Inside The Phillies

Phillies All-Star Explains Mind-Blowing Baseball Card Collection

Matt Strahm revealed his unique strategy for collecting baseball cards.

Tyler Maher

Jul 10, 2024; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Matt Strahm throws a pitch.
Jul 10, 2024; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Matt Strahm throws a pitch. / Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
In this story:

Matt Strahm is a lot of things. On the field, he's an All-Star reliever for the Philadelphia Phillies. Off the field, he's a husband and a father. As many fans know, he's also an avid baseball card collector.

Strahm loves baseball cards, which makes sense given that he plays the sport for a living. He even has his own YouTube channel dedicated to his obsession called "The Card Life."

The 32-year-old lefty doesn't just collect blindly, either. He has a method to the madness and pursues cards of certain players, which he explained to Topps in a recent interview.

One of Strahm's quirks is that he gets a card of every player who hits a home run off him in the big leagues. "Anyone who takes me deep, I try to do a rookie card auto(graph), and then Freddie Freeman took me deep and it was very expensive," he explained. "So I was like, I just need to have cool cards of whoever takes me deep."

Another one of Strahm's rules is that if a player hits two home runs against him, he has to get an autographed card of said player. Otherwise, he'll settle for a rookie card or an autographed card if a player only has one home run against him.

Fortunately for Strahm, he doesn't pitch a lot of innings as a reliever and doesn't give up many home runs. In 437 1/3 innings over nine MLB seasons, he's surrendered 56 homers to 51 different players. The only batters with multiple home runs against him are Trevor Story, Eduardo Escobar, Anthony Santander, Evan Longoria and Freeman, each of whom was an All-Star at one point.

Strahm has yielded only three long balls in 45 innings this year -- one of the lowest home run rates of his career. He served up gopher balls to Santander, Oneil Cruz and Jazz Chisholm Jr., giving him a few more names to add to his collection.

Published
Tyler Maher

TYLER MAHER

Tyler is a writer for Sports Illustrated's Inside the Phillies. He grew up in Massachusetts and is a huge Boston sports fan, especially the Red Sox. He went to Tufts University and played club baseball for the Jumbos. Since graduating, he has worked for MLB.com, The Game Day, FanDuel and Forbes. When he's not writing about baseball, he enjoys running, traveling, and playing fetch with his golden retriever.

Home/News