Colby Rasmus seemed unliked in Toronto

[gunnarthor]

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/adam-lind-says-blue-jays-will-smile-more-without-colby-rasmus-111335222.html

 

Interesting story.  Obviously, some people like Rasmus as a bounceback candidate this year but character issues (and bad play) dogged him.  Former teammate Adam Lind took a shot at him, saying Toronto would be a happier place without him.  The article suggests he was burned out "toward the end of the season and simply wasn't receptive to critiques. That he knows how to hit, but doesn't know how to adjust or deal with adversity on the field."  And "wasn't receptive to critiques" is probably a nice way to put it.

 

I think those last two things - dealing with adversity and making adjustments - must be incredible hard and probably something we fans take for granted.  A guy like Mauer certainly showed the ability to adjust to pitchers over his career and knows how to deal with the golden sombrero but for other guys, maybe the doubt and failures just lead into this awesomely bad spiral of doom, despite the talent.  In any event, Rasmus posted a .287 OBP last year (although did have some nice power) and in his three years at Toronto posted a .295 OBP.  He was a bit of an out machine.  Add in that he wasn't very well liked and burned his bridges in St Louis before Toronto, I guess I'm glad the Twins passed on him.

[kab21]

Surprised the article doesn't talk about how Rasmus's father would give him advice that disagreed with the team advice.  Or that his father would start giving suggestions to the team on what should be done.  That's stuff that coaches in HS have to deal with and not the big leagues. 

 

Rasmus is talented and made sense in some ways (can play CF and not be awful offensively) but he's a risk in the clubhouse.

[Linus]

Perhaps these are the reasons that the Twins had a surprising (to me anyway) lack of interest in him.  Makeup has always been very important to TR.

[jimmer]

Perhaps these are the reasons that the Twins had a surprising (to me anyway) lack of interest in him.  Makeup has always been very important to TR.

I was wondering why this article was even a thread here but your post explains it....

[TheDean]

I was wondering why this article was even a thread here but your post explains it....

 

Perhaps these are the reasons that the Twins had a surprising (to me anyway) lack of interest in him.  Makeup has always been very important to TR.

 

Based purely on skillset "fit," and the money required to get them (at least in hindsight), I liked Aoki and Rasmus better than the Hunter signing, but I've come around a bit to Hunter. Rasmus indeed is a free-swinging, streaky "out-machine" and it seems that his attitude was toxic. I'm ready for Hunter to prove his worth with the bat and his attitude in a way that Rasmus would be hard-pressed to replicate.

 

I'm sure all of this has been re-hashed a thousand times already this offseason, but I'm just funneling my excitement for spring training games to begin into these posts. It's a fan site after all!

[Pius Jefferson]

I'm surprised Houston did have interest in a bad on-base hitter with a poor attitude.

[gunnarthor]

I was wondering why this article was even a thread here but your post explains it....

This is the other baseball thread, lots of stuff gets posted here - there are currently threads on Profar, Hamilton, minority managers, Montero etc.  Last year, discussions on the Astros draft, Appel's struggles, unwritten rules and Yankee spending were all huge threads. 

[nicksaviking]

Surprised the article doesn't talk about how Young's father would give him advice that disagreed with the team advice.  Or that his father would start giving suggestions to the team on what should be done.  That's stuff that coaches in HS have to deal with and not the big leagues. 

 

Young is talented and made sense in some ways (can play CF and not be awful offensively) but he's a risk in the clubhouse.

Dang, just want to see if I could play MadLibs with that quote. My new name seemed to fit until the part in parentheses.