I really like Matt Treanor after watching him play a few games for the Royals. Would I want him to catch every day for the Royals? Probably not. He does appear to be a great guy to have on the club. I really wanted to see Lucas May get a shot to platoon with Brayan Pena to start the year though. Instead May is at AAA Omaha and the Royals had to risk losing him in order to add Treanor.
Treanor is a light hitting defensive catcher. He was drafted way back in 1994, by the Royals ironically enough. He spent ten seasons in the minor leagues before ever getting to the show. The Royals wanted a veteran catcher to catch the younger starters in the rotation so they purchased Treanor’s contract. He was in spring training camp in a Royals uniform for two games before starting on opening day. I was extrememly glad to add him to my spring training set and he is the entire reason for my “update” set. The update set is almost over, there will be no more, I promise, after tomorrow. I will post the last card then.
Yes, 1980 Donruss; the set that never was.
Jonathan Broxton was on a highlight last night so I decided to feature him today. The most interesting part of this post however is that the card design is 1980 Donruss, a set that doesn’t exist. Apparently this is a legitimate design. Donruss released two sample cards in 1980 of Reggie Jackson and George Brett. The court ruling that allowed Donruss to release a set didn’t conclude until time for the 1981 set. But this awful design is left behind.
The card is terrible in my opinion. I found it to be even worse when searching for a picture of Broxton to put in the design. The top ribbon is so big that it covered part of Broxton in the first several photos I picked out. Even this picture doesn’t comfortably fit. So I will deem 1980 Donruss a set that thankfully never was produced.
I decided the Royals cards were getting a little stale and I need to force myself to vary brands and teams a little bit. So I decided to turn on baseball tonight and feature the player that was the star of the first highlight that I watched. It was Rays at the White Sox and Juan Pierre is up with the bases loaded. My first thought was; “Oh no.” Juan Pierre is one of my most hated players in the majors and I really didn’t want to feature him on a custom card on my site. Pierre hits a deep drive to right field and Sam Fuld makes a diving catch that is likely the best play I have seen so far this baseball season. His head-first dive to catch the ball was on a dead run and landed him on the warning track.
Who is Sam Fuld? He is a young player that has played parts of two season with the Chicago Cubs before joining the Rays this year. He has a whopping one long ball and five runs batted in in his major league career. I’m sure this catch was the highlight of his career so far. He will have the distinction now of being my first “Custom Card of the Day.”
I chose 1991 Fleer to feature because in some ways I think it is an awful card design, but that some how makes it kind of cool. The striking yellow makes the card stand out in any collection and the design is simple, really simple. I made Billy Butler as my first card of this set but as I mentioned I want to post some cards other than Royals.
I would like to do a “Custom Card of the Day” often from now on as I have a strong catalog of card designs re-created at this point. I will try to do odd players like Sam Fuld and less of players like Albert Pujols. I hate the Yankees so don’t expect to see many of them.
Jamie Romak can hit. He is a typical first baseman. He’s got pop and isn’t a great defender. I saw him take one out of the park in the futures game on April 2nd at Kauffman Stadium. Romak is in an unfortunate position however. He appears to have four high quality players/prospects ahead of him in the same organization.
The Royals have Billy Butler and Kila Ka’aihue and the Omaha Storm Chasers at AAA have Eric Hosmer and Clint Robinson who are both great hitting prospects. Romak is at AA Northwest Arkansas Naturals and looks to be fifth in line to play first base in the near future in Kansas City. Who knows what could happen, injuries, trades, players moving positions but there appears to be a ton of road blocks in front of Jamie Romak.
Derrick Robinson is fast. He is a speedy guy and from what I have seen, which isn’t very much, he seems to be similar to Jarrod Dyson. Dyson has been great so far for the Royals as a pinch runner. I really like having the speed element on a team. The only upside for Robinson over Dyson may be that he might be a better pure base stealer and hopefully develops into a better hitter than Dyson projects to be.
Jesse Chavez is a relief pitcher that is currently with the Omaha Storm Chasers. Chavez is young but is no longer a rookie. He had a good season for Pittsburgh a couple years ago in the majors but hasn’t been able to match his success with the Royals. Chavez is not a pitcher that I am excited to see come out of the bullpen for the Royals. I think there is a strong likelihood he will fill in and could even be the first call up for a short relief role but I would rather see Blake Wood or one of the rookies come up instead.
