It's Gavin LaValley's birthday today. He was the first "Gavin" to hit the scene after I returned to the hobby, and inspired me to give a shot at the "advanced collector moves" of rainbowing and supercollecting. (Gavin Floyd was on the downslope of his career at the time, and there was also Gavin Cecchini who popped up in 2011, but as a Mets #1 draft pick, his card prices weren't conducive to going after too hard, and he already had cards when I came around, whereas I was there with LaValley from the beginning.)
With LaValley currently out of affiliated ball, topping out at AA so far, chances are he won't be getting more cards, at least not in a major release like Bowman. (I'm still hoping he ends up becoming the next Mike Trout, don't get me wrong!, but that'd be unexpected.)
So unlike supercollectors of the likes of Griffey or Garvey with endless cards and more coming out every year, since I'm dealing with a significantly less renowned player, I've essentially got a finite checklist to work with here (just keep an eye out for future Bowman buybacks, maybe). There have been a couple 1/1s that "got away" over the years but for the most part I've been successful in my supercollection targets.
One particular type of 1/1 that I've hit 100% complete?
Yellow printing plates!
Yep, a total of 6 sets of printing plates have been packed out featuring Gavin LaValley. With a recent pickup, I've now secured every Gavin LaValley yellow plate ever released.
LaValley was included in Bowman products in 2014 and 2018-- I'm just calling them all "Bowman" for simplicity, but there's 2014 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects (paper plus Chrome), 2014 Bowman Chrome Mini, 2018 Bowman (paper plus Chrome), and an auto in 2018 Bowman Chrome. He also got cards in 2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks and various minor league issues, but only the Bowmans (Bowmen?) had plates packed out.
Yellowbacks.
For fun, here are all of my LaValley printing plates together in one photo. I haven't yet achieved the 4-plate rainbow that comes with the old collector joke of "Now I can print up as many copies of the card as I want! LOL", but I'm just one color away on a couple of them. Black is the toughest plate type for me to find, apparently, with only one. Since he's pictured with Cincinnati, it's no surprise the magenta plates seem to pop the most. I suppose I'm partial to the cyans, considering blue as my favorite color.
Anywho, Happy Birthday, Gavin! I hope your age-27 season is a bright and sunny one on and off the field.
It's that time of year again that I try to do these annual posts checking in with the lesser-known active players I collect. I did the 2021 season recap for guys who went to my high school back in October, now I'm getting around to the guys who share my name.
Gavin Lux is still looking for his breakout year, but he's an important part of the current Dodgers team. His season was up and down (all the way down to the minors for a while), but he bounced back from a forgettable 2020 to hold his own. Defensively versatile, he played everywhere but 1st base and catcher in 2021. With Corey Seager leaving via free agency, he might be given more opportunities for steady playing time in 2022 as he looks to establish himself in his age 24 season. [This post is written under the assumption baseball will be back with a full season next year, though I personally wouldn't put too much faith in that.]
(I haven't gotten any new Lux cards this year, so figured I'd revisit this auto/patch/Christmas Card I've had for years. Unlicensed Leaf stuff like this doesn't really go up in value much, but still kinda cool when you can pick up a card like this for a good price. The rest of the cards in this post are recent pickups.)
Meanwhile in the AL, Gavin Sheets became just the 4th player named "Gavin" to play Major League Baseball when he debuted June 29, 2021. All told, he got into 54 games and impressed with a 123 OPS+. Topps gave him 4 or 5 cards as a "call-up" in Topps Now, but withheld his "RC" designation until next year, so expect to see his rookie cards flood Topps products in 2022 (though technically he exceeded rookie status already). He turns 26 in April, so there probably won't be a ton of investor hype with his cards. But yeah, hopefully he keeps performing well.
Gavin Cecchini followed Gavin Floyd as the 2nd "MLB Gavin" years back, and while it looked like the former first-rounder's injury-plagued career had come to a close last year after struggling in Indy ball, 2021 saw him resurface in the Angels organization. He ended up batting .288 in triple-A, so who knows, there might be some life in his career yet. I'd love to see him get another gasp at the top level.
Before we take a trip down to the farm, one more mention is due. With the Negro Leagues now considered Major Leagues for most intents and purposes, there's technically a new Major League Gavin.
