Thursday, October 3, 2013

Cloyd to Indians, Valdes to Astros

2014 Chachi Transactions #2
And so it begins.  The Phillies trimmed their first two players from the disappointing 2013 roster when pitchers Tyler Cloyd and Raul Valdes were claimed off waivers yesterday.  Cloyd joins the Indians while Valdes joins the Astros.

Cloyd arrived in Philadelphia last season after a very successful campaign with the Triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs.  He went 2-2 with a 4.91 ERA in six starts last season, but struggled mightily in his follow-up act this season with the Phils.  In 13 games (11 starts) this year, Cloyd went 2-7 with a 6.56 ERA.  Cloyd made his Phillies baseball card debut in 2013 with cards in the Bowman, Pinnacle, Topps and Topps Heritage sets.

Raul Valdes also played two seasons with the Phils, appearing in 44 games including two emergency starts.  The lefty leaves Philly having gone 4-3 with a 5.32 in 66 innings.  Surprisingly enough, he only walked 13 in those 66 innings to 72 strikeouts.  Valdes' only two Phillies cards can be found in their team issued postcard sets.
2014 Chachi Transactions #1

The departure of these two now ex-Phillies gave me an early start on the 2014 Chachi Transactions insert set.  (Found only in rack packs of 2014 Chachi cards sold at Target.)  Unlike last year's Chachi Transactions set, I'm not utilizing the O-Pee-Chee-ish "now with" legend on the front of each card.  Rather, I'm just going to change the team name and color of the card to match up with how the original 1988 Topps cards looked.  I'll need to get creative if any Phillies join the Marlins, Rockies, Rays or Diamondbacks this offseason.

Moving On
Raul Valdes (10/2/13) - Claimed off waivers by the Houston Astros.
Tyler Cloyd (10/2/13) - Claimed off waivers by the Cleveland Indians.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cloyd is also in the newly released Panini Prizm set, with both a regular card and an autograph insert. At first glance, the autograph card appears to be nothing more than the regular card with an autograph sticker slapped on it, but on closer inspection you see that it uses a picture that was taken in quick succession after the one used on the regular card.

I suppose I'll need to thank Panini for offering the only autograph cards of Cloyd (he has one in Pinnacle as well) since Topps never got around to issuing one of him.

Anonymous said...

Oh, sure... Now you've got me hoping that someone from the Phillies ends up with a post 1988 team...

...Don't forget the Nats, although you could just use an Expos card.