2014 Carlos Correa

 It took about two weeks (for various reasons) to compile all the information about Jorge Soler and his 2013 Inception card.  Here’s hoping I can get the 2014 Carlos Correa wrapped up much quicker!  Thank you so much for everyone who read my first card profile and gave me feedback!  Any sort of response is so motivating to come back and do it all over again! 

For Week 2 of A Very Simple Idea, I wanted to go with a player that I am a big fan of: Carlos Correa.  I recently acquired this card (for the second time) and was so happy to put it on my little display shelf!  Correa is truly wonderful to watch play here in Houston, and it was great to add his Inception autograph to my small little collection!  

The story of Correa’s career will not come as a surprise to many (one of the few drawbacks to covering guys who are big time stars already), but it’s always good to remember where a guy has come from.  One of the best things I have read about Correa (over and over and over) is how hard he works, how seriously he takes the game, and how important it is for him to do things “the right way” as a professional.  Pretty amazing for a guy who just turned 22 a few months ago!

Player History

So much has been written about Correa that it’s hard to not to plagiarize or just sum up what everyone else has already said.  So mostly I want to write about what I remember from the time he was drafted, to his debut and (thus far) very short professional career.  

Jayson Stark wrote a great profile on Correa during Spring Training last year for ESPN.com.  In the article, he wrote that the numbers 1 and 3 are very important to Carlos.  Stark quotes Correa as saying:  

"Every time I walked to my locker, I see No. 1. Just to focus on what it takes to get there, to be one of the best guys out there. Every time I walk to my locker and look at my number, it reminded me of how hard I needed to work and all the effort that I had to put in to become one of the best players in the league.”

Of course this all begins with the fact that Correa was the first player taken overall in the 2012 draft, and the first Puerto Rican player to go first overall.  Such was not lost on the “kid” when he walked the stage after hearing his name called with his home country's flag.  Neither did Correa forget the hours of practice that he would do with his father growing up; the times his dad would spend an exhausting day at two jobs only to come home and help his boy practice.  That’s the stuff of legends.  Like Babe Ruth said in The Sandlot: Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.  

Leading up to being drafted number one overall, Correa apparently blew away the Astros organization with his workout.  Here are some quotes about Correa heading into and shortly after the draft:

• "His standout defensive tool is a laser gun of an arm." 
• "Correa shows surprisingly nimble feet for an athlete his size "
• "He has three standout tools and two other average-or-better ones, and when you package that up in a shortstop with better than even odds of sticking at the position for the first decade of his big league career that’s exactly what the Astros may just have on their hands."
• "plus-plus arm strength; positive reports on glove, above-average tools across board defensively; very fluid defender; 6-3, 190 pounds; tons of projection; plus athlete; needs at bats; plus power upside; plus speed; crazy bat speed, no problem with velocity; good approach; R/R" 
• "On defense, Correa has a good first step, which helps him overcome average speed, but he has excellent instincts"

The only real concern about Correa that I have read is that his body type is projected to become too big (in terms of muscle) for him to stay at shortstop long term.  I know he has fought tremendously hard to keep his physique in top-notch shape so as to prevent that happening.  It goes back to the fire he has to become and stay Number One.  

In regards to his actual career statistics, here is how he breaks down.  In the minors:

• Games: 273, 28 HR, 199 RBI, 54 SB, .313 BA, .392 OBP, 133 BBs, 464 POs, 43 Es

And in the majors: 

• Games: 252, 42 HR (22, 20), 164 RBI, 27 SB, .276 BA, .354 OBP, 115 BBs, 314 POs, 27 Es

Note that in a roughly equal amount of games so far between the two, Correa has hit a significantly higher number of home runs (off of better pitching) but with fewer RBIs and a lower batting average.  

Keep in mind, though, that Carlos only played 62 games during the 2014 season due to a sever ankle injury he sustained sliding into third base. From that time I remember the debate about Correa and Byron Buxton being very frustrating for us Astros fans.  Buxton was tearing up the lower levels of the minors while Correa was not adjusting as quickly, and then he got injured.  It was around this time that a friend of mine actually sent me Correa’s 2013 Inception card (I am looking to acquire one again if anyone knows of one available!) because he thought Correa was going to be a bust!

