Todd Van Poppel Played Major League Baseball For How Long?

Todd Van Poppel was the hobby darling in 1991 after the Oakland Athletics 1st round draft pick the year prior made a late season debut in Major League Baseball. Did you know Van Poppel, who many label a "bust," actually played 11 seasons in the big leagues? More on that in a moment.

Monday's mail day came courtesy of Joe in Washington, or @lumberjackcards on Twitter. He included a nice variety in the box of almost 400 Cubs baseball cards.

For some strange reason, I like to use the 1987 Topps #695 Chico Walker as my standard bearer for the set....for no reason at all. This isn't card #695, though. It's a 1987 O-Pee-Chee #58 Chico Walker. Not too many of these are in my collection.

Another card at first glance may deceive you. It's not a 1987 Fleer Update Andre Dawson...it's a 1987 Fleer Update GLOSSY Andre Dawson.

Keeping with 1980's Chicago Cubs, there are not too many Craig Lefferts Cubs baseball cards. He does appear on this 1984 Topps card (one of my favorite Topps sets of all time). The reason I bring him into the blog? I recently found Craig Lefferts was on Twitter after liking one of my Tony Gwynn tweets.

This 2002 Topps American Pie American Sluggers Ryne Sandberg card is super thick, and it's also a new Sandberg for my collection.

An Anthony Rizzo short print image variation! This is from 2017 Topps, and is also new to my collection.

Coming full circle, did you know Todd Van Poppel played for the Chicago Cubs? It's true, it's true. The once highly touted young pitcher made 110 appearances for the Chicago Cubs during the 2000 and 2001 seasons toward the end of his career. His Cubs stats read like this: 8-6, 3.18 ERA, 161.1 innings, 167K/86BB. Van Poppel mainly served as a reliever in those two seasons in Chicago, but did make two starts.

Here's an updated leader board for most Cubs cards by player. Mike Harkey stays in the top spot closely trailed by Les Lancaster. Both Ryne Sandberg and Anthony Rizzo enter the top five today.

One Million Cubs Project Stats Monday (1/6/20) Cards: 378

Monday (1/6/20) Packages: 1

January's Cubs Count: 677

Total Trades/Donations: 5

Total Cubs Card Count: 395,775