#CardCorner: 1992 Donruss Juan Guzmán

The Toronto Blue Jays fulfilled their longtime destiny by winning World Series titles in 1992 and 1993, building a championship team from the ground up.

But perhaps no player was more responsible for the team getting to the Fall Classic than a former Dodgers farmhand who parlayed an unhittable slider into unprecedented success in the ALCS.

Juan Andres Guzmán was born Oct. 28, 1966, in Santo Domingo of the Dominican Republic. He gravitated toward the pitching mound early but was not the best hurler in his neighborhood. That honor went to future All-Star Ramón Martínez, older brother of Hall of Famer Pedro Martínez.

“He was better,” Guzmán told the Montreal Gazette of Ramón Martínez. “Everybody knew it.”

The Dodgers signed Martínez – who was almost 18 months younger than Guzmán – on Sept. 1, 1984, then brought Guzmán aboard on March 16, 1985. Signed by legendary scout Ralph Avila, Guzmán reported to the Dodgers’ Gulf Coast League team and made 21 appearances – mostly out of the bullpen – going 5-1 with a 3.86 ERA while striking out 43 batters in 42 innings.

Promoted to Class A Vero Beach of the Florida State League in 1986, Guzmán became a starter and went 10-9 with a 3.49 ERA. He returned to Class A ball in 1987 – this time in the California League with Bakersfield, where he was 5-6 with a 4.75 ERA.

Then – just days after the minor league season ended – Guzmán was traded to the Blue Jays on Sept. 22, 1987, in exchange for top infield prospect Mike Sharperson.

The Blue Jays shipped Guzmán to Double-A Knoxville in 1988 and sent him to the bullpen, where he was 4-5 with six saves and a 2.36 ERA in 84 innings over 46 appearances. But he walked 61 batters, reinforcing his reputation for lack of control. Guzmán began the 1989 season with Triple-A Syracuse but was demoted back to Knoxville midway through the year, finishing 2-5 with a 5.56 ERA in 36 games.

Guzmán then spent the entire 1990 campaign with Knoxville, going 11-9 with a 4.24 ERA but walking 80 batters in 157 innings.

Now 24 years old, Guzmán was sliding off the Blue Jays’ prospect radar. Following the season, the Jays did not put Guzmán on their 40-man roster, leaving him exposed to the Rule 5 Draft. No team selected him.

But that winter, Guzmán was 7-1 in the Dominican Winter League. While pitching there, Guzmán caught the eye of Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston.

Guzmán began the 1991 season with Syracuse, going 4-5 with a 4.03 ERA. Then, with longtime ace Dave Stieb battling sciatica, Gaston and the Blue Jays turned to Guzmán and brought him to the big leagues on June 4. Three days later, Guzmán made his MLB debut, allowing four runs over 4.2 innings in a 6-4 loss to Baltimore. He allowed four more earned runs over four innings against Baltimore on June 15. But in his third start on June 22 against Cleveland, Guzmán tossed seven shutout frames and allowed just three hits in a 4-0 win.

He followed that with 7.2 shutout innings in a 1-0 win over Minnesota on June 27. And suddenly, the Blue Jays had a young ace to go with a veteran lineup.

“I had come up with no experience, and I just did what they told me,” Guzmán told the Gazette. “Because I was told I was going to be here just a couple of days, I tried too hard. I was giving too much credit to the hitters, trying to be too fine in the strike zone. The manager, the pitching coach (Galen Cisco), my teammates all told me not to be too hard on myself and just pitch.”

Guzmán recorded just one win in July but did not suffer a loss while lowering his ERA to 2.91. He picked up two more wins without a loss in August and then went 5-1 over the final five weeks of the season, with his third loss coming on the next-to-last day of the season after the Blue Jays had long since clinched the division title. His 10-game winning streak set a new Toronto record, and his biting slider was the talk of baseball.

With the Blue Jays trailing the American League Championship Series 1-0 against the Twins, Guzmán got the start in Game 2 at the Metrodome and allowed four hits and two earned runs over 5.2 innings in a 5-2 Toronto win. It would be the only win of the series for the Blue Jays.

“Juan doesn’t pitch like a rookie,” Gaston told Gannett News Service. “Juan pitched a lot of baseball in the Dominican. He acts more like a veteran than a rookie.”

Guzmán had no doubts about his ability.

“I know what I can do,” Guzmán told Gannett News Service. “That’s the most important thing. I don’t care about noise and the other stuff. I’m going to go after the hitter.”