But of course, the very next year, Correa soared through the minors and made his debut against the Chicago White Sox, going 1-4 with an RBI.  I actually remember this time because he was promoted to AAA just a couple of days before I saw the Astros AA affiliate (the Corpus Christie Hooks) play agains the Frisco Rough Riders.  After the season he was having, I was really looking forward to seeing him play!  But I guess he was good enough to move up…

On a side note, I picked him up in my fantasy league that year the day he was promoted and scored a major trade a week afterwards because he started off so hot.  Helped me get to, but then lose, the championship game.  Ok, digression over. 

Most of the rest of the story is (current) history: AL Rookie of the Year, Rookie of the Month (June), Rookie of the Week twice.  Pretty amazing stuff.  But I will end this little blurb about his career with a quote from Carlos Beltran, who wrote to The Players Tribune recently on why he came back to the Astros for what might be his final season. This is what Beltran had to say about young Carlos Correa:

“Correa and I have talked a lot about leadership during the past two years, and he’s always asking for advice that will help him be a clubhouse leader even though he’s one of the younger players on the team. So this kid gets it, believe me. And he’s just soaking it all in.”

Can’t wait to see what he does this coming season!

Look of the Card:

This is my first profile of a 2014 Inception card, so let me start with the overall design.  And to begin, I absolutely love the look!  For the most part I hear people like 2014 over 2013, but to me they are both just excellent looking cards regardless.

The woodgrain back is definitely a departure from the cloud background, but continues to give a sort of ethereal feel; again very Field of Dreams-eque to me.  And I will lose most of you for a second with this next comment, but I’m going to say it anyway.  The overall “feel” of the card reminds of the video game Ico.  Maybe you have heard of it, maybe you haven’t, but if you are curious what I mean, go check out some screen shots or video of the game play.  That may be the most out-there comment I ever make on this blog.  Maybe not though…

The concentric circles of light and color on the card provide absolutely amazing layering.  The dark border, followed by the much lighter circle, ending with the white spot in the middle that the players body fades into is just straight up cool.  And Correa signed right over that sport on my card, which looks about as perfect as can be in terms of positioning (I am making no claims on grading here, because that is beyond my scope of collecting).  

On the 2014 set, the word Inception, the Bowman logo and the Player’s name are all in a silver color the complement that coloring of the card just perfectly.

The picture of Correa, to me, is a bit lacking.  The best part is the way the orange jersey pops off the card. But the angle of the bat and his body torque just seem weak (especially compared to the beauty of his swing in real or the physical presence of Jorge Soler on his card like I discussed last week).  

The look on his face is spot on, though.  Serious. Calculating.  It’s like he is watching the ball line past the second baseman and he is trying to figure out if he can stretch this single into a double.  

Also a little disappointing is the actual signature, especially when compared to the 2013 version, but that's for another day. For the most part, we see the capital Cs for Carlos and Correa, and the cross looking thing in between I believe is the S at the end of Carlos.  At first I thought it was a J for his middle name Javier, but after looking around and comparing signatures, it makes much more sense to me that it is the end of his first name.  Overall, not my favorite signature, but honestly, who can complain when it's Carlos Correa?!?

To wrap up my comments on the card, I love how the final bullet point on the back side says: “Intelligent kid with all kinds of power, arm strength and intangibles.”  How cool is that? 

Card Value:

This card, like so many Inception, is an example of amazing fluidity on the market.  There are currently no listings for this card on COMC.com, so most of the data is from ebay.  

As of the time of research, the listings for 2014 Correa Inception (base) cards range from $45-$72.50 for the ungraded versions. This is interesting to me, because when Correa won rookie of the year, I traded for this card with someone on Twitter and the value we based the trade on was about $65-$70.  And that was at what I would consider the peak for this card.  

The actual sales on ebay speak to a slightly different level of demand for this card.  A friend of mine in the collecting community pointed me to sortsof.com, which allows you to see what sellers accepted via the Best Offer function on ebay.  Going back to October 22, of 2015 (covering 18 sales), the lowest accepted offer was for $17.50!  Crazy!  The highest sale was for $44.  Note all of these sale prices are below the current lowest Buy It Now price on the site.  

The average sale price has hovered right around $30 since October, which falls right into Real Time Pricing data on beckett.com which says the card sells from $20-$50.  

I personally believe that Correa is going to have a bounce-back year after a slightly disappointing 2016 campaign.  I am a big believer in the sophomore slump in all professional leagues, and now that he is through that we will see his stock soar.  He is a fun player to watch and seemingly an amazing teammate destined to be a leader for many years to come (hopefully all with the Astros).