Just one career appearance for this player known only as Gavin: an inning pitched for the Brooklyn Eagles in 1935 where he gave up 4 runs (3 earned) on 5 hits and a walk. He may possibly have played in other games that've had their stats lost to the winds of time (along with the rest of his name), but at least he got his foot in the door for a baseball-reference page. Can't really add him to my card collection-- a very simple custom with no picture would be the best I could do; hardly seems worth it-- but figured I should at least give the man a head-nod here on the blog. Even assuming it's just his last name, still a true pioneer for Gavins everywhere!
Minor League Gavins
Man, we've hit a dozen active Gavins trying to crack the bigs.
The 2021 Columbus Clippers (AAA, CLE) included not only a guy named Gavin, but also a guy who went to my high school (Trenton Brooks)-- a team tailor-made for my fandom! Collins struggled to hit but was solid behind the dish, focusing only on catching after splitting time at the hot corner in years past.
Ah, a guy I've got a lot of cards of! LaValley was released by the Reds after the 2020 minor league season was cancelled. He found himself with the independent Kane County Cougars in 2021 and had a solid season, batting .270 with 12 home runs in 79 games. I'm rooting for ya, Gavin!
Baseball-reference is counting college stats in their active years here, which is kind of confusing. Anyways, Sonnier is an undrafted player who pitched for an indy team after college.
Oh wow! After not being in affiliated ball since 2017, Stupienski resurfaced in the Royals organization in 2021. Good for him! Got a nice TTM return from him with an assist from his cousin, former cardblogger "Bubba" (Matt) years back. After looking good in high-A ball, Gavin made it up to AA for a game.
Honestly I was thinking about not doing this post this year, as I've got plenty of other stuff in my mental "to blog about" list and with so many active Gavins out there now compared to only a few years ago, this annual exercise might have run its course. But then I saw the recent news that Grant Gavin had been selected by the Padres in the minor league Rule 5 draft and I got pretty excited that San Diego has their first Gavin (even if a last-name Gavin isn't quite the same, but hey, close enough). Grant pitched well this past season, with his K/9 rate of 11.1 ranking fifth-best in the Triple-A East league (minimum 70 innings). Hope to see him take the mound at Petco Park before long.
So there you go. Best wishes to all Gavins everywhere!
Birthday post! I've got a few 12/24 and 12/25 cards to show off that I've added to my collection over the past few months.
Here's a nice one to kick off with. 2014 Topps Tribute Xander Bogaerts auto. There's no "RC" logo, but it is in fact a rookie-year auto, for what that's worth. Wish the signature was on-card, but beggars for 12/24 cards can't be choosers. Got a good deal on this from eBay a while back. Bogey's a fun player to watch and collect.
I don't know anything about Dakoda Armstrong, but this 12/24 autograph popped up with a low opening bid and I ended up winning it for a few bucks.
Serial-numbered on the back.
I also don't know anything about Mac Guscette, but again, ended up scoring this 12/24 auto for a good price. Looks like he graduates high school in 2020 and has committed to become a Florida Gator. I'll store this one away with my other 12/24 cards and check on him in a few years, hoping he's eventually the next Mike Trout. LOL
Newman! He had a solid 2019, one of the few bright spots for the Pirates last season. Kevin attended Poway High School, same as Tony Gwynn. (Update: Whoops, I mean Tony Gwynn Jr!) The Archives sticker label got a little messed up on this encased card, but I don't mind too much. It was a good price, likely kept down by the wrinkled label.
Topps Archives Signature are good products for finding 12/24 cards since their buybacks are typically numbered out of random quantities, depending on how many Topps has bought back and gotten signed. Sandy Alomar had a very respectable career; happy to add an autograph of his to my collection.
A closer look at the Xmas Eve numbering.
Now we're moving on to the 12/25 cards. I forgot to show off this Gavin Lux when I posted my Lux PC a few months back because it was stored with my Christmas Cards, not my Gavins. That's the problem with "double bullseye" cards like this for me.. sometimes I can't decide which subcollection to store them in, and I'm not consistent about it. But anyways, in addition to the festive numbering, this seems to feature a "g" from "Dodgers" ("g" as in Gavin! eBay 1/1!) and an on-card autograph of baseball's #2 prospect.. Sweet.
Another Gavin Christmas Card. I already had this orange ice parallel in my Gavin LaValley 2014 Bowman Draft rainbow (only missing some 1/1s), but didn't have the 12/25 orange ice parallel. But now I do!