Following the season, Guzmán finished second in the AL Rookie of the Year balloting behind runaway winner Chuck Knoblauch of the Twins. Guzmán and Milt Cuyler of the Tigers received one first-place vote each – the only first-place votes that did not go to Knoblauch.

Guzmán was a unanimous choice as the Blue Jays Rookie of the Year by the Toronto chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

By the spring of 1992, Guzmán had established himself as one of the hardest workers on the Blue Jays’ staff. He regularly ran the stairs at the SkyDome and arrived early at workouts to do wind sprints.

“I want to throw 230 to 250 innings this year,” Guzmán told the Toronto Star after his first Spring Training start in 1992. “Last year, I knew I was going to Triple-A. (But this year) I feel good. I don’t have any pressure on me. Now I just need to get ready, throw hard, do my best.”

Guzmán started the Blue Jays’ third game of 1992, settling into the rotation behind newly acquired ace Jack Morris and veteran Todd Stottlemyre. He allowed just one run on three hits over seven innings against the Tigers, striking out 10 in a 3-1 Toronto win.

Guzmán won his first six decisions in 1992 and 11 of his first 12, entering the All-Star break with an 11-2 record and 2.11 ERA. He was named to the All-Star Game and entered the contest in the third inning, allowing two hits and a walk but no runs while fanning Ryne Sandberg and Benito Santiago.

Guzmán finished the season with a 16-5 record and 2.64 ERA, striking out 165 batters over 180.2 innings.

The Blue Jays won the AL East again and Guzmán started Game 3 of the ALCS vs. the Athletics, allowing two runs over six innings and picking up the win in a 7-5 Toronto victory. Guzmán came back on three days’ rest to pitch Game 6 and authored another gem, striking out eight and allowing just one run over seven innings in a 9-2 victory that sent Toronto to its first World Series.

“When we got ahead, I could work in and out. I didn’t have to go right at them,” said Guzmán, whose teammates staked him to a 6-0 lead after three innings. “I had great stuff. I think I had my best slider of the year.”

Guzmán started Game 3 of the World Series against the Braves, allowing just two runs (one earned) over eight innings while striking out seven. He departed after Kelly Gruber tied the game at 2 with a home run in the bottom of the eighth, and Duane Ward got the win after pitching a scoreless ninth before Candy Maldonado singled in the winning run in walk-off fashion in the bottom of the ninth.

Guzmán was lined up to pitch Game 7 but was not needed when Dave Winfield’s 11th-inning double in Game 6 gave Toronto a lead it would not relinquish in a 4-3 win that clinched the title for Toronto.

“It’s been like a dream,” Guzmán told the Canadian Press after the ALCS. “It’s not only for me – I care about the team and I care about everybody.”

Guzmán was slated to start the Blue Jays’ Spring Training opener in 1993 but was sidelined with the flu. Coming off seasons where he went a combined 26-8, he was looking for a multi-year deal but settled for the $500,000 the Blue Jays offered as he was not yet eligible for salary arbitration.

Guzmán once again started the Blue Jays’ third game of the season and did not miss a turn in the rotation, working 221 innings while going 14-3 (leading MLB with an .824 winning percentage) with a 3.99 ERA that was inflated by a couple bad starts in the season’s first two months.

The Blue Jays repeated as AL East champions, and this time Guzmán drew the Game 1 start in the ALCS vs. the White Sox – allowing three runs (two earned) over six innings despite walking eight batters and tying a record with three wild pitches in a 7-3 Toronto win. All three Chicago runs came in the fourth inning – with Guzmán allowing at least two base runners in four of his five other innings but consistently pitching out of trouble.

“If he can get out of it, it doesn’t matter,” Blue Jays pitcher Pat Borders told the Associated Press after Game 1. “They had opportunities to score and it could have gone the other way, but he made the pitches we had to.”

The Blue Jays and White Sox were tied at two games apiece when Guzmán went back to the mound in Game 5. This time, Guzmán was his old self – allowing just three hits, a walk and one run over seven innings as Toronto won 5-3.

Two days later, the Blue Jays captured Game 6 to return to the World Series.

In a Fall Classic dominated by hitting, Guzmán allowed four runs over five innings in Toronto’s 8-5 victory in Game 1.

“They all look like truck drivers,” Guzmán said of the hardscrabble Phillies players.

