All-Star Rookies

One cool thing about collecting baseball cards is to collect rookie cards. I was classifying some old baseball cards and found some All-Star rookie cards. I found three interesting Topps All-Star rookie cards and an Upper Deck star rookie card.

From left to right, the first card is Troy Tulowitzki. He announced his retirement in July 2019. Tulowitzki’s career began with the Colorado Rockies. He made his MLB debut on August 30, 2006 and played 25 games in 2006. In 2007, Tulo played 155 games. He was hitting .291/.359/.479 with 24 home runs and 99 RBI. He finished 2nd in the Rookie of the Year voting and he also received MVP votes. Hence, it’s not a surprise to see him as a star rookie. Tulo played 13 seasons in the majors, he slashed .290/.361/.495 with 225 homers and 780 RBI. In the meantime, he was selected to be an All-Star five times and he won two Gold Glove awards. The second card was Neil Walker’s All-Star rookie card, which was manufactured by Upper Deck. Sometimes, it’s not bad to see old products that were not manufactured by Topps. Neil Walker made it into the big league in 2009 and he played 17 games for the Pirates that year. In the 2010 season, Neil Walker played 110 games and was hitting .296/.349/.462. He also had 12 homers and collected 66 RBI. Well, 66 RBI doesn’t seem to be huge. Nevertheless, it was second most in the 2010 Pirates lineup, only behind Garrett Jones’ 86 RBI. Back in 2010, 23-years-old Andrew McCutchen played 154 games and had 56 RBI. So we can see how important Neil Walker was in the Pirates lineup. Currently, Neil Walker is still a free agent. The other two cards are 2010 All-Star rookies Buster Posey and Giancarlo Stanton. At the beginning of Stanton’s career, he was formerly known as Mike Stanton. Stanton was selected by the Marlins in 2007 and made his MLB debut in 2010. He crushed 22 homers in his rookie season, slashing .259/.326/.507. Stanton has been a four-time All-Star so far in his career. In particular, he blasted 59 home runs and collected 132 RBI in 2017, both leading the majors. At the same time, his OPS was 1.007. Stanton’s great performance helped him win the 2017 NL MVP award. Buster Posey was called up in September 2009, but he had only 17 plate appearances that year. In 2010, Posey had a very good rookie season. He slashed .305/.357/.505 with 18 homers and 67 RBI and won the 2010 NL Rookie of the Year. Posey also batted .300/.333/.450 in the 2010 World Series and the Giants lifted the trophy. Posey only played 45 games in 2011 due to injury after a home plate collision. In 2012, Posey came back stronger, slashing .336/.408/.549. He had 24 homers and collected 103 RBI and Posey won the 2012 NL MVP award. Posey has been a 6-time All-Star and won the World Series title three times with the Giants. He opted out of the 2020 season, but it’s worth seeing him in the 2021 season. It’s already February. We are supposed to see the new series of baseball cards released soon and we are going to see newly selected All-Star Rookies. I’ll try to get some backs of cards and see whether these All-Star Rookies will become All-Stars.