Bat Blog Around: Cardmaxxing to not get Mogged

 So back in early March Night Owl Cards blogged about which player showed up the most for each team in his collection.

I get the feeling that unless you're an absolute nut with an Excel spreadsheet where your brain is, this would be hard to do. But in my case I have the fortune of having a collection that's down to its very very littlest core. So I was able to sort through and come up with each team leader.

Please note before we go in that I only considered the team/the MLB team the minor league team was affiliated with that particular year specified on the card as part of the tallies. Stuff like NPB era cards, Team USA or Perfect Game did not enter into these MLB totals. Oh also dupes (if any) count.

Similar to Night Owl, the order will go from the team/player with the most cards then I'll work my way down. Also I'll put in the 2nd place runner up for each team too as these will serve as tie-breakers for when I have multiple teams/players with the same number of cards.

1. Colorado Rockies

Kyle Freeland - 12 Cards

I dismantled my Freeland collection but I still have 12 cards I found too neat to move on from.
Still have my Freeland jersey too.

Runner Up: Troy Tulowitzki - 9 Cards

2. Washington Nationals

Bryce Harper - 9 Cards

Runner Up: Adam Dunn - 1 Card

These 10 cards are all of the Nationals cards I currently have in my collection. The Harpers singlehandedly forced this team in my top 3 and above the team I expected to be in second place.

3. New York Yankees

Dellin Betances - 8 Cards

I've come full circle.

Betances was my first ever player collection and despite all of the ups and downs and purges, he's back on top with a whopping 8 cards. If it's not Luis Torrens I'm at least glad it's Betances representing the Bronx for me.

Runner Up: Anthony Seigler - 7 Cards

4. Seattle Mariners

Ichiro Suzuki - 7 Cards

Ichiro being on top for the Mariners just feels right. Also worth noting that I also have 5 cards of Ichiro as a Yankee, which would put him on top on a bunch of other teams as we'll see later on in this list.

Runner Ups: Lucas Luetge/John Jaso/Hisashi Iwakuma/Brandon League/Ken Griffey Jr. - 1 Card

5. Houston Astros

Hunter Pence - 5 Cards

Runner Up: Brian Bogusevic - 2 Cards

6. Texas Rangers

Yoshinori Tateyama - 3 Cards

Runner Ups: Derek Holland/Joey Gallo - 2 Cards

7. Boston Red Sox

Junichi Tazawa - 3 Cards

Runner Ups: Ryan Lavarnway/Jarrod Saltalamacchia/Rafael Devers 1 Card

8. New York Mets

Amed Rosario - 3 Cards

Runner Up: Ezequiel Zabaleta - 1 Card

9. Toronto Blue Jays

Jose Bautista - 3 Cards

Runner Up: None

If you see "None" for any team's runner up it means that I have absolutely no other cards of that team in my possession.

10. Los Angeles Dodgers

Pedro Guerrero/John Richy - 2 Cards

Runner Ups: Ron Cey/Diego Cartaya/Jose De Leon/Walker Buehler/Clayton Kershaw - 1 Card

11. Chicago White Sox

Chris Sale/Addison Reed - 2 Cards

Runner Up: None

12. Miami Marlins

Josh Johnson - 2 Cards

Runner Ups: Ichiro Suzuki/Nate Eovaldi/Andrew Heaney/Trevor Rogers/Tom Koehler/Giancarlo Stanton/Anibal Sanchez - 1 Card

Why do I have so many Marlins cards?

13. Tampa Bay Rays

David Price - 2 Cards

Runner Up: Blake Snell/Garrett Whitley - 1 Card

14a. Arizona Diamondbacks

Ian Kennedy - 2 Cards

Runner Up: Paul Goldschmidt - 1 Card

14b. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

Shohei Ohtani - 2 Cards

Runner Up: Mike Trout - 1 Card

These runner ups were supposed to serve as tie-breakers but I failed to account for how something like this could happen. Oh well.

14c. San Diego Padres

Robbie Erlin - 2 Cards

Runner Up: Max Fried - 1 Card

Okay now begins the half of the list where I only have one card of the top player(s), as such we're saying bye-bye to the runner-ups and going by teams I have the most singletons of.

17. Philadelphia Phillies

Hunter Pence/Roy Halladay/JA Happ/Jose Pujols - 1 card

Pence is the only player to claim top honors on multiple teams.

18a. Chicago Cubs

Alfonso Soriano/Adbert Alzolay/Miguel Amaya - 1 Card

18b. Milwaukee Brewers

Norichika Aoki/Prince Fielder/Rollie Fingers - 1 Card

18c. San Francisco Giants

Hunter Pence/Masanori Murakami/Dick Estelle - 1 Card

Congrats to Pence on the three-peat.

