Jesus Guzman

Jesus Guzman won his second consecutive Texas League Player of the Week award. Guzman is currently leading the league in hits, RBI’s and total bases. He is in the top 3 in average, homers, OBP, SLG and OPS to coin a phrase he is hitting the cover off the ball. He is crushing right-handed pitching at a clip of 1.147OPS.

Signed in 2000, when he was 17 as a non-drafted free agent from Venezuela with the Seattle Mariners, he played rookie ball from 2001-2003 in the Venezuelan Summer League. He was named Most Valuable Player by the Mariners in 2003. In 2004, at the age of 20, he made his debut stateside for the M’s A+ team in the California League with the Inland Empires. He posted an OPS of .836 his first year and was promoted to double A where his hitting seemed to stall out a bit, posting OPS' of .723 and .719 in 2005 and 2006. He was suspended for 15 days in 2005 for steriods. In 2007 he was demoted back to A+ where he found his grove and posted a career best .909 OPS.

After the end of the 2007 season the M’s released, him (if anybody has any insight as to why please do tell) and he was signed by the A’s. Playing second and third base currently at Midland it has to be only a matter of time before he is promoted to Sacramento. Still relatively young at a baseball age of 24 (he was born 6/14/1984) he could be the power infield bat the A’s need at the corner.

Fielding wise it’s hard to see how he is with the glove and if he is better suited for second or third. He has committed 4 errors second only to Pennington (who has 5).