2014 Panini Elite Die-Cut Jon Singleton

I've been pretty quiet on the blog lately. I'm attending an Army course in New Jersey, and there's no internet access in the barracks. My phone's data plan is less than forgiving, which is the price I pay for having a $25 phone bill each month. I've been pretty busy, but we got a day off today and I walked up to the coffee shop to get some internet, update my apps, pay my bills, and write a blog post. The Army has been a good career for me, but every so often I am inconvenienced by having to spend a month in a place that is relatively Spartan compared to my usual standard of living. 

I believe this card is an eBay purchase from a few months ago. I've got a couple versions of this Jon Singleton die-cut autograph from 2014 Panini Elite, but I think this is my first copy of the Red parallel. This one is numbered 17 / 25.

The Astros and Dodgers are making quite a World Series this year. I wish Houston would have gone up 3-1 last night, but they didn't and will probably need to win at home and once on the road to pull this thing off. The Dodgers are a tough team, though, so it's going to be a battle.

Going Back to the Farm

Jon Singleton got optioned back down to AAA again this week after performing poorly in Spring Training and losing the Astros first base job to Tyler White, a prospect who hit well throughout the spring and earned the job. I guess that makes this as good a time as any to share my latest Jon Singleton pickup.

This is a 2014 Panini Elite Status die-cut autograph card. It's the Gold parallel of this card and is numbered # 12 / 49, and in typical fashion it is a card I already own a copy of. It was cheap, so I picked it up without really looking to see if it was a need for my collection. I guess his cards will continue to be cheap to obtain, as Singleton can't seem to get it done at the MLB level. Hopefully he'll be able to mash at the AAA level and find an opportunity to get playing time somewhere.

A Small Stack of Singletons

I decided to put a few of my recent Jon Singleton pickups into one post, as usually my one-card / one-player posts aren't very popular. This one has been sitting in my Draft queue in one form or another for a couple of months now, waiting for the right time to write words to go with the pictures. This seemed like as good a time as any, since this is a fairly easy post and my wife and I are headed out for a weekend away to attend a workshop put on by the National Guard Chaplains. I was in Arkansas on our 11th anniversary last week, so this trip will serve as a belated celebration of our mutual toleration of each other over an extended period of time.

This first card comes from 2015 Panini Elite Baseball, and is a Members Only memorabilia card, not to be confused with the Members Only parallel from Topps Stadium Club. It features a nice colorful swatch of fabric and is numbered # 16 / 25. I haven't heard much about Singleton lately. Most of the press surrounding the Astros over the last day has been about Colby Rasmus becoming the first player ever to accept a Qualifying Offer, and how that puts the Astros in the difficult place of having to actually pay that offer. Colby is a gnarly-looking dude, but his last name is made up of the first part of my last name and he certainly seemed to be an integral part of the positive chemistry the Astros had going on this year. It will be interesting to see how the offseason plays out after Rasmus' big bombshell.

I already had one of these Stripe parallels from 2014 Topps High Tek, but when this one popped up at a reasonable price I decided to get it, too. There are rumored to be only 5-10 copies of each Striped parallel, so I've now got 20-40% of the print run on this Singleton card.

This card is a little more common, with an announced print run of 201 copies. It's the Black Foil parallel from 2015 Topps Stadium Club. The photo isn't exactly exciting compared to what you find on many other Stadium Club cards, as Singleton appears to be watching another pop-out coming off his bat. I still really want to pick up a full base set of Stadium Club from this year, but that just hasn't materialized yet. There aren't as many of them listed as there were when the product was fresh. I might have missed the best price window.

I'll close things up with this die-cut Status autograph from 2014 Panini Elite. I believe this is the Gold parallel. It's a pretty typical sticker auto. I am not sure why, but Singleton always seems to sign with a really thick marker. Maybe the markers start out pointy, but he applies so much pressure when he writes that the tip of the marker gets blunted. I don't know. Anyway, this one is numbered # 30 / 49.

That does it for this batch of cards. There's not a lot else to say about them. If Singleton doesn't pick things up a bit next year I can't see him getting a lot of love from the card companies like he has the last few years. The Astros have plenty of other young talent to take his spot in checklists. Hopefully he will at least have a few base cards and their associated parallels so I'll have something Singleton-centered to chase in 2016.