Out of Place – Juan Guzman

2001 Topps – Juan Guzman

Juan Guzman was one of the Blue Jays’ best pitchers in the early 1990’s.  From 1991 to 1993, he compiled a record of 40-11 with a 3.28 ERA and 482 strikeouts in 540.1 innings pitched (8.0 K/9).  Not a bad few years.  He’s definitely remembered as one of the keys to Toronto’s success throughout that time, including some great postseason performances in the ALCS and World Series.  His success in a Blue Jays uniform makes this card of him with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays fairly disturbing – for more reasons than just the fact that he was lacking his classic Guzman flow.

Here are a few interesting facts (to me anyway – this is about me, not you) about the last few years of Guzman’s career, after he was traded from the Blue Jays in 1998:

-He pitched 32 games in Baltimore, 12 in Cincinnati and just one in Tampa Bay
-In his one and only game in Tampa, he allowed 8 earned runs in 1.2 innings for an ERA of 43.20.
-He was traded in 1999 by Baltimore to Cincinnati for Jacobo Sequea and some guy named BJ Ryan, who would eventually end up in Guzman’s original MLB home in Toronto.  Ah, the circle of life.
-He was paid $6 million by Tampa Bay in 2001 to play 2 games with their AA affiliate in Orlando and 10 with their AAA affiliate in Durham.

So there, now you know a bunch of new stuff.