I believe it was a COMC find.
Michael Conforto 12/25 patch card (if this piping counts as a patch). Another card from my latest COMC order.
We're coming to the end now, and here's a girlie card auto that Zippy pointed me too. Honestly I don't really hunt down Benchwarmer Christmas Cards too often because that could get out of hand quickly. There are a lot of /25 parallels, and so, a lot of 12/25 cards out there. I've got a few, but I don't need them all. But I put in a bid on this one and won it. I don't know much about Andrea Lowell. Looks like she's been in Playboy and on VH1's The Surreal Life. Cool.
Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman takes us home. I was very happy to score this framed 2019 Ginter X mini auto. I've got a couple Hoffman autos from his playing days, but this is my first post-career autograph of his. As a Padres fan, I really love this card. I think it ran me about the price of a blaster on eBay. Not too bad.
That'll do it. Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!
"You Ain't the First" is next on the Guns N' Randoms list. Here are some of my random pickups over the past few weeks.
This ain't the first Graig Nettles auto in my collection, but it's the shiniest. Another card towards my Archives Reserve Master Set. The former SDSU standout set career highs in 1977 with 37 dingers and 107 ribbies as he helped his Yanks get new boat. (sorry, been watching a lot of Letterkenny on Hulu lately. "Boat" means "championship".)
This ain't the first nice Pedro Avila card in my collection.. in fact, my last post featured an autograph version of this 2018 Bowman card Rod was kind enough to give me. But you know how I love cards numbered 12/25. Picked up this Christmas Card cheap a while back.
With combined shipping (flat $1) on the above Xmas Pedro, also snagged this Heliot Ramos 2018 Bowman Tek purple parallel, a promising CF prospect for the Giants.
And along with the aforementioned Pedro and Heliot was this Chris Sale. I hadn't realized there were colored-bordered parales of these neat Tarot of the Diamond cards from 2018 Gypsy Queen (but of course there were), a bright spot of an otherwise forgettable product. While I'm definitely not into all that fortune telling crap (can't believe folks still put any faith in this stuff, but as my facebook feed attests, some do), these arty cards with rounded corners are pretty cool, especially with the "indigo" border making it pop.
I've seen these Topps Pristine "Personal Endorsements" cards on eBay before and always thought they looked kinda lame in the scans, but then I stumbled upon this Darrell Evans stickergraph cheap, a PC guy of mine, and snatched it up. It actually looks really cool in-hand, with the "engraved" effect really dancing in the light. Wouldn't be against picking up more of these.
Finally, this ain't the first Gavin LaValley 1/1 in my collection.. in fact, I'm sure I've got more LaValley 1/1's in my collection than any other player by a wide margin, but I'm still happy to add this cyan printing plate.
I already had the Superfractor and the black printing plate in my quest for a master rainbow.
As of this writing, LaValley is batting 2-2 in spring training 2019. If he keeps up this pace for a full career, he'll be a slam dunk HOFer with a 1.000 batting average! My PC will skyrocket and I'll become rich slowly selling off my collection. Go, Gavin, Go!
No Name on Front cards are some of the coolest error cards out there, I'd say.
There was recently some talk on Twitter of an eBay seller with a nice selection of 1992 Topps cards with no names on the front. I thought the cards looked great.. a fresh spin on an old classic. Just a simple, elegant frame around a photo. They were just a buck each plus flat $3 shipping, so I grabbed a few guys I collect. If you don't recognize him out of his Red Sox uni, that's Dwight Evans above.
Caminiti, Joyner, Templeton, and Maas here. What these cards are are Gold parallels missing the gold foil. Turns out this is the same seller from whom I bought a few proof cards back in 2017.. she must have either worked at Topps in the 90s (or perhaps at the print shop Topps used?) or have a close associate who did. She has thousands of backdoored stuff like this in her eBay store. (In fact, I just placed another order of stuff from her while working on this post!)
They have regular backs. You can tell they're Gold parallels by the logo in the background of the stats box.
While I'm talking about NNOF cards, I figured I'd include a couple others I've got, such as this 2014 Bowman Draft card of Gavin LaValley that's missing the foil, and therefore the name. Nice unofficial variation for that rainbow.
