Card of the Day: Anderson Hernandez Printing Plate

2006 Upper Deck Artifacts #88
Anderson Hernandez
Materials: Aluminum and Magenta Ink

The Card:

Now most Met fans never had serious offensive hopes for Anderson Hernandez, but I have to admit I always thought his hitting for average in the minors might translate to a better-than-Rey-Ordonez hitter. He has shown flashes of offensive competency in the majors, but at this point I don't think anyone believes he has enough skills with the bat to be more than a backup.

On the other hand, his skills with the glove were never in doubt. Too bad those skills led to injury in what was probably his best shot at winning the starting second base job and a significant piece of the Mets.

When this card was made there was still hope, at least in my mind, that Hernandez might be the next starting second baseman for the Mets. That was a simpler time, before the much maligned Luis Castillo came to New York and got an even more maligned four year deal.

Interestingly enough, Hernandez ended up back on the Mets last season playing SS in the absence of Jose Reyes and will likely remain with the Mets as a bench player or a minor leaguer waiting for an injury this season.

The Aluminum:

Aluminum is such a versatile material used so often in manufacturing industry. Who knew it would eventually be a part of the card collecting industry? It certainly is though, and since the printing plates are 1/1 issues they are quite valuable even when the player is a backup like Anderson Hernandez (though there are always deals to be had). There are actually five printing plates of each card, but only one in each color: magenta, cyan, yellow, and black.

For some additional information on elemental aluminum check out this site.

Some of the information on printing plates was obtained from this cool blog entry.

PS: Want a reason to actually root for or against a team in spring training? Check out the following contest over at The Great Orioles Autograph Project.

PPS: If anyone has a normal base card version of this printing plate up for trade, please let me know!