Random Topps Card of the Day: 2008 Topps #205 Gil Meche

Thanks to the Topps Card Randomizer, introducing the Random Topps Card of the Day for Thursday, May 16, 2013:

• Official Card Set Name and Card Number: 2008 Topps #205.
• Player Name, position, team: Gil Meche, pitcher, Kansas City Royals.
• Major League Debut: July 6, 1999.
• Last Line of Statistics: 2007 stats (Royals): 34 G, 216 IP, 9-13, 98 R, 88 ER, 156 SO, 62 BB, 34 GS, 1 CG, 0 SHO, 0 SV, 1.30 WHIP, 3.67 ERA.
• Any special information about player: Drafted by the Mariners #1st, June 1996. Signed with the Royals as a Free Agent 12/07/2006. Bats: right. Throws: right.
• Number of regular Topps Cards (includes regular and traded cards only): 11. This is his eighth Topps card.
• Blurb on the back: "The Royals scored only 12 runs while Gil was on the mound in his 13 defeats in 2007. "I think you could conservatively say he could have won 16 to 17 games the way he's pitched," manager Buddy Bell said."
• Commentary: Regardless of how you feel about the 2008 Topps set, you have to admit that both the appropriately team-colored circles and the large letters above the picture made it easy to sort cards by team. I just wish that the Topps logo didn't dip into the picture (they could have done it like the NBA cards where the dip was at the bottom of the card and the name could be inside the picture) and they could have done away with the facsimile autograph too. But I digress. After six productive seasons in Seattle (when he was healthy - he was felled by shoulder injuries and subsequent surgeries took him off the field for the entire 2001 campaign), where he went a combined 55-44 with an ERA of 4.65, 575 strikeouts and a WHIP of 1.439, Gilbert Allen Meche signed a five-year deal with the Royals. In his first year with the Royals, he was named the team's representative to the 2007 AL All-Star Team. In 2008, Meche led the AL in Games Started with 34 (he led the AL in the same stat with 34 starts as well the year before), and had his best statistical season in KC with a 14-11 record, a career high 183 strikeouts, a WHIP of 1.317, and an ERA of 3.98. But beginning in 2009, he began re-experiencing shoulder and back problems that affected his performance for most of the year, and in 2010, he spent more than 3 months on the DL due to the aforementioned injuries. He returned as a reliever at the end of the year. In 2011, the final year of his contract, he opted to retire instead of going in for another shoulder surgery to continue his career. He would finish with an 84-83 record, a 4.49 ERA and 1050 strikeouts.
• Lo-Hi Beckett value: $0.12-$0.30.
• How many cards of this player do I own?: 24.

Tomorrow's card will be: 1997 Topps #108. Post will arrive at 1:00 PM CST. Until tomorrow everybody.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama