Archive for the “Colby Rasmus” Category

I’m not certain if Colby Rasmus had a run in with Andy Van Slyke’s son A.J. in the minors or if Rasmus forked Van Slyke’s yard.  In any event, Van Slyke has made it a point, yet again, to trash Colby Rasmus in the media with some specious arguments.  Don’t forget, we’ve been here before when Van Slyke misportrayed a series of things related to the junior Rasmus.

He’s at it again with Rick Hummel this time.

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I remember when Colby got started in the bigs in 2009.  Part of the reason I remember that is that I was feverishly waiting to claim sponsorship of his Baseball-Reference.com page.

I stumbled on this page this morning only to find that Colby is the 86th most visited player page on Baseball-Reference.  There’s really no point to this story other than the fact that it brought me a little smile. Outside of the recently re-signed Jim Edmonds (#78) and the eminent Albert Pujols (#4), Rasmus’s page is the most viewed among active Cardinals players.

Player A 2008: 514 PAs, .270/.311/.400, 108Ks, 9HRs, .313 wOBA
Player A 2009 (over roughly a full season): 670PAs (600ABs), .358/.418/.625, 125Ks, 30HRs, .444 wOBA

Player B 2008: 452 PAs, .254/.313/.453, 110Ks, 21HRs, .328 wOBA
Player B 2009 (over roughly a full season): 625 PAs (560 ABs), .250/.328/.545, 110Ks, 50 HRs, .375 wOBA

Player C 2009 (over roughly a full season): 596 PAs (516 ABs), .256/.337/.349, 120Ks, 6 HRs, .316 wOBA

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A scouting term that Goldstein uses to describe Brett Wallace.  Be sure to read Kevin Goldstein’s chat from yesterday — it’s always insightful.

Also, as a reminder, the prospect lists are being added to the link at the top as they are released.

[Update]

A really compelling article by Kary Booher over at Baseball America about Colby Rasmus. They probably don’t have anyone more qualified to write on Rasmus, as you’ll remember Booher used to work for the Springfield newspaper that covers the Double-A team.  It’s behind the subscription wall so there’s not much I can share but I have to clip these 4 lines.

What is clear is that Rasmus is a changed man, even at 22. Where before excitement and optimism overflowed from a deep voice, the tenor of his conversations follows a more cautious and guarded path.

“I’m a lot different now than I was at the beginning of the season,” Rasmus said. “Early in the season, I was playing to have fun. I didn’t look at the business side of baseball.

That flat out sucks.  More than anything I was hoping that Rasmus would bring a youthful exuberance with him to a St. Louis team that at times can seem dirge-like in their professionalism.  The article discusses in depth much of the hubub that went on during the last year and it’s a little bit dismaying.  I felt like I was watching a kid have his dreams crushed before my eyes.  I hope that’s not the case (and it probably isn’t) but if nothing else I hope Rasmus realizes that he still has a huge fanbase out there despite anything that’s happened in the organization.

More importantly, he’s still a supremely talented player and the long term outlook is unchanged.  He still has the potential to be a perennial All-Star and he’s still the long term solution to the Cardinal’s CF question.  Even if he starts the year in AAA (likely at this point), he should be the first option to be called up from the minors if an outfielder goes down.  Who knows, maybe Rick Ankiel will pull a hamstring.

Despite a down year at the plate, BA whole heartedly named Colby Rasmus the top prospect of the Pacific Coast League, ahead of Chase Headley, Max Scherzer, Brandon Wood and Carlos Gonzalez. It’s their faith in his tools that supersede the numbers and judge that’s it’s only a matter of time for Colby.

Chris Perez ranked the 12th best prospect in the league and is the top relief prospect. Bryan Anderson ranked between Nate Schierholtz and Franklin Morales, and was the second catcher to make the top twenty after the M’s Jeff Clement. They praise his game calling skills for someone of his youth, and they note his improvement in controlling the running game. They also like his speed (for a catcher) and hope he still may yet add some power.

Jaime Garcia and Mitch Boggs ranked 16th and 17th, respectively. Someone needs to update BA with the fact that Jaime went under the knife for Tommy John surgery, as they project him to be in the 2009 rotation. Scouts are high on Boggs’ pitching acumen and competitiveness, but question his ability to stick as a starter without at least an change up.

What excites me the most is in BA’s top twenties for the TL and PCL, nine of fourty made the cut. I’d rather have some players ready to make some big league impact then to have our best prospects in the lower minors. Now it’s up to the coaching to recognize their talents and properly employee them in the right spots.

Hooray for Jeff Luhnow, who announced recently that the Cardinals will be sending more players to winter ball then ever before. Hooray I say because it makes covering the farm system all the more fun year round. So far we know of the players going to the Arizona Fall League and the Hawaiian Winter League. Also we know David Freese is playing in Venezuela, and The Man, The Myth and The Legend of Amaury Marti will play in the Dominican.

From the sounds of things, Luhnow and the Cardinals are really encouraging their players to participate.

“There’s two ways to do winter ball,” Luhnow said. “One is to be reactive and just put the team in touch with the player. The other way is to talk to the player, tell him what it’s all about, try to encourage him and take some of the fear of the unknown out of it. Make sure you actively work with the club to place the player in a good situation. And that’s more the approach that [general manager John Mozeliak] has advocated this year.”

Last week I wondered what was the deal with Colby not playing in a winter league, and a lot of you equated that with Colby being as good as gone. Luhnow responds:

“I think he’s going to focus 100 percent on being ready for Spring Training and making this club,” Luhnow said. “That’s where his head needs to be. Forget who’s posted what online, or what people are saying about what he’s doing or not doing. He and I had a good long chat, and I believe he’s got the right attitude.

“When you talk to him directly, he has one goal and one goal only, and he’s pretty focused on it. I tried to communicate to him that I have that same goal. That we all do, really.”

As I said, I don’t think Colby is going to be goofing off all winter, not in the least bit. I still think if your boss encourages you to do something, you should do it. Colby did play for Team USA last year, maybe he figures playing almost all year is what could have led to his injury, I don’t know. You all can read into this all you want, I for one am just going to keep observing how things play out and not try and jump to any conclusions. I still believe it still is a good idea to do what your boss is asking, but things were hashed out and by all appearances Colby and the Cards are on the same page.

Even if Colby doesn’t make the team out of spring training, I would expect that Colby does not want to relive the miseries of the first two months of last season. I’m confident he’ll be ready.

Apparently Colby is not going to play winter ball, and it has nothing to do with related injuries. According to the P-D:

Rasmus, once projected to play winter ball in the Dominican Republic, apparently will sit out.

“I don’t think it’s as much a knee thing as much as it is a personal decision,” Mozeliak said. “It’s not uncommon for a player to sit there in August and wonder about the validity of going. He may believe there’s more value to experiencing his normal offseason program.”

Does this bother the Cardinals? It would have appeared that a couple of weeks ago they really wanted him to find a team to play for this winter being to make up for some of the time he lost competing. Don’t get me wrong,  I believe that last thing Colby will be doing is sitting around at home in Alabama playing video games. He’s a noted “workout warrior”; a couple of seasons ago he put on 20 pounds of muscle during the winter. I just wonder how wise a move it is to refuse to do something your employer would really encourage you to do for “personal reasons”. Maybe I’m getting overly concerned about nothing.

The same article says Freese will be playing winter ball in Venezuela. That brings me to remind you all that we will be covering the winter leagues as closely as we can, right now I’m debating whether or not to do a DFR or just a weekly update. We should find out soon about who will be playing where, and that may help determine the amount of coverage that goes into it.

What say all of you?

Sorry things have slowed since the minor league season is ended, I think we all are just taking a little breather before we get into prospect profiles, ranking players, covering the fall and winter leagues and a number of other things that go on during the offseason. Stay tuned.

Alex Eisenburg takes a close look at Nico Vasquez’s swing and finds the shortstop plumb in the middle of the Beckham spectrums. In other words, he doesn’t have Tim’s upside or Gordon’s polish, but he’s not that far from either in terms of overall talent.

Vasquez turns his hips on a firm front leg, which helps him generate power from his swing. One slight concern–and it may be from these particular swings the video provided–was how he would make contact a little too far out in front. This isn’t a case of a player looking to achieve extension because he’s not slapping/throwing his hands at the ball. It’s more a case of Vasquez starting his swing a little earlier than he needs to. He needs to wait on the pitch a little longer and give himself more time to recognize the pitch type and location.

