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Yesterday morning, the Cubs added yet another, low cost/high reward contract onto the ledger to bolster their relief corps.  Xavier Cedeno, a lefty who has been in the league since 2011, was brought in on a non-guaranteed, Major League deal worth $900K.  Initial reports indicated that the bullpen piece would be on a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training; however, today we learned that X will be occupying a 40-man roster spot but can be cut for only a portion of his salary this spring.  He represents another acquisition in Theo's plan to throw as many cheap arms at the bullpen problem as possible and see who's left standing at the end of the Cactus League schedule.

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In 2018, Cedeno spent time with two rivals to the North Siders - the White Sox and the Brewers.  All told, he was pretty much lights out when on the mound, posting a sterling 2.43 ERA in 33.1 IP and averaging 9.2 K's per nine innings.  As a reliever, he was worth 0.9 WAR for the season.  Not to mention, throughout his career, he's been murder on same-handed opponents, limiting southpaws to a egregious .218/.285/.298 batting line.  If the Cubs can get that kind of production out of Cedeno, his contract will be an absolute steal.

Considering the team's need for an experienced lefty after the departure of Justin Wilson and this MLB deal, it can be reasonably expected that Cedeno will likely head north with the Big League club... provided he can prove his health.  After all, the 32-year old lost nearly all of the 2017 campaign to dreaded forearm issues.  Rather than undergoing the knife and losing a season-plus to Tommy John Surgery, the newest Cub treated his foreboding injury with rest and platelet-rich plasma injections.  Thus, a clean bill of health, like his contract, is not a guarantee.

Anyway, all things considered, the odds are pretty good that a healthy X would head to Chicago with the Cubs come April.  Thus, it would be reasonable for me to look into a acquiring an Xavier Cedeno card for my Cubs All-Time Roster Collection - like a good Boy Scout, I try to always be prepared.  Let's see what's on the market for the team's new reliever:

Hmm... that's peculiar...

According to baseball reference, Xavier Cedeno has seen action in every single Major League season since 2011 and made more than 40 appearances in four of those campaigns.  Despite that fairly long and experienced resume, Cedeno has not shown up in a single checklist from Topps, whatsoever.  There's no Bowman appearances either, seeing as he was a 31st round draft selection in 2004 and never was a blue chip name.  Hell, Xavier doesn't even cameo in the packs of Panini or Leaf or In The Game or Razor or whatever other second and third tier challenger to Topps you can think of. 

Should Xavier Cedeno eventually make an official appearance in Cubbie Blue, the only options I will have for enshrining him in my CATRC will be his MiLB team-issued singles, which - like many such products - are fairly scarce and often over-priced.

Heck, I could only find one minor league card for X on the Trading Card Database and there aren't any singles up for grabs on Ebay at the moment.  In fact, this was the only card that even turned up in a Google Images search.  Obviously, this is not an ideal cardboard situation.

Despite the fact that Cedeno is on the cusp of his ninth season in the Majors, he has exactly zero MLB trading cards.  Nada, zlich, none.  How unfortunate is that and how does that happen?   I guess that's what happens when you're living in a monopoly and all of the focus in the industry is on the latest shiny new prospects.  I guess we're lucky that almost of the starters on Big League clubs get cards today, let alone bench players and relievers.  That said, you'd think that after nearly a decade, Cedeno would have snuck through at some point.

Have any of my fellow collectors run into this issue during their cardboard quests?  Have you ever encountered a surprising amount of difficulty finding cards of Major League veterans?  Is this even an uncommon issue?  Please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section below!

In the meantime, I suppose I'll just wait and see what happens with Xavier Cedeno before I make the commitment to hunt down one of his pasteboards.  After all, patience is a virtue, right?

via GIPHY