This Chavez card is a great picture. It is reminiscent of Greinke’s Sports Illustrated cover. The picture doesn’t really fit with my spring training set but the Chavez card is nice addition to the set in itself.
Centro-matic is a Texas band led by Will Johnson. Johnson is a folk hero of sorts. He is not like a Arlo Guthrie folk hero, he is more like a Paul Bunyan type folk hero. Centro-matic in many ways is the central ingredient in a small family of bands. Will Johnson has several projects going on simultaneously. Johnson is the lead singer and guitarist for Centro-matic, and the lead singer and guitarist for the more low-fi South San Gabriel. Johnson also tours solo and has released numerous records under his name alone. Johnson’s strangest role may be as drummer for Monsters of Folk. Monsters of Folk is a supergroup made up of Jim James(Yim Yames, My Morning Jacket) Conor Oberst(Desaparecidos, Bright Eyes, Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band) Mike Mogis(Bright Eyes) and M. Ward(M. Ward, She & Him) and of course Will Johnson(Will Johnson, Centro-matic, South San Gabriel)
Here is a great chance to expose yourself to the music of Centro-matic and South San Gabriel; They have generously posted a compilation on their website of 24 songs as a sampling for the bands. The download can be found at: https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&batch_id=UFhzT2pPZDVKV05jR0E9PQ
This is the cover art for the 24 song sampler provided on Centro-matic's website.
The band is really a unique talent. The core of the band is Will Johnson and drummer Matt Pence. Johnson is such a unique singer that no other band really sounds anything like them. I have never seen a singer in a band use his proximity to the mike as a weapon as Johnson does. Johnson is also bafflingly prolific. Centro-matic just announced the release of their 10th record, that doesn’t even count Johnson’s many other projects. Do yourself a favor and check out the sampler.
There you go, now LISTEN TO CENTRO-MATIC.
Manny Pina is a good defensive catcher and has a chance to spend some time in KC this year. He started the futures game for the Omaha Storm Chasers while his friend Salvador Perez started against him for the Northwest Arkansas Naturals. Pina figured to be the starter in Omaha this year but Lucas May was just retained by the Royals. I don’t know exactly how this happened but I’m glad it did. I thought that Lucas May would get claimed and his days as a Kansas City Royal were over.
May and Pina will apparently share duties in Omaha this year. They are oppisites in many ways. Lucas May is a hitter that plays catcher and Manny Pina is a catcher that comes to bat when his turn in the lineup comes around. After seeing Brayan Pena and Matt Treanor in the big leagues through the first six games of this season I like defensive catchers better. Pena has had two questionable plays at the plate in which the runner has been safe and Treanor has had two in which an out was recorded.
Manny Pina could be a solid backup catcher in the future for a big league team I feel. I don’t know if his bat will ever allow him to be a full time player.
This is a spring training card of outfielder Brett Carroll. It is not a good picture but it is the only one that I could find. I don’t think Carroll is a Royals anymore.
Every year Topps puts out an update set to fill in the blanks that they missed for various reasons in previous releases. It just happened to work out that I will have my version of an update set as well. I finished with my spring training Royals set for the 2011 season the day before opening day with Joakim Soria, or so I thought at the time.
I felt as if I had one glaring hole in my spring training set, Royals opening day starting catcher Matt Treanor. Following my own rules I set for myself I couldn’t find a picture. My rules were based around the fact that the players had to be wearing spring training uniforms. You can tell the spring uniforms by the white stripe on the sides of the players jerseys. Treanor joined the club with just two games left in spring training so there were no pictures of him. As it happens, I was able to find a gallery of pictures from the day in between spring training and opening day and they were wearing the spring uniforms. So I felt this qualified.
So Matt Treanor was among these pictures and my update set was born. I plan on posting one per day like I did during spring training while I prepare my next project. It will consist of eight cards. On top of my 47 card base set, this will equal a 55 card Royals set. There are still holes I can think of but they are extremely minor.
Here is the first card of the update set, Joaquin Arias. I’m not sure what happened to Arias but I know he didn’t make the team. He had spent some time with the Rangers in the past and I imagine his days with the Royals are done as well unless he is willing to play in a crowded minor league system.
I really like Matt Treanor after watching him play a few games for the Royals. Would I want him to catch every day for the Royals? Probably not. He does appear to be a great guy to have on the club. I really wanted to see Lucas May get a shot to platoon with Brayan Pena to start the year though. Instead May is at AAA Omaha and the Royals had to risk losing him in order to add Treanor.
A Hair Off Square 