The best hitters and pitchers on each playoff team, and the best hitter and pitcher not in the playoffs, by VORP. I flipped a coin for Minnesota/Detroit and Minnesota won. I’ll rescan on Tuesday if the coin flip proves wrong.

The Angels don’t have a single hitter over 40 VORP, but they have ten over 15.

I don’t have a single card of A.J. Happ, but I rode him pretty hard as a free-talent pickup in my Roto league. I will commemorate him with a purchase from Sportlots.

The Week’s Best

The best baseball and baseball card blog articles of the week (as voted on by a panel of one):

JayBee Anama displays some hard-to-find inserts from 2k6.
Dinged Corners goes off topic, and I gotta feeling it’s gonna be good good fun.
Mark’s Ephemera decorates a man-cave.
Night Owl breaks out the blender to relieve some stretch-drive frustration.

NL PA Leaders

AL PA Leaders

The players with the most PA in each league. I guess the Phillies have been healthy and good all season.

Hard to believe that I don’t have a single Pedroia card. I’ll have to get one off of Sportlots.

The Week’s Best

The best baseball and baseball card blog articles of the week (as voted on by a panel of one):

PunkRockPaint delivers a whale of a pirate card.
EdS is not ashamed to re-collect a classic. Roll out the doubles, everyone.
Dinged Corners does a blaster-less review of Goodwin.
EdS breaks some 2006 Flair Showcase.
Night Owl tells the story of Frank Smith.
PunkRockPaint goes vigilante after spotting a pack searcher.
Condtion:Poor goes a little bit nuts over his first TTM success.

NL Leaders, SLG Against

AL Leaders, SLG Against

The best pitchers in each league, by SLG against.

Jimenez and Garza and Feldman all elude me. To Sportlots I go.

The Week’s Best

The best baseball and baseball card blog articles of the week (as voted on by a panel of one):

The Other World shows us the view from AT&T Park’s upper deck.
Doc offers a great tip for a cheap way to store lots of cards.
Beardy shows off a literally priceless 1/1.
Mark’s Ephemera gives us the lowdown on ’92 Stadium Club.
Dinged Corners interviews two daughters of baseball.
Night Owl presents his All-Aught Dodgers.
A preview of 2010 SlangKo Heroes of the Diamond.
Dayf is a mad pirate genius.

NL Leaders, TB

AL Leaders, TB

The sluggiest sluggers in each league so far this season, by Total Bases.

Pujols = Man among boys.

Mr. Morales, I will find you on Sportlots.

The Week’s Best

The best baseball and baseball card blog articles of the week (as voted on by a panel of one):

Stusigpi pays tribute to Mr Pack Searcher Guy.
Dinged Corners invents the six-cards-in-30-seconds test.
Night Owl shows us that he is no punkrockpaint.
Stusigpi exposes some eBay patch frauds.
Night Owl revisits the magic of sixth grade.
Some great hockey cards from this years UD set on Shoebox Legends.
Night Owl shows off some great horizontal cards.

The best defensive players at each position in each league according to the excellent series Diggin’ in the Defensive Dirt by Brian Joseph at Baseball Daily Digest. (Brian did not cover pitchers, so I made my own all-time selections to fill out the pages.)

I need to grab a DeJesus from Sportlots this week.

The Week’s Best

The best baseball and baseball card blog articles of the week (as voted on by a panel of one):

Night Owl appreciates Nomo cardboard.
Dayf gives a brief review of 2009 SPx.
Mario puts Icons baseball and football side by side.
Dayf gets all excited about some beat-up old card.
Thingpen shows us Larry Walker when he was yet a spry lad.
2008 A&G Card-scape breaks Adam Jones’ ankle, and gets a smeared auto for karma.
Night Owl eschews Reggie for a surprise entry into the Badass Club.
Night Owl bemoans the marriage of a certain Dodgers fan.

A Dback sandwich on toploader bread

And a LOT of meat

Naturally I gobbled it up. Or, rather, I unwrapped it and spread out the contents. Here is what I beheld:

A great big pile of awesome

Mark, I can’t say thanks enough for such generosity. It has been too long since I’ve just sat down with a big ol’ pile o’ dbacks and watched a ball game. I think I’ll do that right now.

NL WXRL Leaders

AL WXRL Leaders

The best relievers in each league in 2009, by WXRL.

How amazing is Mariano Rivera? Normally by the time someone is considered a legend of the game, they are past their prime. Mo is still leading the big leagues. There’s HOFers, and then there’s no-doubt, first-ballot, should-be-unanimous HOFers.

I’ll be headed to Sportlots for a Thornton and a Wuertz.

The Week’s Best

The best baseball and baseball card blog articles of the week (as voted on by a panel of one):

Trader Crack takes a closer look at the 1996 Pinnacle Christie Brinkley Collection.
Dinged Corners produces a Magnum Opus on the Mets in 1983 Topps.
Jeff Lubbers discusses the implications of Magglio’s playing-time incentives.
JayBee presents the all-time Hawaiian team.
Mark’s Ephemera plays “What Would Mark Buy?”
Mmosely shows us a denizen of the old school.
Thingpen shows off the complete set of Big Unit rookie cards from 20 years ago.
Night Owl imagines the O-Pee-Chee studio scenario.

The Week’s Best

The best baseball and baseball card blog articles of the week (as voted on by a panel of one):

Night Owl    All-Dog Nickname Team
mmosely    Confesses His Love for Chipper (And Other Transgressions)
Trader Crack    Wonders Why the Hobby Likes Pretty Girls
Bill Baer    Analysis of Smoltz’s current effectiveness
dayf    A Great Idea for Upper Deck in ’10
Mario    Recaps old-school Pinnacle

A Barmes on-card Auto and a Bo bat bit.

Some olden Royals.

Some golden Royals.

Some random Royals and a mini.

Zach, I hope you enjoy the cards. If I manage to get more than one auto of Guillermo Quiroz during the Southern league playoffs, I’ll send you one as well.

Thanks everyone for playing. I’ll be running another contest on APAD pretty soon. I hope you have as much fun with them as I do.

I had no idea who the guy was, but he was my First Card of the Year(tm), so I did some research. Turns out he’s a former big-time prospect from Venezuela who was derailed by injuries and didn’t quite develop a MLB-caliber bat. Okay. Good for him that he made it to a baseball card in the big leagues. He’s the kind of guy fans don’t remember, but card collectors might just fixate on. He’s my first card of the year, so he goes in my wallet for good luck.

Then Dinged Corners opens their first 2009 Topps pack, and they get a GOLD Quiroz. Sweet ladies that they are, they send it to me just for the asking.

A month later I open a Target Throwback blaster, and I get the retro version of the Quiroz. Sweet. Now if I ever see the guy in person I have a non-glossy card that I can get signed. Fat chance of that happening.

I find out a bit later that Q was actually playing for West Tennessee in the Southern League early this season. By the time I found out, I had already missed the Diamond Jaxx series in Birmingham. In late May he was called up to the Mariners for a spell. He played in 4 games and got 4 hits in 15 AB. He’s back down in AA now, where he’s hit .248/.303/.411 with 4 HR in 41 games. If I get lucky, West Tennessee will win the North Division race in the second half and have a playoff series against my Barons. If that happens, I may be the only fan all year long that begs Quiroz for an auto or three and actually knows who he is.

Also, if anyone has the blackout version or the black-bordered version or the silk version or the banana peel version or whatever other versions Topps put out this year, hit me up for a trade.