Lastly, Vasquez has the swing plane to generate a sufficient number of fly balls. The more fly balls one hits, the more likely that hitter will hit for power. In the clips provided, Vasquez was able to get the ball on the sweet part of the bat, which gave the appearance of the ball “jumping” off his bat.

Kevin Goldstein takes a look at NL Players who took great leaps forward and was most impressed with Daryl Jones’ progress out of any player in the Cardinal system. Jess Todd was his runner up.

The latest in the As the Colby Turns drama, Joe Strauss recently chatted with fans Wednesday and said he sees value in promoting Rasmus if he is healthy. Mo says he’s not been cleared to play. After touting Rasmus, there was this exchange:

mike:… Just how big is Rasmus’ doghouse?
Joe Strauss: A double wide with a room addition planned upstairs.

Is this from his dad’s remarks? Did he act like he was entitled to a roster spot in the spring? I don’t know, but I cannot handle another young player/La Russa feud. There’s just too much talent to waste over ridiculous pettiness.

Batavia 4, Jamestown 3

• Jermaine Curtis hit a go-ahead two-run homer in the 9th. He went 2-5 with a strikeout overall.
• Edwin Gomez went 3-3 with a HR, a walk and 2 RBI.
• Charles Cutler went 2-4. He’s hitting .467 in postseason play.
• Scott Gorgen did his job, throwing six shutout innings. He allowed six hits, two walks and struck out four. He did a good job of keeping the ball on the ground, inducing ten ground-outs.
• Ramon Delgado fouled things up, allowing three earned run over 2.1 innings.
• George Brown and Jason Buursma recorded the last two outs.
• Big win on the road, the Muckdogs go up 1-0 in the NYPL championship.

Cardinal70 recently asked me to participate in the latest “United Cardinal Blogger” collaboration, a project that I could not say no to. The project: Name your Top 7 Prospects, as inspired by our esteemed beat writer Mr. Derrick Goold. The regular minor league season just finished and it seems like it wasn’t long ago we were talking draft, and here we are already ranking players. Time flies.

NOTE: This is NOT our official list that we will be rolling out later. This is more or less my off the cuff rankings as things stand at the moment, and it’s still pretty fluid right now.

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I can’t stand the Brewers.

You know the season is about over when you see the AFL rosters were announced. Justin Fiske, Brad Furnish, Tyler Norrick, Adam Ottavino, Steve Hill, Tyler Greene, Shane Robinson and Brett Wallace will all be on the Peoria Saguaros. Wallace and Gordon Beckham are the only two players from the past draft in the league, and as it turns out they will also be teammates. Springfield’s Ron Warner will manage the Saguaros…I’m guessing a saguaro belongs in the cactus family.

Is anyone else wondering why no Colby Rasmus? I figured they’d like to allow him make up for some of his missing AB’s because of his injury, but apparently not. And as expected, he was denied a September call-up. Unless they are really concerned about his health, I don’t understand this. You would think he should be playing somewhere. Hopefully this puts a fire in his belly and a chip on his shoulder and he goes out and performs when he gets the chance. I seem to remember reading Colby pouted a little after not making the team out of spring training.

Yet another Cardinal player was busted for PEDs. Per BA:

Cardinals catcher Juan Castillo, 18, tested positive for metabolites of Stanozolol. He was playing in the U.S., in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League, where he was batting .293/.384/.400 in 75 at-bats.

That makes him the fifth Cardinal minor leaguer to be suspended for steroids this year.

Nick Stavinoha was named to the “All PCL Team“. Stavinoha hit .337/.366/.518 for the season. Translate that into an MLE and you get .295/.325/.432, which is decent for a bench player, not a so much for a starter.

Chris Lambert‘s probably a little too ashamed to haunt the blog tonight. He lasted just 2.2 innings for Detroit tonight, but of the six runs he gave up, only two were earned due to a pair of errors. The two earned were on solo HR’s. His fastball topped out at 91 and sat at 89, so apparently his velocity never has quite returned. He threw 49 (!) pitches just in the 3rd inning.

Funny headline alert: Descalo Making a Name for Himself.

The farm goes 2-5 tonight.

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