Friday, February 4, 2011

2007 Upper Deck Elements Joaquin Arias



Who is this? Kansas City Royals minor league second baseman Joaquin Arias
What is this? An autographed insert card from the 2007 Upper Deck Elements set
Where'd I get it? eBay
How much did it cost? 99 cents plus shipping.

Why is this so special? This really shows how many cards scans are piled up, waiting to be shared on Auto-Matic for the People. I bought this card shortly after the Mets acquired Arias from the Texas Rangers in exchange for Jeff Francoeur. Before I got around to posting it, both players involved in that trade are now part of the Kansas City Royals organization.

Arias was once a highly-regarded Yankee prospect. When New York sent Alfonso Soriano and a player to be named later to Texas for Alex Rodriguez in 2004, the Rangers had their choice of several Yankee prospects top complete the deal. They picked Arias over future All-Star Robinson Cano.

Arias made his major league debut with the Rangers in 2006, but his big league career has been fairly undistinguished. He played sparingly for the Mets during the final month of 2010, and was claimed on waivers by the Kansas City Royals at the end of the season. The Royals assigned him outright to Omaha to clear a roster spot for one of the prospects acquired in the Zack Greinke trade.

I'm not sure what's going on with Arias' autograph - it looks more like a symbol than any part of his name.

2 comments:

zman40 said...

It looks like some scribbles inside of parentheses. I have his auto from an '07 Topps Chrome card that looks much different than that. It is still unreadable, but it looks more like a modern signature.

Orioles Magic said...

Weird signature. I kinda like it for some reason though.