Of course the best known example of a no-name error is the 1990 Topps Frank Thomas. I'd love to pick one up someday when I've got 4-figures to burn on a baseball card, but for now I'm content with official reprints. These are both from 2010 Topps.
One is the standard Cards Your Mom Threw Out insert, and the other is the more scarce original back reprint. The latter is probably my favorite reprint in my collection... love it!
I always look forward to doing these annual posts, even if their appeal is limited and typically don't get many views. But I like an excuse to look up how guys who share my first name performed over the past season.
My most active Gavin PC is Gavin LaValley. I was excited to see him have an autograph on the 2018 Bowman Chrome checklist, though it ended up souring for me. His superfractor auto popped up on eBay recently at a low opening bid. I was prepared to put up a very strong bid. But then with 2 days left to go, the auction jumped all the way up to $255. WTF?! Just this past June I paid $33 for his 2014 Bowman Chrome Draft superfractor (not an autograph, but still, that's his 1st Bowman). And the kicker? LaValley had a shitty 2018 season and at this point is probably a longshot to ever make the major leagues. Not sure who these guys are wanting to spend hundreds of dollars on one of his cards. Part of me is sad that I can no longer say I own every Gavin LaValley superfractor in existence, as I had been able to for a few months there (2014 Bowman Draft, 2014 Bowman Mini, 2018 Bowman Regular). The superfractor auto ended up selling for $300 at auction. A week or two later it popped up again at a buy-it-now of $399 or best offer. After a few days, the listing was pulled by the seller, perhaps due to a backdoor sale worked out away from eBay, or maybe the seller decided to hang onto it after not getting much interest in the card.
LaValley spent 2018 in AA, batting .209 with 13 dingers and 14 doubles. Quite a step back from his promising 2017 (.269, 18 dingers, 30 doubles). He's a first baseman (where big offensive numbers are expected) who will be 24 next season. Not "top prospect" territory. Don't get me wrong, I'm still rooting for him, and I hate to sound like I'm talking shit, but my point is it's ridiculous to be paying hundreds of dollars for one of his cards at this point.
Who knows.. I'll keep an eye out and perhaps one day in a few years if LaValley doesn't pan out, the guy who bought it will relist it and take a massive bath on it and I'll snag it for a fraction of the price.
After the superfractor debacle, I pumped the brakes on my Gavin LaValley PC. But before that, I did pick up a handful of his other 2018 Bowman Chrome autos. Here we've got: base, refractor (/499), purple (/250), blue (/150), and green shimmer (/99).
Ok, now let's get into other Gavins.
Sadly, 2018 was the first year since before Gavin Floyd debuted back in 2004 that there were zero Gavins in MLB. Floyd and Gavin Cecchini overlapped in 2016, with the former going out and the latter coming up. Cecchini then got into 32 games with the Mets in 2017, but he didn't make it out of the minors in 2018. He was playing well in Triple A and in line for a promotion up top, but unfortunately he broke a bone in his foot that derailed his season and limited him to 31 games for the year. Bummer. Hopefully he comes back strong in 2019.
And there are a bunch of other Gavins in the minors, so I wouldn't expect this Gavinless streak to last long.
Collins split his time between playing 3B and catcher down in the Indians chain. His offensive numbers were down this year after a solid 2017, but hopefully he gets back on track in 2019.
Garay was a 26th round pick by the Mets in 2017. He hit a robust .329 with 5 ding-dongs in just 18 Rookie League games this year. Hopefully he builds on that in '19.
Not a typo! It's hilarious that there are two different baseball players: Gavin LaValley and Gavin Lavallee. Confusing! I already talked about LaValley above, but Lavallee went undrafted from Eastern Connecticut State University and plays indie ball. He had a solid 2018, hitting .329 in 41 games, playing 3B and RF. Oh man-- I think my dream Gavin card/custom would be a dual auto signed by both Gavin Lavallee and Gavin LaValley.
The Dodgers' #1 pick in 2016, Lux bounced back from a lackluster 2017 to put up a strong 2018 season. Drawing comparisons to Corey Seager, the 20-year old shortstop got promoted to AA this year. Overall, he hit .324 with 15 tatters. I hear his Fortnite game is strong too.
A 2nd round pick by the White Sox last year, Sheets performed adequately in his first full pro season, hitting .293 with 6 homers and 61 RBI in A ball.
