Topps Cards That Should Have Been: 2005 Yankees

 

2005 was the last time I saw a regular season game at the old Yankee Stadium. Esteban Loaiza was pitching. It was really damned hot. I think the Yanks won.

This was another Torre team that tried to recreate the 90s success and couldn't, though we certainly tried. More importantly, after the Tony Womack signing was kind of a flop, 2005 was the first year of Robinson Cano's ascent to 2nd. And while the PED charges have tainted the once extraordinary career for the hard-hitting 2nd baseman, you have to admit that his rookie year was still pretty refreshing. 22 years old, hitting .297 with 62 RBIs and 14 homers in an 132 game rookie season, and finishing second in the ROY voting to Huston Street.

More from Ruben Sierra. 2005 was Sierra's last year of bench-DH work in New York. In 61 games, the 39-year old former Rangers phenom hit .229 with 29 RBIs and only 4 homers. With Giambi and Tino switching off at DH, Sierra mostly was a bench bat, and a kinda shoddy one at that. Minnesota would be next. 

How rare is this? A year after being a crucial member of the Red Sox team that knocked off the Yankees in Game 7 of the ALCS and won the Series, Mark Bellhorn was cut by the Sox in August and picked up by the rivals. A prelude to Johnny Damon, I suppose, but with shakier results. Bellhorn's stuff had dissolved since his Boston heyday, and he only hit .118 with 2 RBIs in 9 games for the Yankees before getting cut again. 

And former Cubs infielder and frequent MLB traveler over the late-90s and early 2000s Rey Sanchez gave his last MLB numbers as a member of this Yankee team. After a strong defensive season in Tampa, Sanchez handed in negative defensive totals, and hit a decent .279 over 23 games. Bit of a whimper to go out on.

Tomorrow Uncustomed Heroes begins!!

Topps Cards That Should Have Been: 2006 Twins

 

A lot of this coverage of the 2006 Twins is made up of 'why bother making a card now' guys that I've already showed 2007 cards of. One of these is actually a startling omission. Kyle Lohse has a card in 2006 Update as a member of the Reds, but Topps failed to make one of his starting team, one he'd been with for years, the Minnesota Twins. In 22 games he had a 7.07 ERA, with 5 losses, and only 8 starts, being moved to the pen afterwards. He's sent to the Reds in a deadline deal, improves his velocity, and slowly becomes a favorite in St. Louis and Milwaukee.

I talked about Tony Batista and his paltry Nats numbers a week or so ago, but in 2006 he was coming off a year where he was supposed to be a National but was injured the whole time. Even if he was healthy in 06, his career was rapidly going downhill after his stellar 2002, and the Twins were left with some meh numbers. In 50 games, Batista hit .236 with 21 RBIs and 5 homers. Not terribly interesting. 

And after a few seasons being a bench/DH for the Yankees, Ruben Sierra played his last 14 MLB games as a member of the Twins, trapped behind Jason Kubel and Michael Cuddyer. The 40 year old hit .179 with 4 RBIs and no home runs. As discussed, he'd try the Mets in '07, and it wouldn't go much better.

Tomorrow, we go to 2008 to catch up with some unsung pitching White Sox.

Topps Cards That Should Have Been: 2007 Mets

 

Oh man, there are some weird ones in this post.

The Mets were one year removed from being a playoff threat that nearly made it all the way, and were trying to repeat, despite pressure from the Phillies and Braves. And...they made a lot of very strange roster decisions, from spring training to the end of the season. We're gonna do the sort of understandable ones first.

Jason Vargas, before he became a standout for Seattle and KC, was shipped over to New York in exchange for Matt Lindstrom, and figured he had a shot to try some starts. Unfortunately, the Mets' rotation was pretty set in stone, with Tom Glavine, Pedro Martinez, Orlando Hernandez, John Maine and Oliver Perez staying pretty strong the whole year. So he only got two starts, and they didn't go well. Vargas came away from the season with a 12.19 ERA, with 17 hits and 14 runs allowed. This would be a run that would wound his career, and make him a suspect candidate for the majors until the Mariners would take a chance on him in 2009.

But, with the injury to Pedro Martinez, the team needed more starting options before landing on Mike Pelfrey. 

So they fished Brian Lawrence out of a deal with the Rockies. Lawrence, a former Padres starter, was traded to the Nationals for Vinny Castilla and didn't play a game for them due to injuries. So he needed to prove something to someone, and the Mets really needed rotation help. Lawrence, in 6 starts, had a 6.83 ERA with a 1.9 WHIP. Not a great run, and after the release he'd never make the majors again. Lawrence as a Met would have been a cool Topps card, but...it was not to be.

We just talked about Aaron Sele a few days ago, talking about his 2005 with the Mariners, but at this point in his career he was bouncing around, just trying to make some playing time, in relief or starting or whichever. In 34 games, all relief appearance, with the Mets, Sele would pull alright numbers, with a 5.37 ERA and some long-man work. Like Lawrence, Sele would bow out after this season.

Okay, now some REALLY weird ones.

Ricky Ledee, former Yankee bench bat and guy who sort of bopped around the league for 10 years afterwards, finished his career with the 2007 Mets. In 17 games, Ledee hit .222 with 6 RBIs and his last homer. 

SANDY ALOMAR JR., who I always thought bowed out in 2006 with LA, played some games with the Mets in 2007. Sandy Alomar Jr. was 41 in 2007, and still catching. Yes, understandably his defensive numbers had gone down, but he was still playing, and the Mets...needed a 41-year-old backup catcher? I will say, though, that his defensive numbers weren't bad in his 8 games, but he did hit below the Mendoza line and didn't last very long at all. 

And this is the weirdest one. Ruben Sierra had been a bench bat/DH for most of the 2000s, and I assumed, mostly correctly, that his career ended in 2006 split between the Yanks and Twins. But...at 41, he decided he still wasn't done. So he attempted to make Spring Training with the Mets. This is an incredibly strange sight, and I kinda wished he'd have made the team so Topps could make a card of him. He didn't, and he retired afterwards, taking his career total of 306 homers with him.

Tomorrow's got some strange ones too, courtesy of the 2007 Nationals.