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Everything posted by John_Havok
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There are 4 major bumps in a cards value: 1. Rookie hype 2. Performance jumps out of seemingly nowhere by "nobodies" like Tage Thompson. But these bumps dont usually end up with incredibly high valuations since their cards started out so low. 3. Cup wins 4. Hall of Fame. Mvp awards usually see minor bumps for a ahort time, but nothing spectacular #1 sets the tone for 3 and 4. If a guy is looking for home run card selling... have to get them when they're rookies and see ideally both 3 and 4 down the line, along with a high grade... 9 or better. Also depends on which company dies the grading since PSA just gives blanket numbers as like 8, 9 or 10, but Beckett gives 4 separate grades for corners, face, centering and edges. To get a true black label 10 grade from Beckett is exceptionally rare, very much by design of course. Missing #3 doesnt mean a HOF talented players card value will suddenly get cut in half. Market variances exist of course where people will sell for cheap for any number of reasons, but no HOF players cards value craters because they dont win a cup, they just wont go up as much. If they miss 3 and 4, a d all they had was the rookie hype and a decent but not great career, yeah they could go down a bit. There's very few cards though that have the kind of rookie hype around guys like Matthews, Crosby, McDavid, Ovechkin, Bedard etc. Won't be again for a while it looks like. .
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Hes a hall of fame player, his card value will be stable, just won't get the Cup bump up.
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Mats Sundin rookie card was made when everything was overproduced. I have like 30 of them. This is not a subject youre going to have more knowledge than me in, I assure you.
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General Blue Jays Discussion Thread (2025)
John_Havok replied to Ryu In My House's topic in Toronto Blue Jays Talk
Can probably count on regression from Heineman for sure... straw is what he is so...his d and baserunning will still be there... if anything he should only get better with the bat, because he cant really get worse... but you wouldn't really project that to happen. Maybe Lukes and Schneider's numbers regression slightly, but you wouldn't expect it to be a massive regression. A bench of those 4 plus a guy like Clement is pretty solid. -
Not true at all. They just wont see the post Cup increase in value prior to retirement.
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Article: Can You Have Too Much Starting Pitching?
John_Havok replied to Mike LeSage's topic in Jays Centre Front Page News
Definitely. Its difficult to say there's a perfectly right answer when any changes that happen, the next starter could just have a bad game and suddenly "yup, obviously they made the wrong choice and should've done X or Y instead"- 18 replies
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- shane bieber
- kevin gausman
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(and 4 more)
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Article: Can You Have Too Much Starting Pitching?
John_Havok replied to Mike LeSage's topic in Jays Centre Front Page News
Lauer I think is getting to the same place with fatigue. Last season between the KBO and minors he was 110 IP, he just crossed 112 IP this season now between AAA and the Jays. He could also benefit from an extra day off here and there perhaps- 18 replies
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- shane bieber
- kevin gausman
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(and 4 more)
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Texas (Corbin) vs Blue Jays (Lauer): 8/16/25, 3:07pm
John_Havok replied to Brock Beauchamp's topic in Game Thread Archive
They arent going to DFA anyone for Bieber, they still have 1 space on the 40 man. As far as sending someone down... yeah, Fluharty doesnt deserve to be sent down... but neither do Varland, Little, or Fisher...the only other reliever with options. If Fluharty going down means Lauer goes to the pen to be the 2nd lefty instead and you don't have to lose anyone off the roster... why wouldn't you do that instead of losing Nance for nothing? -
I know what you mean on the part where you said "are the cards really that scarce?" That depends on how you look at it. Like...base cards are about at worthless at it gets from a pure monetary perspective, and there's way more of those than people really want from a collectors perspective. But, there are far fewer cards printed every year overall than there was way back in the late 80s early 90s. Upper Deck has exclusive rights for the NHL, so all cards with NHL licensed players and logos are made by UD. Sure, UD puts out other branded sets like O-Pee-Chee, but at the end of the day its still UD manufactured. They're the "low end" cards. I can almost appreciate UDs upper end lines like Black Diamond or the Cup, where there are essentially no base cards because even those are serial numbered and every single card per pack are low serial numbered, patched, autographed etc and the quality they put into those cards is really high. For baseball...Bowman is the king. NBA? Panini has had the exlcusive rights since 2009, until next year when Topps takes over. NFL? Same as the NBA. Panini had the rights and just lost them to Topps. NBA cards were really weird over the past years with Panini having the exclusive rights to NBA branded cards...but Topps had exclusive deals with certain players (LeBron being one, and more) which meant you could find LeBron cards in Panini, but you'd never find one with his autograph, they were all made by Topps....but no Topps card could use the NBA logo, or any NBA team logos on their cards. Don't even get me started on sticker autographs vs on-card autographs...
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One thing I will tell you... a lot of those high end sports cards, antiques, art etc....that go up for auction and go for millions... a lot of the time its just rich criminals money laundering. Like, is there a reason for the same Wayne Gretzky rookie card to have been sold multiple times over the past 15 years going from a value of under 100k, to over 3.75 million.
