You can make money on the guy who comes in 4th place!

In front of his home crowd in Seattle, Julio Rodriguez smashed 41 homers in round 1 of the Home Run Derby.

He was eliminated from the Derby just one round later, but for card purposes, it didn’t matter.

The liquidity and value of JRod cards climbed almost immediately, which serves as a great example of one of my favorite lessons in the card market:

Your player doesn’t have to be the best for you to make money on their cards.

In fact, sometimes they don’t even have to turn out to be good.

If you’ve been around long enough, you probably remember when Josh Hamilton dominated the 2008 Home Run Derby and took home the trophy.

Nope!

He lost in the final round to Justin Morneau.

But all we remember is that Hamilton put on a show like we had never seen before in the first round – the final result didn’t matter.

The same goes for Julio this year.

People will talk about his record-breaking round – not that he didn’t win the whole thing.

And it was enough to inspire many people to go buy a card.

This kind of thing happens all the time in the card market.

Sometimes it happens during a single event like the home run derby, and sometimes it happens in the bigger picture when looking at a player’s career trajectory.

A flash of excellence gets people excited to spend money on the player’s cards, but then the player isn’t able to sustain it.

A prospect goes on a tear in Triple-A and his cards explode, but then he never figures out Major League pitching and fizzles out after a few seasons.

A basketball rookie drops 35 points in his third game in the league and his cards jump fast, but he ends up only being a rotation player.

A rookie QB posts big passing stats and leads his team to a 3-0 start before the schedule gets tougher and they end the season 4-13.

It’s very possible to make money on a player who isn’t good long term.

You just have to be ready to sell when the profit is there for the taking.

Sometimes you’ll be glad you sold, and sometimes the card will rise higher and you’ll miss out.

It’s all part of the fun.