Thanks for sticking around again this week!  Let me know what you think! All feedback is welcome.  Any suggestions for what players you want to see profiled?  And as always, any leads on more Inception that I can pick up are always welcome!  

Soler Eclipse

Wow!  This first entry turned out to be WAY bigger than I anticipated!  In all honesty though, it accomplished exactly what I was hoping for in terms of getting to know the card and the player!  Hopefully you stick around to the end, even if to tell me there is too much going on here!  

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which card to profile first.  Should it be a big name player?  One of my personal favorites?  A high value card?  Or possibly one of the cards that goes for one or two dollars these days?  

Every time I thought about it, I kept going back to the 2013 Jorge Soler card.  I am not a big Soler fan by any stretch of the imagination, but there is something about that card that captures what I love about the Inception brand.  

Without any further preamble, let me jump into my analysis of the card as a whole:

 Player History:

Admittedly when I started this project, one of the biggest mysteries to me was going to be how I would get to know the players on the cards.  I know the name of Inception subjects a lot of the time (but often I have never heard of them!), but usually it is only in the vague sense of knowing them as a talked-about-prospect.  So I was excited to actually take time to sift through the endless amount of information out on the internet to see what I see. 

But in truth, there was a lot of trepidation on my part because there is so much information available.  There are people who do this kind of stuff for a living or as an incredibly passionate hobby, and have collected/analyzed more information that I could ever consume.  So the question became “what do I put in this little blog?”  

The simple answer for me was to just start with some basic stats and then look for scouting reports.  I have to admit, I was absolutely fascinated by the things I read about Jorge Soler.  I started taking notes and got through two pages before I realized that I was biting off more than I could chew and just needed to get some stuff typed out.  

So what I will try and do is compile a basic story (stories are so much more interesting than just numbers for most of us!) and weave in some statistics when and where I can.  We’ll see how it turns out!  All of the information about Soler for this blog comes from sites such as: MLB.com, MiLB.com, foxsports.com and baseballreference.com.  

I will start the story of Jorge Soler by mentioning the fact that he was the third ranked prospect in the Cubs organization going into both the 2013 and 2015 seasons.  As  I hope to show, this fact explains a lot about Soler’s career path.  One that, to this point, is characterized by a sense of hope and disappointment.

Soler defected from Cuba in 2011 and shortly thereafter signed a 9 year, $30 million contract with the Cubs.  One of the big reasons for the contract was his play for the Cuban National Team. He was on the team in 2010 that won the bronze medal in the 2010 World Junior Championships.  

The basic outlook on Soler was that he was a big man with a big bat.  Royals Outfielder coach, Rusty Kuntz was quoted as saying “He’s just a very big person.  He’s built like a tight end.”  Indeed, Soler is 6’4” and weighs between 215 and 225 pounds.  No doubt the phrase “physical specimen” appeared on a number of scouting reports.  

Other comments about Soler’s game from when he first signed:

“He’s a strong man with elite bat speed, and this year he’s showcased an understanding of the strike zone that has held as he’s advanced levels.”

“Soler is a good athlete who runs well for a corner-outfield profile but he isn’t an impact on the base paths. He has a strong arm, which, coupled with his above-average athleticism, can be an impact profile in right.”

“Afield, Soler will showcase his arm at any given opportunity, and it’s a good one. If he’s on the field he’ll do things with his bat and his arm that will excite. If he puts it together he’s a perennial All-Star.”

Obviously the perception was that he had some major (and major league) potential, even though “Soler is generally regarded as an average to below-average defensive player.”

So when he made his debut on August 27, 2014 against the Reds, his stat line of going 2-4, with a home run and two RBIs was not surprising to many people.  In just a few days of service, Soler became the first player to amass at least one RBI and/or one extra-base hit in each of his first eight career games in over 70 years. The Philadelphia Athletics' Buddy Blair was the last to do so, in 1942. He also reached base safely in his first nine career post-season plate appearances, becoming the first player in major league history to do that. The previous Cubs overall post-season record was held by Hack Wilson, who reached safely in seven-straight plate appearances in the 1929 World Series.

In the minor leagues, Soler’s stats looked like this:

166 Games, 28 Home Runs, .303 Batting Average, .379 OBP with 239 Put Outs and 6 Errors

In the time since he debuted, his professional stats have been roughly similar:

2011 Games, 27 Home Runs, .258 Batting Average, .328 OBP with 257 Put Outs and only 4 Errors. 

So where is the disappointment I mentioned?  And why was he traded to the Royals on December 7th, 2016 for relief pitcher Wade Davis?  The simple answer is injuries.

