .334, an OPS+ of 103, and a BB% of 5.2%. Ellsbury's career OBP is .348, his OPS+ is 95, and his BB% is 6.8%.

While both Crawford and Ellsbury have time to grow and mature as players, will they really get that much better, Rickey Henderson better? No. No. Never. Their ceilings are somewhere between a poor man's Rickey Henderson and a poor, poor, destitute man's Rickey Henderson. The three should not be compared, as the only similarities between the three is that they're OFs, fast, have cool names, and during the seasons used above, played in the American League.

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Rickey put up a career line of .279/.401/.419/.820 with:

OPS+: 127
Total Bases: 4588
HR: 297
BB: 2190
SB: 1406
Runs: 2295
Hits: 3055
Doubles: 510
XBH: 873
wOBA: .386
BB%: 16.7 %
wRC: 2218.4 (Runs Created based off of wOBA)
wRAA: 654 (Runs Above Average based off of wOBA)

He did all of this over 25 Seasons and 3081 Games . There almost certainly will never be another player to put on a major league uniform and come even close to what the great, legendary, recently inducted HOF Rickey Henderson did over his outstanding career.