Wroad to Wrigley Wednesday - 2015 Iowa Cubs Part 3

In this weekly series, I break down some of the minor league team sets I've picked up along the way.

In that first write up for the 2015 Iowa Cubs team set, I showed off the coaches, trainers (cards 1-5) and the mascot (card #36). Last week, I had cards 6-15. Today we're going with cards 16-25.

#16 Junior Lake

Junior Lake signed with the Cubs as a free agent in 2007 before turning 17. Working his way up the system, Lake made his MLB debut in July 2013 and got off to a fast start with 15 hits in his first 7 games. When Alfonso Soriano was traded at the end of the month, Lake finished out the season as the starting left fielder. He didn't fair as well in 2014, despite being the Opening Day starter, batting just .211, with 9 home runs and 25 RBIs in 108 games.


Lake bounced back and forth between Iowa and Chicago in 2015 before being traded to the Baltimore Orioles at the end of July. He finished the season split between Baltimore and their AAA affiliate, the Norfolk Tides. He was designated for assignment in December and claimed off waivers by the Toronto Blue Jays. He opened the 2016 season in AAA with the Buffalo Bisons.


#17 Matt Szczur

Matt Szczur was selected by the Cubs in the 5th round of the 2010 draft. He made his Cubs debut in August 2014 and finished the season with the big league club. He split time between Iowa and Chicago in 2014 and made the team out of Spring Training to start 2016. Mostly coming off the bench, Szczur is batting .367 with 2 home runs and 10 RBIs this year, including a pinch hit grand slam on April 29th. Unfortunately, he just went on the 15 day DL.

#18 Christian Villanueva

Speaking of the DL, Christian Villanueva just got moved to the 60-Day DL to make room for Ryan Kalish on the 40 man roster, who replaced Matt Szczur on the 25 man roster. Villanueva broke his fibula in Spring Training.


HE came to the Cubs organization with Kyle Hendricks in a 2012 trade with the Texas Rangers where the Cubs gave up Ryan Dempster. A corner infielder, unfortunately when he's healthy again, he'll be blocked in Chicago by Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo.



#19 Eric Jokisch

Eric Jokisch is best known to me as throwing a no-hitter for the AA Tennessee Smokies a few years back. He had a cup of coffee back with the Cubs in 2014, appearing in 4 games for no record and 1.88 ERA.


He was claimed off waivers by the Marlins a couple of weeks back and is currently assigned the AAA New Orleans Zephyrs.



#20 Donn Roach

Earning an even smalled cup of coffee with the Cubs was Donn Roach. He was pulled up from Iowa to make a spot start last season and then promptly returned to AAA.

He didn't clear waivers and was selected by the Reds. Just a few weeks later, he was selected off waivers by the Blue Jays. He was granted free agency in the off season and signed with the Seattle Mariners for 2016. He is currently with their AAA affiliate, the Tacoma Rainiers.



#21 Brian Schlitter

The Cubs acquired Brian Schlitter from the Phillies way back in 2008 for Scott Eyre. He pitched 8 innings of relief in 7 appearance during his MLB debut season in 2010. He toiled away in the minors for a few seasons before reemerging in 2014 with the Cubs, pitching in 61 games, trailing only Justin Grimm in appearances. He spent most of 2015 in Iowa, mixing in 10 appearances with the major league club. Schlitter signed with the Rockies in the offseason and is currently playing for the Albuquerque Iostopes.



#22 Carl Edwards, Jr.

Carl Edwards, Jr. (formerly CJ, currently AKA The String Bean Slinger) joined the Cubs in 2013 when the Cubs traded Matt Garza for Edwards, Mike Olt and Justin Grimm. He has consistently been ranked among the top 25-50 prospects in baseball the past few years. Edwards made 5 appearances last season as a September call up and is currently back with Iowa.

#23 Gonzalez Germen

The Cubs selected Gonzalez Germen off waivers prior to the start of the 2015 season. He pitched 6 innings of relief before being claimed off waivers by the Colorado Rockies, where he currently plays.



#24 Dallas Beeler

Dallas Beeler was drafted by the Cubs in 2010. He made his Cubs debut in June 2014 against the Washington Nationals. Despite breaking up a no hitter in his first at bat (in the 3rd inning, haha) there was no run support from the offense and Beeler took the loss, giving up just 1 unearned run in 6 IP. Beeler started the 2016 season on the DL.


#25 Rafael Lopez

Rafael Lopez was drafted in 2011. He made his MLB debut as a September call up in 2014, appearing in six games off the bench and one start. He was traded to the Angels in July 2015 and finished his season with the Salt Lake Bees. Lopez signed with the Tigers in January 2016 and was released in early April. He is currently playing for the Bridgeport Bluefish in the independent Atlantic League.


Next week, I'll have the final 10 cards from the set.

ATCRCS - Tom Gordon

Even though I was away from blogging, I was still attempting to acquire more signed ATCRCS cards when opportunities presented themselves. I picked up close to 30 in 2015 so I better start showing them off.



Tom Gordon would likely be inducted into my Hall of Pretty Good. He was the American League Rookie of the Year runner-up in 1989 when he went 17-9 with a 3.64 ERA. He was a 3x All-Star with 3 different teams (Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies). In 1998, his first season as a full time reliever, he saved 46 games in 47 opportunities.

