Keys to the Batter's Box: July 2015

Sunday, July 19, 2015

2015 Daytona Tortugas Team Set

I started following the Florida State League in 1993. That same year, the Chicago Cubs had a team enter the league and made their home at Jackie Robinson Ballpark in Daytona Beach, Florida. They called themselves the Daytona Cubs.
After the end of the 2014 season, the Cubs decided to end their affiliation with Daytona as well as the Florida State League.

Daytona is now a Cincinnati Reds affiliate and they're called the Daytona Tortugas. If you follow the Reds Minor League system, a player will typically play at low A Dayton and then move to Advanced A Daytona. I can imagine that stat readers might be confused and think they're the same team and possibly think there was a spelling mistake.

Anyhow, the Tortugas play in the north division of the FSL, so they play a lot of their road games in Clearwater and Dunedin, both teams which I frequent the most. I decided to order a team set from the Tortugas online store. It was only $8, though shipping was a little over $6.

Sealed Daytona Tortugas team set

Not exactly the sturdiest packaging, but the cards were sent in a bubble wrapped envelope and arrived without damage.

The hologram sticker on the package is to prove that it's an official set. I'm sure the small font signifies something, but I'm not sure.

The card stock seems a little thicker than the Dunedin Blue Jays set that I posted about yesterday.

Like that Blue Jays set, this one also has some great looking photography, but it does suffer from the same repetitive shots, with one exception, which I'll show later in this post.

Phillip Ervin

Amir Garrett

El'Hajj Muhammad

Robert Ramirez

Nick Travieso

Sammy Diaz

Jimmy Moran

Alex Blandino

Carlton Daal

Nick Howard

Zack Weiss

Sebastian Elizalde

Nick Benedetto

Nolan Becker

Sal Romano

Jeff Gelalich

Jon Matthews

Blaine Howell

Barrett Astin

Joe Hudson

Evan Mitchell

Joel Bender

Jackson Stephens

Are you ready for that lone exception that I mentioned earlier? Here it is, a fielding shot of third baseman, Taylor Sparks.

Taylor Sparks

The backs of the cards are easy to read and have the usual stats and a brief bio.

Chad Wallach

The coaching staff and trainers round out the set.

Kevin Mahar

Eli Marrero

Tony Fossas

Kyle Utne

Morgan Gregory

I'll be seeing Daytona again on Tuesday when they visit Dunedin. I hope to get many of these cards signed then.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

2015 Dunedin Blue Jays Team Set

The Toronto Blue Jays Advanced A team in the Florida State League recently made available their 2015 Minor League team set. I stopped in their gift shop on a recent visit to Florida Auto Exchange Stadium and picked up a set for $10.
The photography is nice, but also very repetitive. All of the players are shown in action shots, which is great, but they're all basically the same. Pitchers are shown on the mound pitching, while all other players are pictured batting. No defensive pictures and no posed shots except for the coaches.
Here's the set so you can see for yourself. A few of the cards are signed because I opened the set at the stadium and got autographs while I was there.