The list of injuries and DL stints for Soler is pretty long, too long to go into here.  Of note, he missed a large chunk of games in 2013 with a left shin fracture, and then missed another chunk of games in 2015 with a nagging hamstring strain.  It just seems injury after injury have derailed his development from raw talented prospect to productive everyday-professional.  

There have also been issues with temperament and attitude, Soler once having been benched for not hustling to first on a ground ball. 

So in the end, what to make of Jorge Soler?  It seems like he is an extremely athletic, talented player with a ton of potential if it is all harness and channeled correctly.  Hopefully his fresh start in Kansas City will be the type of thing to bring back the excitement that so many people had at the beginning of his career!

Look of the Card:

Of the four years that Inception baseball has been produced, the 2013 is absolutely my favorite in terms of how the card looks.  I don’t know what the official name of the background color of the card is, but I call it cobalt in my mind (if you happen to know anything more specific please let me know).  The clouds behind the player with the cobalt overlay give this set a truly magic appearance.  

The way the body of the player fades into the bottom of the card gives it a true Field of Dreams feel.  Call me crazy, but I think that’s why I like the Soler card so much.  The image of Soler is him jogging (presumably into the dugout at the end of an inning), and it reminds me of Shoeless Joe Jackson and the rest of the Black Sox appearing out of the corn field to play on Ray Kinsella’s diamond. 

As for the overall look of the Soler card, I think the combination of the Cubs blue (another color I would like to know the specific name of), combined with the silver sunglasses, glove in front of the jersey and the jogging posture really makes the card stand out.  There is a real balance to the color scheme.

Honestly it gives me a sense of the way baseball players used to be seen: larger than life, standing out, with a real presence.  That’s what Soler has on this card, presence. 

If Soler was smiling in the photo, the image would be almost too perfect for the Field of Dreams analogy! The look on his face really gives the impression that this game is serious business.  That the competition matters and it’s more than just a game.  That line of thinking runs a bit contrary to the vibe of Field of Dreams, but hey, I am working with what I have!

As for the signature itself, it is a little lacking but far from the worst I have ever seen.  As you can tell from the picture, it looks like it says “J Sole.”  It would have been nice if he had put the final letter in his name, but I am not someone who criticizes athletes for their signing very often.  It has to be pretty weak for me to be upset!  The only other real “flaw” is that the signature is a little off center, as he signed covering his legs/crotch area instead of in the middle of the card.  Regardless, it is still an on-card autograph of a professional baseball player…something I really only dreamed about as a kid!

Card Value:

One of the biggest reasons I wanted to include this section as part of the project is because I am constantly amazed at the fluctuation of prices within the Inception set.  Some guys - obviously - are always going to be top dollar getters (Bryant in particular) and some will be of minimum value unless something crazy happens.  But everyone in between has some amazing roller coaster values.  Someone even recently commented to me recentlyabout how frustrating it is for them that Inception cards seem to lose so much value so quickly as compared to price of buying a box or into breaks.  And that’s actually one of the biggest reasons I chose Inception as a set to chase: for the most part there is great value for low budget collectors like me!

Within the sets, there seem to be different tiers of values.  Tiers such as $1-$3 guys, $5-$10 guys, $10-20 and on up to the multiple hundred dollar guys (fortunately there are only a couple).   And this is not even considering the parallels for the most part - my focus as a collector is getting the base versions as often as possible, though some times that is more difficult than a parallel (looking at Puig in particular on this one!). 

  

This was one area of the project that I thought would be a little easier and straightforward, considering it’s mostly dealing with numbers and facts.  I was right in that after only a few minutes of research, I felt I had done what I could.  But it is dissatisfying in that I can’t find the simple data that I want, going back as far as I want, as easily as I want.  First world problem, I know.  Regardless, here is what I have found:

As of the writing of this article, the lowest Buy It Now option on eBay (all of these are for ungraded copies) is $14.24.  The highest asking price is $83.74 for the base card.  The base card.  Keep in mind that recently a parallel that is numbered /5 sold for $43.  Going back to October 25th on eBay, 8 copies of this card have been sold with the price range being anywhere from $5.50 to $15.  

On COMC.com (Check Out My Cards), 21 copies have sold in the last four years (since the release of the card), with the highest sale being $42.24.  The price range on this site is from $13.24 to $60.  

