Fernando Tatis Jr. Forum

I love that one of the big card heads said the hobby will lose some where around 100 mil in investment because of it. This is why you don't collect young talent with your money that you can't afford to lose. Ony invest in players that are proven becuase prospecting is dangerous.

I don't know if I would call Tatis "unproven" talent.

There's been plenty of guys a lot older who have had PED suspensions.

I find it harder to get my head around the players who collectors invest rediculous sums of money in before they have even played meaningful games at the top level of their sport (think Bol Bol cards exploding after one Summer League game) rather than a guy like Tatis who has had three seasons of elite performance.

I am not saying he is unproven but if he disappears after this season what contributions did he bring to the game. I bought a collection in 2019 that consisted of a ton of Brandon Roy cards (primarly RC) but he had to retire after 6 years because of knee injuries. If Tatis isn't able to perform after he comes back then the money invested is lost regardless. He just hasn't done much for the game.

That is very true. 

I guess for some people finding that young guy and following them through is part of the fun. Or if they are "investors" then getting on board early obviously can provide significant financial benefits vs waiting until the end of a Hall of Fame career.

Plus we all want immediate gratification so waiting 20 years for a player to put together a long career and then retire is probably beyond most people's patience.

Obviously this does bring the risk of injury or in this case potentially worse...

That is VERY good wording of it, Dave! I am NOT an investor or prospector. I am a collector! I am very happy to "sit on" those cards of someone that I think will be great, but they usually have to play for a team that I collect for me to hold them for so long. Right now, the best early-career cards I have of future HOFers are Tom Brady and Yadier Molina. All the cards I pulled of those players are "worth" so much more now than they were when I pulled them from packs or traded for them 15-20 years ago (not counting the pandemic hype of everything related to cards). Many of the specific-player cards I still hold are already or will be HOFers in the near future. Sam Mills just got inducted into the NFL HOF, but I didn't collect him for what might happen in the future. I collected his cards for what he meant to the entire Carolina Panthers organization from the very beginning. I doubt that his HOF induction leads to an increased value or desire for his cards on the market, but I like having them in my collection as a Panthers fan since the beginning of the team. I'm not looking to move them but always looking to add more of them.

Today's market of cards (even well before the Pandemic) is all about instant gratification on pulls and I never liked that. I have no interest in trying to sell cards of future nobody's just because they got drafted or looked really good just after they got drafted. I don't even want to pull them and that's why I rarely buy baseball products and most of the football products before RC's are shown in NFL uniforms. Bowman products are such a complete waste of money unless you flip the cards instantly. 90% of the draft picks and prospects in Bowman products will never even step on an MLB field. That's been true for well over 20 years! The best players from those sets mostly didn't become a hot commodity until 5-6 years after their 1st card was made. These days, those RC's are worth practically nothing now b/c they already have thousands of cards and the first cards get lost in the quantity of cards. I'll just end right there instead of boring everyone with more examples.

I don't think Sr.'s comments helped much. He said (translated from Spanish, to be fair) that there was a picture of the ringworm posted to Jr.'s mom's Instagram page before all this went down, as if that were proof that this is all an innocent mistake. Maybe it's just me, but why would you post your kid's ringworm to Instagram, unless maybe you were laying the groundwork for an alibi sometime in the future?

Which goes back to this, he had a chance to appeal to get the sentenace reduced. Others have done so when taking something unwittingly, demonstrated their case, and had their sentences reduced/eliminated. Tatis chose not to appeal. If he had a case to make, he could have made it, but didn't. Instead it's playing out in the court of public opinion.