There has been a long-running saga surrounding the St. Louis Cardinals’ top prospect, outfielder Colby Rasmus, at least since last spring training. The youngster played very well then, as did his left-handed hitting competitors on the roster, especially Skip Schumaker. The latter made the team instead of Rasmus.
Rasmus was apparently disillusioned because he believed he had done all that was asked of him to make the club, yet did not. This all comes from the talented player’s dad, Tony, who frequents the Scout.com message board. The outfielder went into a funk on the field, was injured and his 2008 season went down the drain before he knew it.
The elder Rasmus (and/or those close to him) have been stating in print for months that Colby will not make the Cardinals until September, 2009 and attributes that to manager Tony La Russa and the personnel currently on the roster. A not-so-subtle message board campaign to increase awareness of a wish that the top prospect would be traded so he could become the 2009 Rookie of the Year elsewhere has ensued.
La Russa granted an extensive interview at Baseball’s Winter Meetings, where he expressed admiration for the player’s abilities, while also noting that he has others also very capable of starting in the big league outfield. The theme was why the club is looking to trade outfielders to both address other needs and open spots up.
Here are several of the skipper’s comments. Head on over to Scout.com to read the rest of this extensive interview.
Whether Rasmus could shuttle between Memphis and St. Louis: “I mean, I would hope — this guy, because he has a chance to be a very special package, you would try to avoid that. You’d avoid disrupting a guy, either send him to AAA, send him to the big leagues and not do that to him if you can help it.”
Whether Rasmus could be a lead-off man: “I think he’s a unique, remarkable kind of talent from what I saw in spring training. I saw he had a good strike zone, and when he got the ball — he’s shown it. He got some home runs, he runs really well. I probably would prefer him at the top of the lineup.”
I never read this piece but boy is it right on.
Brian wrote, “long-running saga”
And boy has it been one.
Brian wrote, “A not-so-subtle message board campaign to increase awareness of a wish that the top prospect would be traded so he could become the 2009 Rookie of the Year elsewhere has ensued. ”
Not everyone has the Boras machine working ten different outlets to spread the info around that he needs to spread around. In that case the agent is the one who is hated for the BS, in our case I was the idiot blabber mouth little league dad blah blah blah . Sometimes we have to do what we have to do………….all the way back to a rumor about some marlin team gonna pick a player with the next pick if some team skipped over him
I’ve read that Walt saved the day on finding out that info and all kinds of other shots in the dark but it all comes down to little ol me telling a scout that little tidbit of info and watching it grow. Was it true? Probably not 
Fans only find out what an organization wants them to know. They aren’t gonna tell you, the fan, what is going on. The cardinals are hyper sensitive to bad PR so it behooves one to work the system if one feels like something is going badly. Colby needed to be on that 40 man or be traded but he couldn’t be the problem, that would turn fans on him. No, it had to be his crazy family, or better yet, a crazy controlling father or both
Then we feel sorry for the player because he has had to put up with this little league dad all his life, how terrible, POOR KID!! Even Bernie and Strauss were writing about it, when that happened, the battle was won. No way could the cards have a top prospect get turned into a bad person in the newspaper. Not when that prospect was the poster boy for the Luhnow regime. Mo has to diffuse and he makes a deal with TLR, Game Over!
TLR fought hard by the treatment that Colby endured but we knew he would based on how things transpired to make them happen. Colby was Tom Hanks in Castaway for all but the very end of last year. Like I’ve stated many times, people can be rough and tough and cause a person to have ulcers and all sorts of ailments, and hopefully the biggest ailment will sign somewhere else this offseason.
Didn’t mean to rattle your cage RC.
I’ve mentioned in a couple posts that I think Mo learned a thing or two and will be careful about the toys he gives Tony to play with this year. I’m 100% sure that in Mo’s mind the biggest strike against Bay as a ‘plan B’ guy is he once played center field. No one who could possibly be imagined as a platoon center field candidate will get within a mile of the dugout in 2010. I’m half expecting Schu (or Luddy if we get MH) to get dealt for an ideal #2 hitter. I think Brendan will have a chance to lead off whether Tony likes it or not. I’ve said I don’t think it will more of the same next year, I know you are convinced otherwise.
