‘Phillies Extra’ Q&A: Matt Strahm on helping Bryce Harper with baseball card collecting, and more

Matt Strahm stores boxes of baseball cards in his locker in the Phillies’ clubhouse. He takes them on the road, rips packs after games, and shares cards with teammates.

Strahm even hosts a TV show about baseball cards.

Bryce Harper knew whom to ask, then, when he recently had a question about starting a collection.

“We’re talking cards,” Strahm said on the latest edition of Phillies Extra, the baseball show from The Inquirer. “And Harp goes, ‘What do you think I could get for some game-used memorabilia, trade-wise?’”

» READ MORE: Matt Strahm donated a scoreboard to a baseball team for adults with functional needs. They gave him much more.

Say no more. Strahm was on the case.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Strahm talked about his pursuit of a card collection for Harper, new closer Jhoan Duran’s impact on the Phillies’ bullpen, and more. Watch the full interview below and subscribe to the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

A: Obviously, just knowing who’s getting the ball in the ninth, it takes a little off the other seven of us down there … instead of wondering one through nine, we’re now wondering one through eight, so it just takes a little bit off our plate. I get the analytics side of baseball and all that, but I’ve always thought roles have a huge impact on a team just because … a closer is just a different breed. They know how to get out of that corner when they get backed into it, and it’s different. Those last three outs, I don’t think you can find on a computer how difficult they are. And so to have that, it’s no different than a setup man or a seventh-inning man. I came up in Kansas City, [and] they’re notorious for the 7-8-9, they had HDH [Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland]. HDH was ’14. And then in ’15, they had Herrera, [Ryan] Madson, and Davis.

And it made life easy when that phone rang in the bullpen, and you knew if it was a one- to three-run lead, it was one of those three. And then if it wasn’t, it was the B guy. And so it definitely helps, and it just helps you be prepared. I don’t know how much people pay attention to a bullpen, but you kind of look like a little beehive out there after about the third inning, just everyone kind of moving around, just trying to be ready to get on the mound and get going. So, yeah, just having the ninth inning locked down is a big help.

A: He’s still in that spring training mode, feeling everything out these last couple days here. And since, he is kind of opening up a little more. But he’s kind of just got a feel for the water the first week, and now we’re starting to get a little more personality out of him. But we all know what we do for a job … and we get locked out there for three hours, so you got to get to know some guys. And he’s fitting in great. It’s only been a week, so I’m sure we’ll see more out of them, but he’s starting to open up.

» READ MORE: The Jhoan Duran Effect is real so far, and there’s precedent for what the Phillies hope he delivers

A: My agent [Allan Donato] was actually an original founder of Victus, and then when he got into the agent game, he kind of wanted to separate himself from bats and agents. He didn’t want players feeling like, ‘I’m telling you swing Victus because I’m a part-owner in it.’ So he sold it out to his buddies that started Victus. And Jared [Smith] and Ryan [Engroff] are great dudes — they’re baseball card collectors. And that’s kind of how it started.

When I signed here in Philly, my agent was like, ‘Hey, [I’ve] got to drive you up to the Victus guys and show you what they do with cards.’ And so I went up there to open some cards with them, and then just we kind of built a relationship on cards. And after two or three times being up at Victus, opening ridiculous amounts of baseball cards with them, I told him, ‘You guys need to get in the glove game because I’m in the breaking bat business, not swinging bats.’

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So this offseason, Jared shot me a text. My Wilson contract was up, and he shot me a text and was like, ‘How serious are you about using our glove if we do it?’ And I was like, ‘I’m all in.’ So I now have a locker full of custom Victus gloves, and they’ve taken unbelievable care of me, and they’ve started something special, too. So I think it was just last week they did a little mini release of a limited Japanese glove that sold out in three minutes. And then just this past Monday, they posted the pencil glove, off the Bryson Stott pencil bat that went viral after the Little League World Series. They made a glove version of it now.

A: Yeah, so it was actually just a little locker room banter here and there. We’re talking cards, and Harp goes, ‘What do you think I could get for some game-used memorabilia, trade-wise?’ And I was like, ‘Dude. People trade me my one of ones for game-used stuff. You can get some cool stuff.’ And he’s like, ‘See what we can get, and I’ll get back.’ So I just mindlessly set off the tweet, and I didn’t realize the wildfire I had started. I can’t even open Instagram or Twitter right now. It gives me anxiety just scrolling through the notifications.

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I’ve had people reach out to me with unbelievable collections. There’s some collectors out there that have almost seven figures worth of Harp cards, and I’m not comfortable asking you to give that up for something. And also there’s some requests that people want, meet and greets, and all this. And it’s like, ‘Yeah, your card’s valuable, but Harp wants a cool collection.’ And I found some cards that have cool sentimental value. Cards, to me, are stories. I found a card of Harp and Trea [Turner] sitting on the Oakland Athletics bench at the Coliseum. To me, that’s a cool card. The Coliseum no longer exists. And also the backstory of Harper growing up an A’s fan. That, to me, is a cool card. Is it a valuable card? I know it’s not nearly as valuable as some of his rookie [autographed cards], but as a collector of cool cards, I think that was pretty cool.

So Harp and I need to have a little sit down here and be like, ‘Yo, what do you mean by cool? And what are you willing to give up for these cool cards?’ I’ve created a mess. I did not anticipate what we got. I think I sent the tweet out three or four hours before a game, and after the game, my agent had said, ‘I don’t know what all this means, but it has 244,000 impressions on Twitter.’ I’m like, ‘My goodness.’ That’s a lot of people to me.