Injuries Abound
Pitchers have been dropping at an alarming rate causing rampant speculation into the causes. I’m certainly interested in that, but I’m not a medical doctor and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn last night, so I’m not weighing in. I do feel comfortable looking at the fallout in the hobby and figuring out what it means for the hobby outlook of our wounded pitchers.
I’m looking at the hobby prospects of a few of the recently injured hurlers and also one bonus hitter. Prices have certainly dropped for all of the players, but I think there is a good way further to go. On the other hand, injuries bring panic selling (and sometimes reasonable selling) so if you are looking for rarer cards now is the best time to hunt for them as you’ll likely have the biggest population to choose from. On that note, let’s check the damage.
Shane Bieber
Bieber had pretty much lost much of his hobby value with injuries, a shaky 2023, and an overall drop in the market that has especially hit the lower-tier stars. He’s sadly getting to the point where he might be too old to put together a long enough career to make the HOF when he comes back. He can be a productive player for sure, but the hobby doesn’t have much use for a non-HOF pitcher.
Bieber’s cards were already cold. They got colder. A PSA 10 Topps Chrome RC Auto of his sold for just $35 after the news and I’m betting there will be even cheaper copies soon. He’s cheap enough that it is worth looking at him as a buy-low gamble. Long-term he’d need to do his best Verlander impression with a stellar second part of his career to be hobby-relevant. I’m not sure much else will move the needle. He might be old enough when he comes back that it will take multiple Cy Young wins to get his cards moving up as I think most collectors will have him slotted into the list of good pitchers who won’t make the HOF.
Gerrit Cole
Cole was one of my big targets this offseason. Luckily for me, I kept missing out on auctions. I figured he is the likeliest HOF pitcher after the Greinke, Kershaw, Scherzer, and Verlander group. He’s certainly not a shoo-in, but he is the best pitcher of his generation along with Chris Sale. His candidacy really can’t afford many injuries at this point. He still needs a couple of strong seasons to gain admission to the HOF.
Cole is supposed to come back this year. His pricing was starting to be more consistent with a HOF-caliber player and playing for the Yankees helps too. His prices haven’t taken a dive yet and his market can best be described as slow and tentative. It looks like most collectors are taking a wait-and-see approach which really does seem prudent.
Spencer Strider
As a Braves fan, Strider is the one I’m having the hardest being objective about. He’s one of my favorites and was just about the only under-30 pitcher the hobby treated well. If he needs surgery, this will be his second TJ surgery which can come with a complicated recovery. Young pitchers have rebounded from this and Strider excelled in building himself into a dominant starter after his first surgery, but it’s a tough pill to swallow.
Strider’s cards have already taken a big hit. His cards had a good distance to drop as he was the only young pitcher with cards valued in the hobby like a position player. His Topps Chrome RC Auto sold for $52 after the news. It had been selling over $75 and was pushing onwards to $100. A lovely SGC 10 copy went for $91 after going for $185 recently.
Sadly, I think he’s got more room to drop. His card value still make him the most expensive young pitcher and I think he’ll see a drop similar to Walker Buehler’s with his cards moving closer to that of other pitchers.
Eury Perez
Perez was hoping to join Strider as the only under-30 pitcher with some hobby credibility (I’ll wait until Skenes hits the majors before including him). The youngster has the goods to be a true ace in the league. It will be rough waiting for him to make his comeback as he was electrifying.
I’m certainly going to try to snag a few Perez cards on the cheap, focusing on some of the rarer parallels. The injury does have me wondering if I should look for another young pitcher like Bobby Miller to collect or if I should just avoid pitchers altogether. I’ll always have a couple of pitchers I’m collecting, but those looking for the league’s next Kershaw or Scherzer might be on a fool’s errand.
Luis Robert
Ok, he’s not a pitcher. I just wanted to write about him. I’m out. He’s got all the talent in the world, but he’s now lost too much time in creating counting stats and WAR needed to reach the HOF. He’ll be at 12.5 WAR to start next year when he is 27 assuming he is out for the season. The median WAR for HOF players that age is 21. It’s not an insurmountable gap, but Robert was averaging only 92 games a season before this recent injury. He may make it big, but I’m tired of losing on Robert who I’ve picked for big things the last few years.
It looks like others agree and are dumping his cards. Several rare parallel Bowman 1st Autos and Topps Chrome Autos have sold since the injury news. These are cards that rarely see the light of day and multiple rare cards were sold shortly after his injury. The good news is that his sold card prices are all over the place right now which is consistent with the uncertainty around his injury. This means that there are both buying and selling opportunities. Just be sure to understand his wildly fluctuating prices.
Wrap Up
I do want to note that it is likely that the recent injuries cool off the pitching market even more than it already is. The real bargains might be found in the cards of healthy pitchers most of whom you can find autographed rookies of for under $20. I’ll also note that I think it is possible that pitchers like Kershaw, Scherzer, and Verlander see an increase as collectors realize they might be the last pitcher HOF inductees for a while. I had planned on writing about baseball overreactions this week, but that quickly turned into an injury column. We’ll look at overreactions and underreactions next week.