Closing in on an All-Time Brewers Set

It’s been a while since I did anything with my All-Time Brewers project. I had been busy with set-building and whatnot and just kind of forgot about it. But, in my first-ever Check Out My Card purchase, I picked up some needs that led to a few eBay purchases that led to a re-bindering of the whole deal. Let’s take a look.

First off, I combined the three binders into one and use all-new Ultra Pro pages to give the binder a nice, even look. I found a big 3.5 inch binder at Goodwill that houses them all with room to spare. Tidy!

This was actually spurred by a couple of TTM returns.

First was Adam Lind, who spent a year as a Brewer before being shipped to Seattle for Prospects. The Brewers gave up Marco Estrada to get Lind, which turned out to be a coup for the Blue Jays as Estrada has made an All Star team, gotten Cy Young votes and started six playoff games since the trade.

Then there was Tom Murphy. A pretty obscure Brewer today, he actually had a great 1974 season with the Crew, running up a 1.90 ERA over 123 relief innings.

Hernan Iribarren appeared in 24 games for the Brewers in 08-09. He was a fringy kind of prospect, the type of guy who was never going to be a star, but still got 10,000 different cards back in the go-go 2000s. He resurfaced with the Reds last year after six years in the minors. Anyway, this is a nice-looking card.

Johnny Hellweg was part of the return from the Angels for Zack Grienke. He was projected as a big arm, power guy, but had control issues. In 31 innings with the Brewers in 2013, he walked 26 and stuck out just nine. Barf.

Johnny Estrada was an All-Star with the Braves in 2004 but never managed to hang around any team for more than a few years. I remember him being considered a pretty rotten clubhouse guy and he was done in Milwaukee after just a single season. He ended up being shipping to the Mets for Guillermo Mota, who was a big part of the bullpen for the 2008 playoff team.

Michael Reed is actually still in the Brewers org, although with their outfield as deep as it is, I doubt he has any kind of future with the big team. He was action in a handful of games in 15-16. It’s another very nice-looking card.

Richie Sexson was, briefly, among the best power hitters in baseball. He had a big, loping swing and crushed 133 homers for the Brewers over parts of four seasons, placing 12^th in MVP voting after a 45-homer campaign in 2003. He was one of the biggest-name Brewers I did not yet have an autograph of, and this T206 mini was nice and cheap.

Junior Spivey came to the Brewers as a part of a massive package from the DBacks for Sexson following the 2003 season. Sexson played only 23 games for Arizona before injuring his shoulder and missing the rest of the year. He left as a free agent afterward, giving the DBacks almost nothing for Spivey, Chris Capuano, Craig Counsell, Lyle Overbay, and Jorge De La Rosa. Spivey was former All-Star and one of the big pieces of the swap, but did little with the Brewers, and was traded away the next year. This is one of those unnecessarily thick Playoff cards with the signed sticker embedded in it like a swatch of a glove or something like that. It stretches a 9-pocket all out of shape and I really try to avoid these if I can. But the price was right on this one.

Those all knocked off needs from my autographed card list. This one hits both my auto needs and card needs. This is the only card that depicts Juan Centeno as a Brewer. It took some time to find one reasonable priced, especially for a guy who batted .048 with the Crew in 10 games in 2015. Centeno was a member of the World Champion Astros this year, and made a defensive appearance in the ALDS against the Red Sox.

And lastly, how about Greg Martinez? He was actually on the opening day roster in 1998, but was sent down after a week and just one plate appearance. He had two more stints with the team that year, mostly used as a pinch runner. He ended his career with 4 PAs, two runs score, and zero hits. Although he did draw a walk once against the Cardinals. He is without a big league card, but this Beloit Brewers minor league issue fits in nicely.

I'll have a follow-up post to this very soon, as a new order from COMC has just come in, which has put me with SIX CARDS (kinda) of a complete Brewers team set.