Shiny Sox from Mark Kaz

A long overdue trade post tonight, as I show the latest batch of nine Red Sox that I was fortunate to receive from my good buddy Mark Kaz a few weeks ago now.

Starting right off here with a really solid Mookie Betts insert from last year's Topps Chrome set.  Possibly my favorite card from this particular PWE, as I'm a fan of anything with a stained-glass theme.  Betts has come down a notch from last year's incredible performance, but he's still enjoying a solid season and has plenty of time still to start elevating that average and racking up the home runs.

Here's another one from 2016, a "The Prospects" insert from Donruss.  Rafael is currently ranked the #1 overall prospect in Boston's system.  He's been having a fantastic year so far at AAA Pawtucket, in fact he just had another multi-hit game last night where he belted his 9th home run of the season.  If he keeps swinging the bat like that we might be seeing the 20-year-old in a Boston uniform soon.

I got a couple of cards from the 2004 Donruss Leather & Lumber set.  These are a little busy, but...

...it's nice to get two big stars from the team that reversed the curse the very season these were printed up!

Next up, a couple of first year Bowman cards featuring some names from the past.  I had almost completely forgotten about pitcher Michael Bowden over the years.  He bounced around quite a bit, and is currently playing over in Korea (where he actually threw a no-hitter last summer!).

Jed Lowrie is still at it in Major League Baseball, with the Oakland A's.  While he'll never be considered a superstar, I always enjoyed Jed's game and I'm glad that he's still playing at the game's highest level in what is now his 10th season.

How about some more shiny cards to close out the post?  This Edgar Martinez is a Futures Game X-Fractor.  Edgar was actually drafted by Boston as a catcher, but as his offensive ability declined they decided to give him a shot at pitching given his strong arm.  He made it as high as AAA but never made the Red Sox roster.

We'll close it out with a pair of players that I think most fans would agree were a disappointment.  Rusney Castillo was a very costly misstep.  Signed for $72.5 million dollars, he could never get it together with Boston and has spent the majority of his Red Sox career in AAA.  Still, a very cool shiny blue parallel here, serial-numbered to /199.

Final card of the package is a player I still think of from time to time, Will Middlebrooks.  This Silver Ice parallel would have been a fantastic pull for a Sox fan in 2012.  It really looked at the time like Will was going to be holding down third base and swatting balls out of Fenway Park for many years to come.  He could never recapture the magic of that first season though.  After brief stints with the Padres and Brewers he's now property of the Rangers, though he's yet to play an MLB game in 2017.

Mark, thanks for the great additions to my Sox collection!  Sorry it took me so long to get to these, it's been super busy on my end.  I did find time this past week to get a return package in the mail though!