It’s been a while since I’ve written anything!

Working in the back yard and being exhausted at night has taken a good portion of my time that used to be allocated to the blog.  I’d like to find a way to fix that, though, and start providing quality content once again.

The cards I listed for the $100 project have not gotten much play since being put on auction a couple weeks ago.  I did have an offer on the Joe Montana coin at $40 that I countered at $50, but the buyer didn’t bite.   The cards from my other purchase arrived and I was able to get them up on eBay within 24 hours, but there’s been no play on them yet.

The marked has dipped considerably for Lorenzo Cain, who went from spring training hero to struggling to injured in the course of one week.  It’s looking fairly unlikely that I’ll be able to turn a profit for those cards.

That’s baseball for you.

A quick update on the Montana coin card.

I haven’t gotten any offers for it yet and may have to look at adjusting the asking price downward.  Since the purchase, the market for these cards has taken a dramatic dip.  Some of the coins #/5 sold for around $70-75, which means my silver one out of 25 is looking more like a $35-45 card.  Naturally, this will still end up being a profitable purchase at that sales price, but not the $50-60 I had hoped for.

Now, I was back on Sportsbuy parusing for Lorenzo Cain cards and I happened upon a seller that had two of his 2006 Bowman Chrome Prospect refractor RC’s #/500.  The asking price for these was $5 each, which is about half of eBay’s current going rate for the uber-hot Royals leadoff hitter.  I put them in my card and noticed that if I spent $15 with this seller, I’d receive free shipping.

So, I started checking out the rest of his listings.

I snagged a 2002 Donruss Originals Robin Ventura jersey card (#/500) for 50 cents and a 2001 Donruss Classics Benchmarks game used bench card of Frank Thomas for $2.  Looking a little deeper, I found a 2005 Reflections Justin Verlander RC for $3.   Verlander’s stuff sells like hot cakes, especially rookie cards.

The purchase also allowed me to cross the $15 threshold, but I decided to do some further digging for other possibly profitable items.  I didn’t find much other than a 2003 UD Superstars LeBron James card for 50 cents.  These are extreme low end LeBron RC’s, but I’ve seen some sell for a few bucks in the past.

The total for this purchase was $17.50, whittling a little more from my funds available balance.  As we sit today:

• Original Balance: $100.00
• Purchases: $37.50
• Remaining Balance: $62.50

Inventory:

• Joe Montana 2011 Topps Silver Super Bowl Coin #/25
• (2) Lorenzo Cain 2006 Bowman Chrome Prospects Refractors #/500
• Justin Verlander 2005 Reflections RC
• Frank Thomas 2001 Donruss Classics Benchmarks GU Bench
• Robin Ventura 2002 Donruss Originals GU Jersey #/500
• LeBron James 2003 UD Superstars RC

The cards haven’t arrived yet, but I’ll get them up and online within hours of plucking them from the bubble mailer.  We need to make some sales.

Alright Chris, time for you to emerge.

This is a little off the beaten sports card path.

I had my auction draft for the A.L. only fantasy baseball league that I’ve been a part of for the past 5 years.  The league is a standard rotisserie 5X5 with a budget of $26 for 23 players (14 position and 9 pitchers) and each owner is allowed to keep up to 12 players.  I kept 6 from this past season, giving me a bit of money to spend.  When all the dust settled, this is what my team looks like now.  Last year’s keepers are in bold.

• C  Matt Wieters  1.60
• C  Kelly Shoppach  .20
• 1B Chris Davis  .60
• 2B Dustin Pedroia  2.70
• SS Elvis Andrus  2.00
• 3B Brett Lawrie  2.00
• CI  Jose Bautista 1.50
• MI  Brian Roberts  .10
• OF B.J. Upton  1.90
• OF Delmon Young  1.00
• OF Mike Carp  .60
• OF Colby Rasmus  1.40
• OF Alexi Rios  1.30
• P    Josh Beckett  2.20
• P    C.C. Sabathia 2.50
• P    James Shields 1.00
• P    Phil Hughes  1.30
• P    Greg Holland  .80
• P    Mike Adams   .40
• P    Aaron Crow  .20
• P    Mark Melancon .10

Now, the first thing you may notice is that there are no real closers on my team.  This is by design.  My strategy was to grab three set up guys that had a good chance of developing into closers at some point during the season due either by injuries or by poor performances by the closers in front of them.  Good closers in this league go for upwards of $2.00, which for me, I would much rather spend on hitters.  I really wanted to snag Pestano, but he ended up going for more money than I had left.  Holland was an overpay and I would have much rather had that money to snag another starting pitcher.

The Bobby Abreu pick @ DH was another snafu.  He may end up getting released or will be stuck on the Angels’ deep bench.  In this league, the only way you can drop players is if they hit the DL, are released, sent to the minors, or are traded to the National League.  I would take any of these in a heartbeat as there are other better options out there still.

My situation at 1B is a little bit weak with all or nothing Chris Davis manning the helm.  There was a glut of elite guys available, but I couldn’t justify spending a ton of money on them.  I was hoping that a Kendrys Morales or Justin Smoak would fall to me for less than a buck, but they both went for $1.50 and $1.20 respectively.  Chris Davis at less than half that is a decent gamble for me, especially since I have a Jose Bautista at a corner infield position.

The Brian Roberts acquisition is a low cost gamble.  There cupboard for middle infielders was pretty much bare at that point.  If he can come back and at least slightly resemble the player that he once was, 20 cents is a steal.  However, I’m not crossing my fingers.  I’ll DL him to start the season and snag a Luke Hughes or perhaps wait for Johnny Giavotella when he comes up.

That’s another thing.  I’m only allowed to roster players that are on current MLB rosters.  No minor leaguers.

Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with the roster.  I’ve got three aces at solid prices (Beckett may be a tad high).  I’ve got solid high upside players and power throughout the lineup.  One area that I seem to always be lacking in, speed, has been sufficiently addressed with the likes of Upton, Andrus, Lawrie, and Pedroia.  I could well lead the league in stolen bases this year.

All in all, there is some work to be done between now and October to make this a championship roster.

Your thoughts?

**The Mark Melancon deal is looking pretty sweet right now.

2011 Topps SB Legends Silver Coin #6/25

This was purchased and received a few days ago for the paltry price of $20 shipped from an auction on Sportsbuy.  The card books for $80 and I’ve seen versions of this card #/50 and /75 selling for upwards of $50, so I’m pretty confident that this will net a decent return.  I put the card up on eBay for $74.95 or best offer.  We’ll see what happens.

• Original Balance: $100.00
• Purchase: $20.00
• Ending Balance: $80.00

Inventory:

• Joe Montana 2011 Topps Super Bowl Silver Coin Card #/25

It may be getting harder to stretch a buck these days, but $100 still has a little bit of elasticity.  The $100 growth project is something that I undertook a few years back when I wrote for a different blogsite.  The concept is simple.  Take $100 and use it to make purchases that could yield a profit.  When a purchased item sells, the net proceeds go back into the funds available for future purchases.

In the original project I used a one year time frame to see how much profit I could make.  I also focused exclusively on baseball prospects, which ended up killing me in the long run (thanks a bunch Chris Carter and Michael Taylor).

This time, I’m just looking for good deals, and I’d like to make it an ongoing project.  I’ll share my thoughts and methods with you and hope that you will do the same with me.

Here we go!

This was actually an article that I wrote over a week ago for the Cardboard Connection.  It highlighted some of the players that have been making a name for themselves during spring training.

Here’s the link.