Brad Peacock

I mentioned last week that I received another card in my prize package from Jeff over at 2 By 3 Heroes. Maybe I don't enter enough contests, but I found it hard to believe the prize contained two cards I've put in my ebay cart at one time or another but didn't pull the trigger on either. Fate? Christmas miracle? Who knows!

2012 Brad Peacock Golden Moments Autograph

So I teased last week that why would a Cubs fan be interested in a card of an Oakland A's player that never played for the Cubs or their affiliates? Well, it's not really that big of a deal. Just sentimental, I guess. Prior to his Major League debut, Peacock played for my local minor team, the Potomac Nationals in 2010. He had moved on to the Double-A Harrisburg Senators before the end of the season when Potomac won the Carolina League Championship that year.

Fast forward to 2011, Peacock was an impressive 15-3 between the Double-A Senators and Triple A Syracuse Chiefs with a 2.39 ERA. No surprise he got a September callup. He made three appearances, a rocky relief  blown save to begin his career but followed with two solid starts to thus far have a career record of 2-0 with a 0.75 ERA. His first start, depicted on the back of this "Golden Moments" card, was one I remember watching on TV (so another sentimental reason).

2012 Brad Peacock Golden Moments Autograph Back

Last off season, Peacock was one of a couple of prospects sent to the Oakland A's in exchange for Gio Gonzalez. Considering Gonzalez was in the Cy Young hunt this year, I would say things worked out for the hometown team. Peacock spent all of 2012 with Oakland's Triple-A affiliate the Sacramento River Cats. He has not yet played for Oakland, temporarily making this a Zero Year Card.

I'm guessing this has something to do with the MLBPA and licensing (blah blah blah), but why feature a guy on an insert card for one team (that he hasn't played for yet) when his accomplishment talks about being on a different team? And the autographs are on stickers! Why not save them for a later date? Maybe Topps was expecting another September callup?

It is probably no big secret that Topps uses Photoshop (or something like it) to make cards for a traded player or free agent signing. I was a little surprised though, that Topps actually used a photo from the game featured as the Golden Moment on the card. According to the caption for this photo from Getty, it was indeed from the September 14, 2011 game:

And that ends my "too much research for a non-Cubs player" post.