The rift between Tony/Dave and Mo/BD , with Albert’s now obvious loyalties and relationships, caused many dangerous currents RC. Throw in a submerged obstruction (Chris D.), and you have a real “drowning pool”…………………………. You ain’t seen nothing yet. Get out your life vests.
No worries WC, I had done my homework long prior to this past year and Colby did not encounter one thing that surprised me last year regarding things that happened when Colby entered the clubhouse. The goings on in that joint are well talked about by former players. He knew they were going to try and break him going in. we sat back and discussed it at length at the end and I was supremely proud of his year considering what he endured. And by the way, I’ve had my life vest on since 2008
Ahoy!!!!!!!! Are you swimming back to shore.:) Rick and Chris are gone so I’m guessing he will be asking for rest. He better start “pacing” that swing a bit. 300 is a good place to speculate on your power numbers The numbers still don’t favor him being in baseball in 5 years I wouldn’t think at 250-260.
If he hits .250-.260 this year it will be because he has listened to someone else who is trying to recreate the wheel, yet again. My guess is .280-.300 if he is left alone and bats behind Albert. If he is put in front of Albert and told to start hacking then he will struggle again this year.
I believe he batted in the neighborhood of .280 against RH pitching and mid .160′s against LH. If he gets regular AB’s against LH pitching that alone will up his average from the .250 mark.
At the time, I felt it necessary to alert those message board readers who were not astute enough to understand what was happening and why.
Looking back, I found it especially amusing the lengths to which the P-D went to avoid naming the location of the message board and website from where all this news was sourced, The Cardinal Nation, Scout.com. Instead, the paper used generic words like “an internet message board” and a “Cardinals-related website” because of course, it wasn’t theirs.
At the time, I asked one of the writers why we went unnamed. He blamed it on his editor. LOL.
Further evidence that many are playing games frequently from any number of different angles. It is not always easy for the reader to determine the proper filters to put on.
The Cards and the P-D used to be able to direct the course of public perception, and the leakage of info. Dealing with elements outside the chain of command is tricky. The BW’s and RC’s are a pain in the butt.
At that time I know the cardinals board had a lot of traffic because I was getting 5 or 6 profanity laced tirades a week from names I didn’t recognize. I had alot of fun reading them as they showed the passion that cardinals fans have in regards to their baseball team.
The benefit of the scout.com board was that Luhnow and Mo read it daily so there was a benefit to addressing issues through random message board posts. TLR’s coaches are internet guru’s and would relay every detail to him, which even drew a call from the commish as to what was this or that about. The agent starts getting phones calls about the posts from cardinals officials. All I wanted was for the kid to be told the truth, not the BS that he was being told. Mo took care of it, but not until after it became a big ordeal. You try to go through the proper channels but when those don’t work you gotta do what you gotta do.
Joe S from the PD and I have had many a conversation in regards to what went on and have laughed about it. He and Bernie took some shots at me, and I fired back at them via scout, which Bernie reads daily as well, with some fat jokes for Bernie and some short jokes for Strauss. The end result was all that was important as I’m immune to criticism because I care little what anyone outside of my family thinks. I was the one who had to go under the bus to make things happen………..so be it
Look at it this way Bling, Mo is looking out for the cards best interests. I am doing the same for CR. The relationship between them is better now because of the event that took place, that was the goal.
Well-known people have even been known to post anonymously on boards using multiple ids. And some have been outed trying to get too cute doing it, to the point of campaigning to get a coach fired. Things can get very interesting out here in cyberspace.
I hadn’t ever really thought about who might decide to look at this blog. I’ll have to be more polite. No horses heads or cement shoes for BB.
Who was it coined ‘plausable deniability’?
If Mo is out there, BB will post whatever you want for a pair of season tickets.
Sometimes you have to be the one to break trail in a snow storm. That job just doesn’t always fall on the father or the strongest………….but the one that knows the way. Its can be a hard road when you find that you’re all three. You made. Lets hope for better weather.
You made It………………………I have an aversion to proof reading……….as you all know.