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No problem. If you're looking at market prices... you can pick up Beckett's price guide for literally any sport and there's a new issue every month, or they have it online as well for a subscription cost. Or, for quick hits, search Ebay for the exact cards and look at recent confirmed sales. People ask for crazy amounts all the time and they never sell.
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General Blue Jays Discussion Thread (2025)
John_Havok replied to Ryu In My House's topic in Toronto Blue Jays Talk
Not really taking your pick when Lukes doesn't play the IF at all the OF spots and DH spot is taken by your projected lineup. Again, not saying it's wrong.. -
Texas (Corbin) vs Blue Jays (Lauer): 8/16/25, 3:07pm
John_Havok replied to Brock Beauchamp's topic in Game Thread Archive
Call me crazy but I dont think the Jays are at their full 40 man roster capacity right now. And if they were... Nina would get punted before Nance I think. Sandlin could even be shifted to the 60 day IL as another option too. -
The other way to go... Is buy every rookie you can feasably find thats within your criteria, auto, patch, /25, rookie that hasn't done squat yet, but you feel they're about to explode. etc. Why? Example from my own experience from NHL cards, I bought up all the Tage Thompson rookies I could find in 2017 because a) they were cheap and I thought there was real upside. Spent like ... 25$ to get a bunch of his rookies. He does absolutely nothing for the first 3 or 4 years of his career, then explodes for 40 goals in 2021-22. Those cards will drastically jump in value from bordering on worthless to a few hundred each depending on sport and player. In my case, i put in 25, got back close to $1000 in 4 years. Did I miss on several other guys i did the same thing with? absolutely. The hit on Thompson more than made up for it though. That's a lot more speculative and gambley though, especially with baseball.
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Kurtz would be a decent buy, just not on cards like this, the guy wants 26,500 USD for it. Good for him if he gets it, but that's not a card ya buy on speculation
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General Blue Jays Discussion Thread (2025)
John_Havok replied to Ryu In My House's topic in Toronto Blue Jays Talk
You're putting Lukes on a full-time bench role then with a 110 wRC+ ? Not saying that's wrong, just making sure you considered that -
Most cards' values dont really increase all that much. Like... say the book value on a Vlad rookie card from 2019 with an autograph and a patch is.. $500. Hypothetically, just a made up number I pulled from the sky. By now, the value of that card has pretty much reached its peak since it's 6 years later and the sport has seen what Vlad most likely is. If he keeps up his current level of play, yes, the card would likely increase a modest amount by the time Vlad retires. ... UNLESS Vlad goes on a monster tear for the next 5+ years and people start taking about being a sure-fire 1st ballot HOF, in which case it would see a larger increase for sure as collectors would try to snatch them up, with preference of course for cards that have been graded, and graded high from either PSA or Beckett. There's a few other grading services out there but PSA and Beckett are easily the most highly regarded. For me to estimate a modest bs large increase though.... 20% to maybe 50%? Highly unlikely any card from his 2019 doubles in value from this point going forward. But, the lower the serial number, ya never really know. They don't even generally put values on cards with a printed run of 10 or less because there's so little movement on them it's just a "get what you can get" for it. It's kinda hard to predict what the market might be in 20 years though... for all we know physical trading cards won't even be a thing by then and nobody will care.
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Article: Can You Have Too Much Starting Pitching?
John_Havok replied to Mike LeSage's topic in Jays Centre Front Page News
Feels like that makes the most sense. We know Gausman, Bassitt and Berrios are good for innings, even if they aren't going to be top-of-the-rotation type innings (Gausman's recent starts have been fantastic though). We know Lauer can go, but... perhaps running into a bit of fatigue? Scherzer's last few starts have been excellent, but age and injury status will always be in the backs of everyone's minds. With the 2 off days though in the next 13 days, there might some real rust on some guys with a true 6-man rotation where guys might get 6 days off between starts.- 18 replies
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- shane bieber
- kevin gausman
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(and 4 more)
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General Blue Jays Discussion Thread (2025)
John_Havok replied to Ryu In My House's topic in Toronto Blue Jays Talk
And if you land Tucker, that means Springer or Santander has to go via trade or the DH spot gets jammed up. Not the worst of problems, but ... it is one. -
General Blue Jays Discussion Thread (2025)
John_Havok replied to Ryu In My House's topic in Toronto Blue Jays Talk
I considered that, but... that leaves RF for Barger and DH stuffed with both Springer and Santander. Bit of a logjam in that case. It's probably gonna be a similar thing to this season where Barger, Clement, Schneider, Gimenez and 1 more guy get cycled through the 3 IF positions and RF depending on matchups. That seems to be the preferred method at the moment .. barring unforeseen trades of course. -
There's a ton of variance in sports cards in a players first few years. Also depends on the sport... baseball has by the far the most variance just due to the sheer number of players that ultimately end up useless. Rookie cards, serial #'d variations of rookie cards, jersey patch cards and autographed cards are basically the only ones that will ever hold or increase their value over time, but only the massive superstars are truly worth "investing" in. It's a real crapshoot getting any of those cards in breaks, buying boxes or even cases.