He was more effective in Game 5 but was tagged with his first postseason loss after allowing two runs (one earned) over seven innings as Curt Schilling shut out his teammates. But in Game 6, Joe Carter’s ninth-inning home run off Mitch Williams gave Toronto an 8-6 win and its second World Series title in as many years.

“There always seems to an inning where he’s wild,” Borders told the AP. “He puts a lot of his body into pitching and if his motion changes a little, he can have control problems. Usually, he can make adjustments.”

Three years into his big league career, Guzmán had a 40-11 regular season record, a 5-1 mark in eight postseason starts and two World Series rings on his resume.

Guzmán started on Opening Day in 1994 after agreeing to a two-year deal worth a reported $3.8 million in the offseason. He went 12-11 in an AL-best 25 starts in 1994 but saw his ERA balloon to 5.68. The next year, things got even worse as Guzmán lost nine straight decisions to finish the year 4-14 with a 6.32 ERA in 24 starts.

The Blue Jays brought back Guzmán in 1996 on a one-year deal worth a reported $2.24 million amid speculation that he would not be offered a contract. The deal turned out to be a bargain as Guzmán got off to the best start of his career, going 3-1 with a 1.88 ERA to earn AL Pitcher of the Month honors. An emergency appendectomy ended Guzmán’s season after one start in September but he still finished 11-8 with an AL-best 2.93 ERA over 187.2 innings. The league hit just .228 against Guzmán (the top figure among pitchers).

One year short of free agency, Guzmán finally got the security he was looking for when the Blue Jays signed him to a three-year deal worth a reported $15 million.

“I’m going to go as hard as I can as long as I can,” Guzmán told the Hamilton Spectator in the spring of 1997. “I’ll make my pitches and try to win every game.”

But injuries caught up with Guzmán in 1997 as he missed time with a broken thumb and sore shoulder. He went 3-6 with a 4.95 ERA in 13 starts.

He was healthy in 1998 but far less effective than usual, winning 10 games against an AL-high 16 losses with a 4.35 ERA over 211 innings. Almost a third of those innings were with the Orioles after the Blue Jays sent Guzmán to Baltimore on July 31 in exchange for Nerio Rodríguez and a minor leaguer.

A trade of Guzmán had been rumored for weeks.

“I’d like to come back and finish my career here,” Guzmán told the Canadian Press after shutting out the Rangers over eight innings on July 30 in his final start for Toronto – before the trade had even been announced.

Guzmán started 21 games for Baltimore in 1999 before once again being traded on July 31 – this time going to the Reds in exchange for B.J. Ryan and a minor leaguer. With his contract expiring at the end of the year, Guzmán went 6-3 with a 3.03 ERA for Cincinnati, finishing the year 11-12 with a 3.74 ERA in 200 innings.

But Guzmán would pitch just one more game in his big league career.

On Jan. 8, 2000, Guzmán signed a two-year deal with a third-year option with Tampa Bay worth $12.5 million. Much of the money was deferred until the middle of the new decade – by which time Guzmán was a distant memory for Tampa fans.

After allowing eight runs over 1.2 innings in Tampa Bay’s fifth game of the season, Guzmán went on the disabled list with a sore shoulder. He made four rehab starts but was unable to work his fastball velocity past 90 mph and underwent surgery to repair a partially torn rotator cuff and labrum.

“You can’t pitch any better than Juan Guzmán pitched for Cincinnati,” Tampa Bay general manager Chuck LaMar told the Tampa Tribune about the decision to sign Guzmán. “So it wasn’t a case where we were getting somebody who pitched good in Toronto and we were holding onto that. We went after a guy who was a great competitor who showed outstanding stuff in a competitive situation last year.”

Guzmán pitched in 12 minor league games in 2001 but never returned to the big leagues. He retired with a record of 91-79 and 4.08 ERA in 240 starts with 1,243 strikeouts over 1,483.1 innings.

In eight postseason starts, Guzmán was 5-1 with a 2.44 ERA, including a 5-0 mark in the ALCS. Guzmán’s five wins in LCS play are tied for sixth all-time. Among the seven other pitchers with at least five victories in the LCS, only Dave Stewart (8-0) has an unblemished record.

For a pitcher that struggled just to make it to the big leagues, Guzmán left an impressive legacy of winning.

“Juan has great desire,” Gaston told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in the spring of 1993. “He has made it through hard work and determination. He wants to succeed.”

Craig Muder is the director of communications for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum