What the hell is going on with Rasmus?

[darthjon]

Is it just me, or does he look completely lost out there? He can't put the bat on the ball and he seems a bit slower in CF. Looks like he's hating playing ball right now.

 

Watching Rasmus and Sierra hit one after another last night was absolutely painful. Get runners on, both strike out. Get runners on, both strike out. Brutal.

[leaffie]

Is it just me, or does he look completely lost out there? He can't put the bat on the ball and he seems a bit slower in CF. Looks like he's hating playing ball right now.

 

Watching Rasmus and Sierra hit one after another last night was absolutely painful. Get runners on, both strike out. Get runners on, both strike out. Brutal.

 

I wondered the same thing. Certainly not showing up for his "contract year"

[KingKat]

Is it just me, or does he look completely lost out there? He can't put the bat on the ball and he seems a bit slower in CF. Looks like he's hating playing ball right now.

 

Watching Rasmus and Sierra hit one after another last night was absolutely painful. Get runners on, both strike out. Get runners on, both strike out. Brutal.

 

When Rasmus looks bad, he never just looks bad, he looks so terrible that you wonder how the guy could ever get a hit. If there's a reason for optimism with Rasmus, it's basically that we've seen him look like this before. Even when he had his best season last year, there were points where he looked this bad. If there's a reason for pesimism, it's that he's had seasons where he's looked bad pretty much the whole way through. At the very least, he's showing us the kind of risk you take on if you extend him. That being said I hope he at least bounces back enough to at least be worth a qualifying offer.

[TDotttt2005]

I think Rasmus is just streaky and a slow starter. He'll always strike out a lot, but if you look at his splits from last year

 

April - 238 .297 .440 .737

May - 263 .330 .463 .793

June - .224 .313 .459 .771

July - .371 .413 .588 1.001

 

Then his injuries hit. I am confident he'll come out of it soon.

[Anemic0ffense]

Streaky hitter is streaky. He's never hitting at this point. I fully expect him to have 20+ HR's at the end of the year and put up 4 WAR, but not sure I want the team to extend him. I think it's time to keep Gose up here, and see what he can do.

[Daniel Labude]

Rasmus is the next player to go....hopefully traded

[JaysFan4Ever]

Hopefully he puts it together and soon. It seems like when he's in a slump he's horrible. It scares me since Gose hasn't made any waves and if Rasmus continues to struggle odds are he won't be back and might have a low trade value especially since another team couldn't qualify him (thought at about $14M probably more, I doubt anyone would unless he gets hot). He seemed to have a fairly decent year last year. He's always seemed to strike out a lot. He's still young and has some power. Hopefully he breaks out of it.

 

I very well could be wrong but this seems like an organizational issue. Whether the players come via trade, FA signing (only a few have so far), brought up through the minors, etc. they seem to struggle and it seems the coaching staff is either incompetent, doesn't care or ignores it. He'll leave the Jays and watch him wind up better.

 

I'm a bit biased since I like him but he needs to break out of it. Hopefully he's like Buehrle last year, having a horrendous start and finishing decent. We're screwed if he doesn't put it together since we're out of a CF, Melky is a FA at years end, Gose doesn't seem like he's put it together too (again could be coaching/development since they had him change his approach a few years ago to try and hit for more power and his average dropped but he still strikes out a ton) and we know how the Jays are when it comes to filling holes.

[G-Snarls]

I said before the season that they should have tried to get max value (if anyone was willing to bite) for Rasmus based off last year, before he had a chance to ruin it ... and that extension talk was silly. They need to go with Gose, and use "saved" funds to address other issues, or find an alternative solution from outside of the organization.

 

Rasmus + Santos + a prospect would have netted you something really good this off season if you'd been willing to do it. Too late now. And we didn't know how good Melky was going to be.

[G-Snarls]

I wouldn't count on Melky being nearly this good going forward, and that wasn't relevant to the decision to move Rasmus out of the organization (especially since this team is years from contending).

 

Agree that Melky probably won't keep this pace up all year

 

But if you feel this team is several years away from contending, then keeping Rasmus makes no sense

[wilko]

I don't like how Rasmus keeps his hands so low when he's in the box. It looks like he's not giving himself enough time to get ready for pitches.

[darthjon]

The most concerning stat so far is the RISP. I can't find month-by-month stats for previous seasons, but the numbers so far this season are brutal: .056 BA with 2 RBI. Of his 4 homers, 3 have come with bases empty. Small sample aside, that would seem to indicate a mental issue with the pressure of driving in runs. Maybe they should stick him in the 9th spot to take the pressure off and see if he can start getting on base for Reyes and Melky.

[KingKat]

The most concerning stat so far is the RISP. I can't find month-by-month stats for previous seasons, but the numbers so far this season are brutal: .056 BA with 2 RBI. Of his 4 homers, 3 have come with bases empty. Small sample aside, that would seem to indicate a mental issue with the pressure of driving in runs. Maybe they should stick him in the 9th spot to take the pressure off and see if he can start getting on base for Reyes and Melky.

 

That .056 number is sure to regress (positive regression in this case). I would consider that a cause for optimism more than one for concern.

[G-Snarls]

The most concerning stat so far is the RISP. I can't find month-by-month stats for previous seasons, but the numbers so far this season are brutal: .056 BA with 2 RBI. Of his 4 homers, 3 have come with bases empty. Small sample aside, that would seem to indicate a mental issue with the pressure of driving in runs. Maybe they should stick him in the 9th spot to take the pressure off and see if he can start getting on base for Reyes and Melky.

 

This bothers me the least. Clutch hitting is probably not a real thing.

 

What bothers me most is his poor pitch recognition/swing selection and high strikeout rates. Anything with sink he just swings right over top of. Repeatedly.

[HERPDERP]

I said before the season that they should have tried to get max value (if anyone was willing to bite) for Rasmus based off last year, before he had a chance to ruin it ... and that extension talk was silly. They need to go with Gose, and use "saved" funds to address other issues, or find an alternative solution from outside of the organization.

 

By the same token, you could have said the same thing about other players who had ended seasons on a high note without sustained success, such as E5, Bautista, Delabar and Cecil.

[LunchBox]

Clutch hitting is probably not a real thing.

 

There's absolutely a common misconception in which people believe certain players are capable of radically outperforming their talent level in high leverage situations. However, everyone reacts to feeling pressure differently, falling somewhere on the spectrum between utter loss of focus and becoming "dialed in". I don't think it's crazy to believe these changes in mentality can impact performance.

 

Additionally, no one player reacts uniformly to pressure across various instances. For example, a hitter normally crippled by these situations may react better during a hot-streak or time of increased self-esteem due to recent non-baseball related events (banging a supermodel or something lol). Another factor could be how a hitter reacts to pressure relative to the current pitcher. For example, a hitter who thrives under pressure may face a pitcher who actually reacts better, thus varying the outcome expectancy.

 

I believe "clutchness" is definitely a factor, it's just not nearly as simple or impactful as it's made out to be.

[GD]

Imo it's pretty simple. Clutch situations are a thing, but not a consistently repeatable thing. Better hitters will do better in clutch situations.

[darthjon]

I'm sure it will even out over time but I was simply making the point that if a player is struggling and there is a considerable difference between his RISP and empty base stats, that could indicate a particular mental problem.

 

Maybe some of you stat junkies can find some examples of players with big gaps between their RISP and bases empty stats...

[John_Havok]

Yup.

[John_Havok]

There's absolutely a common misconception in which people believe certain players are capable of radically outperforming their talent level in high leverage situations. However, everyone reacts to feeling pressure differently, falling somewhere on the spectrum between utter loss of focus and becoming "dialed in". I don't think it's crazy to believe these changes in mentality can impact performance.

 

Additionally, no one player reacts uniformly to pressure across various instances. For example, a hitter normally crippled by these situations may react better during a hot-streak or time of increased self-esteem due to recent non-baseball related events (banging a supermodel or something lol). Another factor could be how a hitter reacts to pressure relative to the current pitcher. For example, a hitter who thrives under pressure may face a pitcher who actually reacts better, thus varying the outcome expectancy.

 

I believe "clutchness" is definitely a factor, it's just not nearly as simple or repeatable as it's made out to be.

 

Ftfy

[Orgfiller]

Imo it's pretty simple. Clutch situations are a thing, but not a consistently repeatable thing. Better hitters will do better in clutch situations.

 

The way I see it, clutchness isn't repeatable, but you can choke under pressure. It wouldn't make sense for you to adjust your mindset to hitting in a clutch situation because that would mean the rest of the time you're half-assing it, but to me it would seem like it's completely possible for certain players to get more anxious at the plate when hitting in key spots, leading to worse overall at bats.

[frizzer1]

Motolla seemed to help him last year..