Honestly, I feel like the wide range of asking prices and sale prices for Soler mirror the up and down view of his playing ability.  The potential is absolutely there and so people are always willing to bet a little bit on him, but the track record has been disappointing thus far and so the demand has not been exceedingly great. 

A Very Simple Idea

"...possessed by an idea, this one, very simple idea, that changed everything..."
-Cobb from the movie Inception

In an age of cell phones, on-demand movies and instant everything, there is still something magical about a kid collecting baseball cards.  In the movie Field of Dreams, Terrance Mann told Ray Kinsella:

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time..."

Even though baseball is no longer even close to being our country's number one sport, I still hold to the romantic notions of baseball as America's Pastime.  Gone are the days of Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and Micky Mantle, but names such as Derek Jeter, David Ortiz, and Mike Trout are still commonly known and revered.  And the simple truth for me is that I love the sport more now than I did even in childhood.  

Collecting baseball cards has been a part of my love for the game, from the very beginning.  Whether it was saving up change to buy a pack from Wal-Mart or seeking out every police officer I could find for the Rockies cards they would give out (this was a cool program I thought), seeing my sports heroes on a piece of cardboard was a true staple of childhood.  I lost touch with that hobby for almost twenty years, but have waded back into a whole new world of collecting in recent years.  And while the landscape of the hobby has changed drastically (thank you Twitter and eBay in particular), the simple joy of collecting baseball cards still has a deep hold on me.  

One of the things I have wanted to start doing is be more than just a consumer of cards.  Too often I have chased after a card (or set of cards), acquired it, put it on a shelf, and began looking for the next hobby score.  Probably the only time I really took some time enjoy my collection was when I finished the 2013 and 2014 Inception sets the first time. 

This has got to change.

What's the point in calling myself a collector if the only time I savor my collection is at a point of finishing something?  Why search so hard for good deals and the right card if it is in a box within minutes of arriving in the mail?  That's not collecting, it's consuming.  The reason I am stepping out of my comfort zone with this blog is because I am done being a drive-through-collector.  It's time to start getting to really know my cards and the players on them.  

One way that I have started to make this transition is that I have just about completely stopped buying packs of cards to open.  The thrill of possibility, of the unknown in an unopened pack of cards, is one of the true joys of collecting.  But it almost always leads to a stack of cards that end up in my closet, rarely to be seen again.  And the simple truth is that I have no desire to end up with thousands (or millions, as with some of my buddies) of cards taking up space, rarely seeing the light of day.  For me, collecting has become a balance between seeking cards I enjoy and not wanting to spend obscene amounts of money for just a few cards. 

Enter Bowman Inception. 

I am not sure who sent me my first Inception, but I was immediately intrigued.  The style of the card, the on-card-autograph and the general quality of the player on the card has always been attractive to me.  And so I set my sights on being an Inception Collector.  And these are the types of things that I want to explore in this blog.  When I say I want to get to know my collection, I want to start getting to know every aspect of my cards.  

This blog is going to look at one Bowman Inception card per week.  There will be three aspects of the card that will be explored: the look of the card, the history of the value of the card, and the career of the player who appears on it.  

Since Inception cards are all fairly similar in look and color within each set, the focus of the look will mostly be on the photo of the player (though the first couple of entries per set will have notes on the color and background).  In all truth, this will be the most subjective part of the blog, but it will allow the English Major in me to let loose in all my word-smithing glory! (See what I mean?)

As for the history of the value of the card, my two main sources of data will be eBay and COMC.com (Check Out My Cards).  If there are other free sources of information regarding this part of the blog, I am happy to take suggestions!  I am very interested in looking at how much cards sell on the secondary market at the beginning of their run, and three years later (such as the 2013 set).  There will be variances to look at like off-season pricing and bumps from events such as winning awards (Rookie of the Year, MVP) and death (Oscar Taveras and Jose Fernandez come to mind immediately).  Honestly I don't know how far down the rabbit hole I will go with each card, but it should be fun! 

And the career of the player will obviously vary from week to week.  Some studs like Carlos Correa and Kris Bryant have had much more public careers than Daniel Corcino and Ben Lively.  Yet all of these guys have been considered prospect enough to be put on these cards.  I am sure this will be one of the more illuminating and thought provoking parts of this project.  

Alright.  I have rambled on long enough with this introduction.  If anyone actually reads this, I would love to hear from you!  Does this sound interesting at all to you?  Any suggestions with resources?  Have any Inception cards you would like to donate to the project? (Just kidding) I hope that you will join me on this journey, but even if you don't, I am excited to begin!