Yeah thus my thoughts on (e.g.) Jose Ramirez, less of an upside than some kid still not shaving whose autograph Bowman is already worth 5K, but less of a risk because he has proven he can play, and play well.

Sure, people do get very lucky, but it's only with hindsight that it looks like an obvious move. For example, as a Sox fan, I had a hunch Mookie was due to have a breakout year. And of course had I bought a ton of his cards at the beginning of the year I'd have made a big profit as his best cards have really climbed. But ex ante, was it a good risk? I easily could have felt the same way about Carlos Correa, who is mired in a massive slump.

When I first got back into collecting around 2010, it was the modern card speculating that drew me in. You're right Peter, for every Trout (obviously) but even guys like Arenado that I "hit" on, there were at least ten guys like Rasmus and Snider that were big misses. Then I got into pre-war and vintage in 2013 and sold a lot of my modern. While I did make out very good on my "hits", my profits were limited due to the amount of misses. I still did ok though due to hitting more often with football.

Now, I just do a little prospecting for fun. I'll pick a few guys each year and not top-100 prospect guys. I do spend some time researching and I only buy hitters as pitchers are just way too risky and injury prone. I'll buy the lowest #'d chrome auto I can get for under $20 which is normally a /250 or /150. Then I just throw them in a box and see what happens in 5 years.

I just checked on a guy I bought a couple years ago named Hudson Potts (although his last name was Sanchez when he was drafted). Apparently he hit 20 dingers last year in A ball with a ton of K's though and is doing well in high-A now and striking out less. I think I got his chrome auto #'d/150 for like $15 and it's selling for 4 to 5 times that right now. I should probably cash out, but I'll roll the dice and see how he turns out. Like I said, it's just for fun.

The Finest and Bowman Sterling are sought after cards ….. the Finest Auto is a 1500-2k card

For Trout they're valuable but any rookie auto is going to sell for him. Harper's Sterling and Platinum cards sell for less than his Draft auto. His Heritage auto outsells them all I think.

Peter,

You have a retirement investor mindset in a day trader world. So do I, which is why I couldn't play this game. :) Even a few months in a season is a relatively long time for these traders.

It's not so much that those successful in this know much more than others, it's just that when there is movement, they move (more) quickly (than others).