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Here is the latest on the Rasmus family. We will start with Colby who seems to be doing quite well this year. Other articles will appear in descending order and links to the rest of our web site which is still not updated are found in the usual places.
This article is from STLtoday.com
Colby Rasmus: Goal in sight
JUPITER,
Fla. — The Cardinals thought they had everything covered, right down to a
scout pacing off the distance from home plate to the fence at a high school
ballpark — just to be sure all those home runs Colby Rasmus hit in his senior
season were bona fide blasts.
They had Rasmus' skills triple-checked and his statistics vetted. They thought
they had a complete dossier on the center fielder who is now the organization's
best position prospect since Albert Pujols.
They missed something.
Nobody considered failure.
We never saw him struggle," said Jeff Luhnow, the Cardinals' newly installed
farm director. "That was new."
Rasmus, the Cardinals' top draft pick in 2005, began his first full season in
professional baseball last spring in a full-
fledged slump for Class A Quad Cities. His friends and family were rattled. He wasn't. He peeled out of it by hitting
.351 over a span of 171 at-bats, earning a promotion and receiving an invitation, at 20, to major league spring
training. He'll start in center field this afternoon in the Cardinals' first spring game, an exhibition against Florida
Atlantic University.
From Baseball America to Baseball Prospectus to across the blogosphere,
Rasmus is the unanimous selection as the Cardinals' top minor league talent. A
blend of tools and production, he is the first position player to rank No. 1 on
BA's list of Cardinals prospects since J.D. Drew in 1999. He and Drew are the
only position players to receive that rank in the past 15 years. When Jim
Edmonds was re-signed to a two-year deal this winter, the dots connected from
All-Star to heir.
Rasmus could be two years away.
Wary of the expectations piled on this premium prospect, team officials point to
two traits for assurance, one they knew and the one they found out. Rasmus was
raised to play baseball. Rasmus doesn't rattle.
It's nurture and nature.
"I do think there is a lot of pressure on him being the undisputed No. 1
prospect in a system that has been lacking a true No. 1 prospect," said Luhnow.
"If anybody can handle it — as if he has to shoulder this whole burden of the
system — it's him. ... When he struggled, it didn't take long for Colby to get
it straight. He may have problems this year for a few weeks. He may struggle for
a month. But at every level after awhile, he masters it."
Born in baseball
Tony Rasmus said they didn't have a lot, but they had baseball.
The year his son Colby was born, Rasmus was a 10th-round pick of the Angels in
1986. The family still jokes that Colby is the only lefty in the lineage because
he sat on Ken Griffey Jr.'s lap as an infant. But Tony's career ended abruptly
when he was released from the same team his son would later star for, Quad
Cities.
The Rasmuses returned to Phenix City, Ala., without much but each other.
And baseball.
"If you're a mechanic it's a good bet your son is going to know how to fix
cars," Tony said last week after finishing practice with the high school team he
coaches. "Well, baseball is all I know. All I could give them was baseball. Even
our Christmases were all baseball-oriented."
Colby and his three brothers shared a bunk bed, two to each level, in the
trailer they called home until about six years ago. To practices, their dad
drove the family's weary car — if holding its broken door shut with his left
hand while shifting with his right and steering with his knee can be called
driving.
Bills went unpaid, Tony said, for baseball.
Tony's baseball investment paid off. In 1999, Colby and his recently drafted
brother Cory were part of the U.S. champion team at the Little League World
Series. They won a Dixie Youth League title. In 2005, the Rasmus-powered high
school team won the Alabama state title. Baseball America and USA Today dubbed
Russell County High national champs.
Rasmus was its top prospect.
Now that was pressure.
"I'd go to work out early in the morning, (go to) classes, then it was to
practice. We wouldn't be done until 7 p.m.," Rasmus said. "That night, I'd go
home and if I had a bad day my parents would lecture me on what I needed to do
better. Then it was right back into the next day and do it all over.
"That was stressful," he continued. "Trying to get drafted, scouts all over the
place and playing and everything going on. All that pressure. I felt more
pressure then than I do now being labeled the No. 1 prospect. It was a great
time, don't get me wrong. But at the end of the year I was (drained)."
Entering his junior year of high school, Colby was a sore-elbowed pitcher with
one home run in his career. Relocated to center, he hit 42 over the next two
seasons, moving past Bo Jackson and into second on the state's record book with
24 his senior season. To be certain Rasmus' power was pure and not a product of
Russell's sloping right field, scout Chuck Fick walked off the distance.
Fick's conclusion: First round.
The Cardinals picked him 28th, signed him for a $1 million bonus.
"When I saw him swing, the bat speed, the balance, the proper swing, the weight
transfer, the way the ball jumped off his bat," said Pop Warner, Rasmus' manager
at Class A Palm Beach. "Those guys kind of stand out above and beyond the guys
who are just your average players."
Encouraging words
Sometime near the end of his one-for-26 start to last season, several players
made a surprise visit to Rasmus' and Bryan Anderson's apartment. Anderson
recalls them sitting Rasmus down, telling him he'd play in the majors. They
preached patience. "It was something to listen to," Anderson said. It was
something that worked.
Rasmus rode a hitting comet out of Quad Cities and, after a hiccup to start at
Palm Beach, did well there, too. He led the Cardinals' minor leaguers in RBIs
with 85 last summer. At each level, he's lessened his strikeouts and upped his
walks. Looking to augment his wiry frame, he hit the weights and packed on 16
more pounds.
The Cardinals plan for him to leave spring training as the everyday center
fielder for Class AA Springfield. On his current track it's not unrealistic,
several scouts said, that he spend 2007 in Class AA, 2008 in Class AAA, and
arrive, with fine timing, in the majors by 2009.
Rasmus has good instincts on defense and enough gifts on offense that coaches
believe he'll grow into more home runs and mature into keeping his innately
charged swing under control. The move from Class A's raw talent to Class AA's
polished pitching is considered the biggest leap of the minors.
The Cardinals think Rasmus is ready.
dgoold@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8285
Here is the link to the cardinals article on the opening game.
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