LaRussa on Rasmus: "Less power, more grounders" (1 Viewer)

[the rover]

This coming from the Cardinal Nation Blog, Rotoworld picked it up today.

"RCWarrior" is a frequent commenter (see comments below) and Rasmus' father, as well as a bit of a stage dad. Apparently LaRussa wants the naturally talented Rasmus to be more of a "scrappy player."

http://thecardinalnationblog.com/2010/12/0...coming-in-2011/

“Colby has been working on spraying the ball around the field this offseason via the Big Mac approach. Hasn’t been lifting since the plan is to be a slap hitter so there is no need for the added muscle. The goal I hear is to hit .300 and hit more ground balls and line drives the other way.”

Yeah, insane.

 

[Brady Marino]

"Well, you can run like Hays, but you hit like ####. With your speed, you should be hitting the ball on the ground and be legging them out. Everytime I see you hit one in the air, you owe me 20 push-ups."

 

[Eephus]

Rasmus' GB/FB and GO/AO ratios are both very low and hitting F9s doesn't take advantage of his speed. LaRussa's love of all things scrappy is kind of a joke but he may be onto something.

 

[the rover]

Rasmus' GB/FB and GO/AO ratios are both very low and hitting F9s doesn't take advantage of his speed. LaRussa's love of all things scrappy is kind of a joke but he may be onto something.

Flyballs > groundballs.

 

[Eephus]

Rasmus' GB/FB and GO/AO ratios are both very low and hitting F9s doesn't take advantage of his speed. LaRussa's love of all things scrappy is kind of a joke but he may be onto something.

Flyballs > groundballs.

hits > outs

 

[igbomb]

Rasmus' GB/FB and GO/AO ratios are both very low and hitting F9s doesn't take advantage of his speed. LaRussa's love of all things scrappy is kind of a joke but he may be onto something.

Flyballs > groundballs.

As a general rule, yes. But Rasmus doesn't have the power of other guys with FB/GB ratios like his and also has serious speed. The Cards want to turn him into a Brett Gardner type player.I don't necessarily agree with the approach, but being an extreme flyball hitter is not necessarily a good thing.

 

[Smack Tripper]

I think groundball is generally a pretty sound fundamental approach and what might have to be what you preach to get a flyball guy into being a line drive guy.

 

[Eephus]

Rasmus' GB/FB and GO/AO ratios are both very low and hitting F9s doesn't take advantage of his speed. LaRussa's love of all things scrappy is kind of a joke but he may be onto something.

Flyballs > groundballs.

As a general rule, yes. But Rasmus doesn't have the power of other guys with FB/GB ratios like his and also has serious speed. The Cards want to turn him into a Brett Gardner type player.I don't necessarily agree with the approach, but being an extreme flyball hitter is not necessarily a good thing.

Rasmus' GB/FB ratios have been 0.54 & 0.48 vs. the MLB average of 0.79. If you look only at ground outs vs. air outs, the disparity is even higher.Those are pretty extreme splits for a hitter. Usually guys with ratios that low are slow power hitters like Dunn, Bautista and Carlos Pena. They can live with the flyouts because they have enough power to clear the fences more often. Even Barry Zito who's an extreme flyball pitcher induces more grounders than Rasmus hits. Speed guys almost always hit at least an even number of GBs and FBs. This is usually associated with a higher BABIP than lower GB/FB ratios, particularly for players who can beat out those ground balls.Rasmus was able to put together a high BABIP last year that helped him to a .276 AVG. This is likely to regress in 2011 unless he changes his approach. If he can hit more grounders and cut down the strikeouts, he'll be a better hitter even if some of the HRs become doubles and singles.

 

[RnR]

Apparently all these comments from Rasmus' father were some sort of a "joke." Everyone can relax, they're not going to change Rasmus from the 30/30 player he's about to become. I am growing tired of his dad's act though, he's been a control freak ever since they drafted him.

 

[the rover]

Rasmus' GB/FB and GO/AO ratios are both very low and hitting F9s doesn't take advantage of his speed. LaRussa's love of all things scrappy is kind of a joke but he may be onto something.

Flyballs > groundballs.

As a general rule, yes. But Rasmus doesn't have the power of other guys with FB/GB ratios like his and also has serious speed. The Cards want to turn him into a Brett Gardner type player.I don't necessarily agree with the approach, but being an extreme flyball hitter is not necessarily a good thing.

He had 28 HR last year in 144 games, and he's 24. I'm not for trying to sky everything, a hitter's ideal approach should just be to hit the ball hard most of all. Even if you're going opposite-field, you still want muscle to hit the ball hard. Harder line drives = more hits. Harder flyballs = more XBH.Unless it's a powerless dink like Juan Pierre, groundballs aren't a good idea.

 

[the rover]

Update: Apparently Rasmus was satirically trashing the Cards organization (and all of you) with his tongue-in-cheek comments. Might be out of place for the father of a player, but he's right:

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/12/...e-organization/

 

[Eephus]

I still think he should cut down on his strikeouts and use his speed. The HRs will still be there; he has enough natural power to succeed without trying to pull everything.

 

[the rover]

Apparently all these comments from Rasmus' father were some sort of a "joke." Everyone can relax, they're not going to change Rasmus from the 30/30 player he's about to become. I am growing tired of his dad's act though, he's been a control freak ever since they drafted him.

