2013 Heritage Minor League Cubs

For the third straight year, Topps has released a minor league version of the Heritage set.

For the third straight year, I ask why?

I love Heritage.  But as it seems to do with any successful product, Topps feels the need to push more and more of it out there.

I thought Bowman and Pro Debut were the prospect sets.  Why do we need a third?

But being the complete team set collector that I am, I went ahead and got the Cubs cards from Heritage Minor League.

The Cubs actually have a decent representation in the set.  There are six Cubs prospects in the base set and two more in the dreaded high number short prints.  Eight players in a 225 card set is a good number.  But since we've been tanking and trading players for prospects, the Cubs system should be loaded.

Today I've got the six base cards (the SPs were bought from a different seller and are still on the way).  The players are shown with three teams, low-A Kane County, high-A Daytona, and AA Tennessee.  I'll show the cards by team.

 

Here are the three Kane County Cougars.  I enjoyed going to Cougar games when we lived in the Chicago area, and if we were still in the area I'm sure I would have gone to see them a couple times.  None of these three are among the touted future saviors of the Cubs, but Rock Shoulders has one of the coolest names in organized baseball.

A slight beef with the cards....three Cougar cards and they all have a different color scheme.  That is not the way the '64 set worked...each team had a consistent color scheme.  The Cubs pattern was black team name lettering with a red box for the players.  Why did Topps feel the need to mix up the pattern among a team.

Moving up a step, we head to high A and...

 

....the Daytona Cubs.  These two are players that Theo is counting on.  Baez had a great season, tearing up in A and AA.  He was named the organization's minor league position player of the year.  Personally, I'd like to see him at Wrigley next April.  Soler is a Cuban defector that the Cubs signed for huge dollars.  He missed a chunck of the season with a stress fracture in his shin.  He's also shown some anger issues.

Finally, we move on to AA Tennessee...

....and the Tennessee Smokies.  Arismendy Alcantara is a second-tier prospect, but he's been attracting more attention. He had a solid season for the Smokies, hitting .271 with 15 HRs and 69 RBIs.  His biggest problem will be finding a postions...with Castro and Baez, shortstop is a bit crowded.  When Baez was promoted to Tennessee, Alcantara moved to second base.

Maybe this card is the first in my new player collection for Arismendy Alcantara (Darwin who??).