2014 TSR: Previewing Series 5 With Some “Trade Deadline Guys”

I don’t know how many of you realize that my custom card set comes out in six series of 132 cards each… as if such a thing mattered tremendously.  What the heck, it adds a tiny little element of fun for me, and possibly for some of you.

Series 5 went “live” on July 15th, which means that the first series to reflect the trade deadline deals ends up being Series 6, which gets released on September 1st.

The below customs are not meant to highlight every player moved or even the most important ones… In this case, it reflects the subset of players who moved and for whom I’ve created a custom which meets the exacting standards of The Shlabotnik Report, not to mention the Bavarian purity laws set out in the Reinheitsgebot.

For those of you who enjoy the concept of honoring players by giving them round card #’s, this Yoenis Cespedes card is #550.

…and David Price is #625. For these recently traded guys, I went with more pre-game cameo shots than I normally would… but I just liked the photos.

Austin Jackson has been traded twice in his career, and both times it was a blockbuster-esque 3-team deal.

Back in late 2009, he went from the Yankees to the Tigers in a trade that saw Max Scherzer, Curtis Granderson, Ian Kennedy, Edwin Jackson, Phil Coke and Daniel Schlereth change teams.

The Orioles took advantage of the Red Sox “We suck with you, we can suck without you” sale, and got an Andrew Miller rental for prospect Eduardo Rodriguez. I hope this doesn’t come back to bite the Birds in the butt. (Sorry, I know I shouldn’t let my Mets pessimism leak over to my Orioles fandom).

Miller’s no stranger to being traded; he was part of the package of prospects that the Tigers sent to Florida for Miguel Cabrera. The Marlins also got Cameron Maybin, Burke Badenhop and a couple of other guys. I’d think you’d have to give the Tigers a teeny tiny little edge on that one.

Allen Craig wasn’t one of the players I had in mind when I started making these customs, but I just liked the way this one turned out.

I’ll freely admit that I make a bunch of customs and then throw them at the wall to see which ones stick.

To wrap things up for now, here are two of the pitchers that the Red Sox unloaded in their “looking towards 2015” deals.