I agree about his dad being meddlesome, but he's right.

 

[Eephus]

Apparently all these comments from Rasmus' father were some sort of a "joke." Everyone can relax, they're not going to change Rasmus from the 30/30 player he's about to become. I am growing tired of his dad's act though, he's been a control freak ever since they drafted him.

I agree about his dad being meddlesome, but he's right.

.260 hitter meh

 

[Wrigley]

Rasmus is a #####

Rasmus was supposed to come through with tickets for a small group of us a couple years ago(Cubs/Cards).

Showed up at the box office and................Opps, he forgot the leave the tix

We couldn't get a hold of him so close to game time, so we were sol.

I ####### hate that guy.

 

[the rover]

Apparently all these comments from Rasmus' father were some sort of a "joke." Everyone can relax, they're not going to change Rasmus from the 30/30 player he's about to become. I am growing tired of his dad's act though, he's been a control freak ever since they drafted him.

I agree about his dad being meddlesome, but he's right.

.260 hitter meh

He certainly could stand to cut down on his K's, but he's talented enough to not become Coco Crisp in the process.

 

[Eephus]

Apparently all these comments from Rasmus' father were some sort of a "joke." Everyone can relax, they're not going to change Rasmus from the 30/30 player he's about to become. I am growing tired of his dad's act though, he's been a control freak ever since they drafted him.

I agree about his dad being meddlesome, but he's right.

.260 hitter meh

He certainly could stand to cut down on his K's, but he's talented enough to not become Coco Crisp in the process.

To use a different C.C. as an example, Carl Crawford's GB/FB ratio is 0.98 (nearly twice that of Rasmus). Crawford hits more doubles and triples than Rasmus and hits 30 percentage points higher. Rasmus hits a few more homers and walks more frequently, but has more strikeouts and F9s.With Rasmus' tools and better plate discipline than Crawford, he can be a very rich man in five years.

 

[the rover]

Apparently all these comments from Rasmus' father were some sort of a "joke." Everyone can relax, they're not going to change Rasmus from the 30/30 player he's about to become. I am growing tired of his dad's act though, he's been a control freak ever since they drafted him.

I agree about his dad being meddlesome, but he's right.

.260 hitter meh

He certainly could stand to cut down on his K's, but he's talented enough to not become Coco Crisp in the process.

To use a different C.C. as an example, Carl Crawford's GB/FB ratio is 0.98 (nearly twice that of Rasmus). Crawford hits more doubles and triples than Rasmus and hits 30 percentage points higher. Rasmus hits a few more homers and walks more frequently, but has more strikeouts and F9s.With Rasmus' tools and better plate discipline than Crawford, he can be a very rich man in five years.

But there's no correlation between cutting down on K's and hitting grounders. You can do the former without the latter.

 

[Eephus]

But there's no correlation between cutting down on K's and hitting grounders. You can do the former without the latter.

Fair enough, but over 300 of his 530-odd PAs ended in either SOs or FBs. That's too high. He'll never reach .300 with that approach.I don't follow the Redbirds enough to have any insight beyond stats. Does he uppercut? Try to pull everything? Why does Tony sit him against lefties? What does he chase? Is he coachable? All I know is he's a talented kid who really hasn't put it together yet, and is a 2011 regression candidate unless he does something differently.

 

[dparker713]

Apparently all these comments from Rasmus' father were some sort of a "joke." Everyone can relax, they're not going to change Rasmus from the 30/30 player he's about to become. I am growing tired of his dad's act though, he's been a control freak ever since they drafted him.

I agree about his dad being meddlesome, but he's right.

.260 hitter meh

He certainly could stand to cut down on his K's, but he's talented enough to not become Coco Crisp in the process.

To use a different C.C. as an example, Carl Crawford's GB/FB ratio is 0.98 (nearly twice that of Rasmus). Crawford hits more doubles and triples than Rasmus and hits 30 percentage points higher. Rasmus hits a few more homers and walks more frequently, but has more strikeouts and F9s.With Rasmus' tools and better plate discipline than Crawford, he can be a very rich man in five years.

Crawford, in his age 28 season, put up his best offensive year ever, resulting in a wRC+ of 141. Rasmus, in his age 23 season, put up a wRC+ of 133. Offensively he was nearly the equal of Crawford and in the coming years the smart money is on him to be a better offensive player following a similar approach. The comparison to Crawford is rather moot though because you're ignoring a key fact - Crawford has elite speed, Rasmus doesn't. He moves well, but he's not one of the fastest players in the game. And unless he adopts Ichiro's swing-and-break-from-the-box approach, he's not suddenly going to be beating out a ton of grounders.

 

[thetman]

Maybe his maturation wouldn't be stunted if they had a legit hitting coach...

 

[the rover]

He has average speed, but he's not Brett Gardner or Ichiro, and even they only top out at around 15% IFH.

Rasmus seems to have a big problem with breaking balls, and he swings and misses too much on pitches out of the zone. He smashes fastballs. And while he's struggled against lefties, esp. in 2009, 2010 showed marked improvement in that area.

But when he hits the ball, good things happen: a HR/F rate of 14.8% last year, trailing Jay Bruce, Teixeira and David Wright only by 1%. He doesn't pop up much, and his line drive rate is healthy.

He needs more plate discipline and patience, and to work on recognizing curveballs more.