Monday, July 6, 2009

Box Break: 2008 TriStar Projections: Red Sox Edition

Bard

I didn’t know a whole lot about this set before buying it, but I’ve always had a soft spot for minor league cards.  This box looked like a blaster, only contained Red Sox prospects and promised one autographed card.  I’m sold.  Let’s see what I got.

Fireballer Daniel Bard finally got the call up to the big show.  He’s been mostly lights out, but has had a couple of rookie struggles.  Many look at him as insurance in case Papelbon wants too much money once his arbitration years are done.  With the way Papelbon keeps talking about record setting contracts for a closer, I’m all in favor of trading him in his final arbitration year if Bard continues to look good.  There will be less dancing and fewer historic World Series baseballs turned into dog chew toys, but I think that the Sox will survive.

Bowden

Michael Bowden is one of the names that keeps coming up in trade talks along with Clay Buchholz.  The Sox have a bit of a log jam in the rotation at the moment, but you figure that both Smoltz and Penny will only be with the team this season.  They may both get a chance in the bigs next season.  Until then, fans in Pawtucket are seeing some great pitching.

Lowrie

Jed Lowrie showed signs of being ready for the majors last season and was ready to build upon that until he was sidelined with an injury.  Supposedly this injury first occurred last season and had a lot to do with his late season slump.  He’s on his way back now and hopefully will cement the Red Sox shortstop position which has been in flux ever since Nomar Garciaparra left.  Strange that trading away the face of the franchise led to the team winning it all, but it did and it also led to David Ortiz becoming the new face of the team.  Nomar returned to Boston tonight for the first time since leaving and got a well deserved standing ovation.

Kalish

My autograph was of Ryan Kalish and I’m pretty happy with that.  Kalish is one of the top 10 Red Sox prospects and should arrive in Boston in another year or two.

This box contained 5 packs with seven cards in each.  The cost per card was .28 which seems a little pricey to me, but with a lower production run it’s to be expected.  I’m glad that I purchased this box on sale though.

The design is nice.  It’s not too busy and focuses on the players.  I don’t think I’d buy any more boxes of this, but I am happy with what I got out of this one.


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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I got a regular hobby box of this I'm waiting to post about till I get some scans up. Got a 1/1 purple parallel of Jon Still on top of everything that was promised. :D