Kimbrel For the Contest

Collecting Cutch is on a tear with his September giveaways; pink cards to support breast cancer awareness. The 2nd of his contests is a blog bat around-style post about our favorite Baseball player born in the 1980s.

Admittedly, my choice is rather obvious. I've been "super collecting" (I use that term lightly) Craig Kimbrel for over a year and a half now. Despite his struggle to shine with the Chicago Cubs after being signed halfway through the season, I'm going to stick it out with Kimbrel and buy his cards while the active saves leader's stock isn't all that high.

Kimbrel was born on May 28th, 1988, towards the end of the 1980s, making him just 31-years old today. Given that he had over 330 saves after the conclusion of the 2018 season, it didn't make sense for him to hold off on signing for as long as he did.

I realize that in today's game, players are influenced by the money they can earn. When you're on-pace to rival Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman on the all-time saves list, however, can you really afford to miss half of a season while you're in your prime?

Collecting Cutch also promised an extra entry for those who included a pink card in their post, so I found this pink refractor from 2017 Topps Chrome, featuring one of my favorite photos of the 7-time All-Star.

I pulled this card back when this set was released, just a couple of months before I officially began super collecting Kimbrel early on the following year.

While I'm on the subject of Kimbrel, I figured I'd show off the newest addition to the PC. It's a good thing this card is from Topps Heritage because the photoshop is so poor that it reminds me of the terrible airbrush jobs from Topps Flagship back in the 1970s.

In all seriousness, I wish nothing but the best for Kimbrel, both this year and in 2020, his first full season with the Chicago Cubs. He left my favorite team for my 2nd favorite team, so there's still a lot about Kimbrel for me to like.

I just hope playing a full season next year will help him get back on track as one of the game's most dominant closers, something he didn't have much trouble doing before the 2019 season.