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Thus ends the brief stay of Bobby Jenks filling out a Boston Red Sox uniform.  That breaks down to $631,579 each time he waddled in from the bullpen, $765,795 per inning worked, and $40,816 per each of the 294 pitches he threw. His per pitch pay rate was greater than the average income per person in 18 of the 50 states in The United States of America. 

That said, that is not even close to the worst use of $12M in baseball. That honor belongs to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2000.

Prior to that season, owner Vince Naimoli provided General Manager Chuck LaMar with money to attract free agents to the Tampa Bay area and LaMar went shopping in earnest. He first tried signing Aaron Sele, but ended up signing Juan Guzman to a two-year deal for $12M. He was coming off a season in which he made 33 starts and threw 200 innings while pitching for both Baltimore and Cincinnati. Guzman took to the mound on the fifth game of that season for the Devil Rays' home opener after the team had split a series at Minnesota to start the season. Tropicana Field was packed with 40,329 fans who'd come to see the new names on the Devil Rays and their big free agent signing on the mound. Fans that were late getting into the game due to traffic or were in lines at the concession stand never got to see Guzman pitch as he left the game with an injured shoulder on his 55th pitch of the game while trying to get out of the second inning and never again threw a major-league pitch. 

The total bill for Juan Guzman's time with the Devil Rays: $12,000,000 per appearance, $7,185,628 per inning worked, and $218,189 per pitch thrown.

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saigonsam
7/04
This is a painful post for me. $12 million is the amount I am trying to raise for a Beach Resort / Micro-brewery with 20 Beach Villas, 55 Bungalows, 2 restaurants, 2 pools, and a micro-brewery. Sounds like a better investment than Bobby Jenks, to me.
moonlightj
7/04
sounds like something Bobby Jenks may want to invest in :)
saigonsam
7/04
Do you have his number? I can't imagine he wants to hand around Boston, now.
saigonsam
7/04
hang.... I wish we could edit our comments.
leleutd
7/04
How much of a player's salary gets covered by insurance / disability while he is on the DL? In Guzman's case, how much of the tab did the Rays have to pick up?
moonlightj
7/04
I'm assuming the Rays had to pick up the entire tab because Guzman did not retire and tried to pitch in the minors with Baltimore in 2002 before calling it quits. I think back to Bagwell's last year when he tried to play his last season rather than retire and the Astros had to pay the final year of the deal rather than insurance.