This also means I am just under having 25% of the all-time roster. This only considers the roster up through the end of last season, so those numbers will adjust by the end of this year. Anyway, it's a fine achievement in my mind. So how's about taking a look at some of that new ink?
Luis Sardinas was supposed to be the centerpiece of the trade that send long-time Brewer Yovanni Gallardo to Texas. As it turned out, he was the most expendable piece of the deal, with Corey Knebel now a big part of the bullpen and Marcos Diplan a possible future prospect (he's still just 20). Sardinas struggled as a part-timer before being traded to the Mariners. This is the only auto/relic card in my Brewers auto set and one of only a handful of relics that I own.
Kind of an uggo card, but at least it's an on-card auto. Wagner threw 13 unremarkable innings for the Brewers in 2015. He went to Arizona in the Jean Segura trade, but is now in the Texas system.
Not much to say about this one. He pitched 8.1 innings for the Crew in 2006. Great photo selection, Topps.
Luis Martinez was one of those guys during the rookie-crazy early 2000s that saw dozens of guys in base sets that would never even sniff the majors. Martinez got a sniff, but not a great one. STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS BEFORE... he was a Brewers pitcher who threw a handful of innings and gave up a bunch of runs and never played in the majors again. He was later part of the trade that sent Larry Walker to the Cardinals.
Chris Mabeus is another guy who has a million cards and only a handful of MLB games. Oh, wait, actually just one. He pitched 1.2 innings against the Pirates on May 29, 2006, gave up four hits, three walks, and fours runs. He finished that season at AA and never pitched professionally again.
Jose Capellan was actually something of a big prospect when the Brewers got him from the Braves in 2004 for all star closer Dan Kolb. He put up pretty good numbers as a reliever for two seasons before struggling in 2007 and getting traded to the Tigers. Capellan was still pitching as late as 2013. He died of a heart attack in 2015 at the age of 34.
Carlos Villanueva spent five years with the Brewers as a long-reliever and spot starter. He was a part of the 2008 Wild Card team and also pitched for the Cardinals in the 2015 NLDS, totaling 5.2 scoreless post-season innings.
This Jason Rogers Chrome auto is so damn shiny, your blogmaster himself makes an appearance in the pic! HELLO WORLD! Rogers raked in '15 for the Crew, batting .296 with power in 152 ABs. The team sold high on him and flipped him to the Pirates for Keon Broxton and Trey Supak.
I've got to give Signature Rookies credit for being a half-decade ahead of the retro curve when they issued these mock tobacco (tomocko?) cards way back in 1995. Sure, they look like they were made in MS Paint, but this was well before Topps Heritage or UD Goudy or anything like that. As for Boze and Hughes? They had short MLB careers and unremarkable numbers. In fact, the most remarkable numbers might be those serial numbers... damn, they signed a lot of these things back in the day.
I have a half-dozen or so of these Leaf Signature Series cards in my Brewers auto collection and DAMN do I like them. Great design, deep checklists, and a nice and unobtrusive way to present an on-card auto. And then you get badasses like Wickander here, who don't want to be confined to any box when signing their name. No one is gonna hold him back! ... Ok, so after goggling Wickander just now, I learned that he has actually had a lot of trouble since his playing career ended. He got hooked on amphetamines as a player and later developed an addiction to meth. In 2002, he was sentenced to four years in prison for theft. I wasn't able to find much about him since his release, but here's to hoping he's gotten healthy.
This one came TTM the same day as the big package. It got a bit smudged on the way, but still checks in as the 200th sig in my Brewers collection. McIntosh was up and down with the Brewers for four seasons, playing in a total of 48 games. He also appeared with the Yankees and Expos in the bigs.
This one doesn't technically count toward my running tally yet, as it is a 2017 debut, but I picked up this nice Josh Hader auto at a show in West Allis the day after Hader made his first MLB appearance. I was going to do a whole post on the show, but it kept it kind of low-key, picking up only this card and a stack of '75s for my set. Still, a nice haul.
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