Here's a guy I was really rooting for-- a cousin of a cardblogger!-- but unfortunately Stupienski's baseball career hasn't been going well. Despite solid defense behind the plate and batting .307 in the minors, Arizona cut him loose after 2017, and he spent 2018 on an independent team in Winnipeg.
The 23-year old made it up to AA and pitched well out of the pen this year. Grant has also looked good in the Arizona Fall League so far, allowing just 1 earned run over 9 innings. I'd expect him to make it to AAA next year and hopefully get called up to Kansas City before too long.
An 8th round pick by the Giants in 2017, John had a solid 2018, highlighted by a complete game shutout in A ball. Overall, he had 139 strikeouts and 47 walks in 122.1 innings to go with a 2.87 ERA.
Happy Trails - Saying farewell to Gavins who've left pro ball since the last update.
A 16th round pick by the Marlins in 2017, Fritz didn't pitch in 2018 after a rough 2017 debut in Rookie League, so I gotta assume he hung up his spikes. "There goes Fritz," as they say.
Gavin Pittore was released back in July 2017 and didn't play at all in 2018, which surprises me because his numbers in the minors looked good (2.52 career ERA). Perhaps he had injury issues? I got a nice TTM return from him a couple years back where he included a friendly note, so I was definitely a fan and hoped he'd make it to the bigs. Bummer. All the best to Mr. Pittore in the next chapter of his life.
Lastly, squeezing in the one football Gavin, Escobar briefly suited up with the Browns and then Dolphins in 2018, but didn't get into a game with either of them. I don't think he's officially retired yet, but at this point I'd be surprised to see him play another NFL down, unfortunately. But hey, best of luck to him and all the other Gavins out there!
And that wraps up the 2018 update of pro baseball (and football) players named Gavin. Thanks for reading!
I'm not going to have a lot of blogging time for the next week or so. An issue at work delayed my production schedule for the month by a week, so I'm playing catch-up and won't have a lot of downtime to type up posts. Plus, much of the free time that I do have is spent working on my big List of Baseball Cards in Film and TV which is coming along wonderfully and is fun to research and I think will be a big hit, but takes a lot of time digging and building.
So for the time being here's a quick "Guns N ' Randoms" post where I just show off some random recent pickups. I also use a GNR song as a title since that saves me time trying to think up a clever title or way to tie the cards together. We're now up to "Dust N' Bones", a fine but largely forgettable track off Use Your Illusion I.
In cardboard terms, "dust" could be acetate cards.. you know, because you can see through them.. or something. So let's start off with a couple clear cards.
While I pretty much consider my Roberto Alomar PC "complete enough", one thing that bothered me is that of my 2 autos of his, one is a 1988 Topps Traded card which I mistakenly thought was a buyback auto, but turned out to be non "pack-certified" (my fault for not reading the description close enough). And the other Robbie auto I got is unlicensed, plus is a Toronto card. But now this certified, on-card, licensed, Padres card checks all the boxes for me and caps off the PC nicely.
I'm really hoping Francisco Mejia pans out for San Diego. He's got a lot of potential but needs to prove he can hit major league pitching. I recently kicked up my new PC of his with a 2018 Clearly Authentic auto in the style of 1993 Finest.
Here's the pair in the light.
The backs of these cards tend to look cool too. (Although the signature on the Mejia visible from the back is a bit unfortunate.. looks like somebody doodled him pooping. lol)
Now for the "bones" portion of the post. When I think of "bones" of a card, well, I guess I'd say printing plates, right? So here are a couple printing plates I've picked up recently.
Another card for the Padres section of my collection. Looks like Cal Quantrill is currently #10 on the list of San Diego's top prospects. He was a little shaky in AA earlier this year, but improved after getting promoted to AAA. Hope he has a good season next year and makes it up to Petco before long.
And a new addition to my Gavin LaValley supercollection. Actually, it's not all that super, as there are a ton of parallels I don't have for this card. But when a 1/1 shows up, I go after it.. and figure I'll worry about the less scarce cards down the line if I decide to rainbow the card.
Believe it or not, this is my 9th LaValley plate... but it's my first black plate for him, funny enough. Most of what I've got are yellows and magentas.
So anyways, there were a couple autos from 2018 Clearly Authentic and a couple plates from 2018 Bowman.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend! Best of luck to those of you out East dealing with Florence.