21a. Atlanta Braves

Trae Young - 2 Cards

The actual answer is Craig Kimbrel and Jose Constanza with 1 card apiece but I like Trae more.

21b. Cleveland Guardians

Clint Frazier/Nolan Jones - 1 Card

21c. Minnesota Twins

Joe Mauer/Vance Worley - 1 Card

21d. Pittsburgh Pirates

Akinori Iwamura/Zach Duke - 1 Card

21e. St. Louis Cardinals

Chuck Taylor/Nolan Gorman - 1 Card

26. Detroit Tigers

Doug Fister - 1 Card

27-30. Baltimore Orioles/Cincinnati Reds/Kansas City Royals/Athletics

I own 0 cards of any of these teams. I've penned Rob Manfred a letter recommending that they be contracted.

With all of this laid out like this, I think it's really easy to see which era of baseball I was the most invested in.

Overall this was a fun way to sort through and take stock of the current iteration of my collection. It was fun to be reminded that I still somehow had 5 Leonardo Molina cards or 3 Wilkerman Garcia cards or 3 Yeicok Calderon cards. I can also easily see a world where a bunch of these teams with only a card or two to represent them end up with 0 in the future.

So big thanks to Night Owl for the inspiration and as always thanks for stopping by.

Take care.

What a Finish

 The 2026 World Baseball Classic has concluded. The best and worst thing (for me at least) about it is that it's so short and it comes and goes in what feels like five seconds. But in those five seconds whoo boy, the pressure amps up to 10 and the do-or-die nature of the semifinals (and subsequent rounds) get real fun real quick.

It's a great contrast to how most baseball regular seasons are 100+ game marathons. The run scoring system's flaws and all.

This time a new country claimed the Championship, Venezuela.

Congrats to them, that country is a powerhouse when it comes to producing top tier baseball talent and it's very understandable that they had the kind of run where they managed to win against the heavily favored teams. Although them doing it without Jose Altuve or Pablo López makes it even more incredible.

Overall, I do admit that after Japan got bounced my enthusiasm dropped a lot but that's mostly just as someone with a rooting interest. As a neutral baseball watcher I was still tuned in because I knew that USA vs the Dominican Republic would be a nail-biter, and it was although I was expecting more runs from both teams. Italy's run was also fun just because it had a bunch of players I like.

The coaching staff had Cervelli, Jorge Posada and Dave Righetti. The roster had very likeable and promising talents like Vinnie Pasquantino, Jakob Marsee (top prospect traded to the Miami Marlins in the Luis Arraez trade), Kyle Teel (top prospect traded to the Chicago White Sox in the Garrett Crochet trade) and Jac Caglianone (former top tier prospect).

Plus a fair bit of former New York Yankees prospects I remember a lot from my days as a prospect-nut on top like Ron Marinaccio, Greg Weissert, Mickey Gasper and Renzo Martini.

These three cards are all long gone but man was it fun to remember these guys

I came very close to breaking and splurging on a baseball card or two (Marsee is just so good, the San Diego Padres might end up regretting that) but I didn't.

Last time I got swept up in emotions and made some big splashes related to Team Japan but those cards didn't stay with me very long, and I had even stronger and better reasons to keep them than I would for most cards. Given that, I knew whatever I got would end up back on the market in a few months. So I didn't bother.

Which honestly kind of tells me that my time as an avid collector is probably done. I'm not going to say I'm retired because I still like to pick up the occasional card every now and then, plus it's a lot easier to still collect sports cards when foodstuffs exist here.

Case in point I just bought some Calbee chips since I wanted a snack and I opted for the one that came with free baseball cards. Folks I've got to say, having several stores sell potato chips that come with free baseball cards a brisk walk from my office is peak (as the youth say).

But these can be passively accumulated (and subsequently dumped onto others when I can find time to run to the post office). Looking at listings on Yahoo Auctions or Mercari though like how I used to look through eBay and COMC, yeah no I've got other things to do now.

Anyway I got side-tracked. The WBC has come and gone, it was very fun and I'll be very excited to see what happens in 2029. Japan and the Dominican Republic are 100% going to come back wanting to reclaim the throne, USA will still be there and should be in the same boat but we'll see, Venezuela's going to try to protect its title and hopefully Puerto Rico will be there to give it 100%. Plus there might just be another Cinderella run from Italy or a country like the Kingdom of the Netherlands or Nicaragua or Australia.

For now though, the regular season is like a week away.

Baseball still rules.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.