He played for both Chicago teams, both New York teams and Philly. Are there any tougher places to play than those in terms of media/fan scrutiny? Unfortunately, he didn't get a chance for much postseason glory and never appeared in a World Series.

After missing the 2000 season because of Tommy John surgery, the Cubs signed him as a free agent. In about a season and a half, Gordon appeared in 66 games and posted 2-3 record with 27 Saves and a 3.39 ERA.

Some of you Stephen King fans may recognize Gordon's name from the title of one his books, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. That one's been in my reading queue for ages but I've never gotten around to reading it.

Others may only recognize him as "Dee Gordon's dad" who has been in the news recently for some unfortunate news. I knew I was getting older when I made the transition to being referred to as my kids' dad rather than my own identity, haha.

Gordon has another son, Nick who was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in 2014 and is in their minor league system.

Repack Sunday

A couple of years back when I was doing these repacks fairly regularly, my best bet was my local Five Below store. The boxes were $4.99, came with 4 unopened packs and 100 miscellaneous cards, mostly junk wax. With baseball season underway and me back to semi regular blogging, I happened to be in the shopping center of said store the other day so I stopped in. I headed to the section where they used to be but didn't see any.

Bummer.

In fact, I didn't see any cards, sports or otherwise. I moseyed around the store for a bit just to see if they moved them somewhere else and sure enough, they were now much closer to the registers. I wonder if that wasn't some kind of loss prevention move.

Anyway, I almost overlooked them because the packaging had completely changed. And also the contents.

The packaging was now a plastic storage container instead of just the cardboard box. Nice, I like that change! But as you you can see from the picture, we're down to 2 packs instead of 4. This sticker was on one side of the cube. The other three sides showed 2 visible cards and one visible pack. Every repack in stock showed a pack of 2015 Topps Series One so I went with one that showed 2 cards of interest to me.

Along with the cards from the 2015 Topps pack, this is the newest card in the box. But it's not a regular base card. It's an All-Star card from the factory team sets that get put out as you can see by the American League logo.

I'm not sure if the other card showing was the guaranteed rookie in the box, but at least its a nice horizontal card. 

As I did last week, I'll show off some of the more interesting (to me) cards in some recurring categories, As noted on the packaging, I was guaranteed a card from each of the past 5 decades. Counting backwards, that gets me at least one card from the 70's, which makes me feel really old.

Barely squeaking in was this 1979 Ron Fairly card. And speaking of feeling old, this guy was born in 1939, debuted in 1958 and was still playing when I was born in 1978.

In addition to the Taylor Green above, these Jay Payton and Orlando Miller cards were also rookies in the box. That Payton cad could almost pass for one of those unlicensed non-Topps cards of today with its lack of logos.

As for the guaranteed Hall of Famer in the box, it could be any one of the four.

A pair of Dennis Eckersley cards, a Pudge and a Stan the Man puzzle card. Also added a nice Hall of Fame horizontal to the collection with another Carlton Fisk, this time playing first base.

Along with the HOFers, we have some Hall of Pretty Gooders. As defined last week, these are guys I would have put in my binders back in the day. And my criteria for that was they were listed in Beckett instead of being commons. This also shows a little variety in the set selection for the repack. Lots of junk wax, but some odd stuff like Classic, Fleer Superstars and Sportflics.

Guys with Cubs connections always jump out out at me and this pack featured a quartet of former/future Cubs to go with the HOF Ecks above.

And speaking of Cubs, this repack had the highest rate of actual Cubs that I can remember. Especially after basically getting shut out last week (one unlicensed "Chicago" card for those that don't remember) Out of 100 cards, I pulled 7 from my favorite team. Not a single one was new to me, although I will check to see if any of them are needed condition upgrades. 

As far as other collection keepers go, there were a couple of niche additions with horizontals...

...and one for the Ivy collection.

Before I get to the 2 packs, I almost forgot the guaranteed Chipz. 

Mr. Met is some salt in the wound that's still a little fresh from last year's post season. I didn't even want to mention the Cub killer Daniel Murphy horizontal above.

The first pack, as mentioned, was 2015 Topps Series One. The highlights include two horizontals and a gold Charlie Blackmon

The other pack was from one of the newer Triple Play incarnations. Two more horizontals and a Clayton Kershaw sticker. Meh.

A few final cards I thought were interesting but don't really have a category. I always thought the Greg(g)Olson battery would have been fun but that never came to fruition. These cards were back to back in the pile. Some repacker has a sense of humor.

And I know the 1988 Orioles were pretty bad. Didn't they start the season 0-21 or something terrible like that? But seriously, Donruss couldn't find a better Diamond King than Dave Schmidt to represent them? I don't recall who Donruss used in previous years off the top of my head but they couldn't use Eddie Murray? Cal? Heck, even Billy Ripken?

Edit: I went to the 1988 Orioles Baseball Reference page. There were a couple of options on offense but the pitching that year was terrible. I guess an 8-5 record with 2 Saves does make you the Diamond King on that pitching staff.

As usual, anything you see is up for grabs, with the exception of the horizontals and ivy cards