Drafting something for the collection

A few months ago, my daughter won a contest on the Upper Deck Facebook page.  We sent in a picture that she had drawn of mom on a baseball card for the contest and she was randomly picked as a winner.  The prize was a box of 2009 Signature Stars Baseball.  We opened the box together, but she lost interest about halfway through.  She showed a lot more interest in the Hannah Montana box that she won from Beckett.

Actually, I didn’t show a lot of interest in the box either which is why it never showed up here as a box break.  The box promised four signature or memorabilia cards and we pulled five which was cool, but it still wasn’t anything to write home about.  We got an autographed card of Joe Nathan, a jersey card of National Team member Cody Buckel, a numbered jersey card of National Team member Kevin Gausman and a numbered, autographed jersey card of National Team member Cory Hahn.  Four of the five hits were member of the National Team… yawn.

The last of the five hits became a lot more interesting on June 7th when he was drafted #36 by the Boston Red Sox.  The Red Sox have had a lot of luck with past supplemental draft picks.  Clay Buchholz was compensation for the loss of Pedro Martinez in the 2005 draft.  Jacoby Ellsbury was compensation from the Angels for the signing of Orlando Cabrera.  (Side note: Most Sox fans ignore these picks when arguing that the Sox should have kept Pedro or Cabrera.  Letting both go was the right move at the time and in retrospect.)  Future Closer, Daniel Bard was compensation for the Yankees signing Johnny Damon.  (Damon was the only big name the Sox let go who has done much of anything after leaving.)

This year’s 20th pick, Kolbrin Vitek, was a compensatory pick for the Braves signing Billy Wagner.  This year’s 36th pick, Bryce Brentz, was selected with a pick given for the loss of Jason Bay to the Mets.  The 39th pick, Anthony Ranaudo, was compensation for losing Billy Wagner (what the heck were the Mets thinking? Maybe they thought they were getting the other Chris Carter.)  Ranaudo has some injury concerns, but if he can regain his form he just may end up being the best of the three.

I actually got to see both Brentz and Vitek play a few weeks ago during the Futures at Fenway.  Hopefully it won’t be too long before I see both of them playing in Fenway full time.  Until then, I have a new card to add to my Red Sox collection.

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