Colby Rasmus Heads to Cowboy Country

Yesterday, the Astros continued to alter their outfield, this time by signing Colby Rasmus to a one-year contract. I’m sure glad I’m not overseeing the Astros depth chart, because it has seemingly changed every day. Rasmus suddenly becomes the team’s starting center fielder, with the collection of Jake Marisnick, Robbie Grossman and Alex Presley likely fighting for reserve roles. Let’s begin with the park factors to determine whether this impacts Rasmus’ fantasy value at all.

Team Basic 1B as L 2B as L 3B as L HR as L SO BB
Astros 100 100 100 106 106 103 101
Blue Jays 103 98 109 98 106 102 99

Minute Maid Park plays neutral for singles by left-handed batters, but that still represents a slightly more favorable environment than the Rogers Centre in Toronto. As a fly ball hitter with popup issues, Rasmus has typically posted BABIP marks below the league average, but with two seasons of majorly inflated marks, his career average has been propped up to sit at about the same as the league. Still, he could use any help he could get to record more singles.

Rogers Centre is the second best park in baseball for doubles by lefties. Meanwhile, Houston plays perfectly neutral. Though doubles are typically only counted in points leagues, they do still matter in an indirect way. Fewer total bases should hamper runs scored and batted in totals. Rasmus hasn’t been much of a doubles guy to begin with, so he seemingly doesn’t have much more room to decline, which I guess is good news. He might offset the harsher doubles environment with an extra triple or two.

Rogers Centre is a better park for total homers than Minute Maid, but that’s because of the park factor for righties. The two parks actually sport the same left-handed home run factor, meaning the move should have little effect on Rasmus’ home run output.

The strikeout and walk factors are close enough to ignore. Both parks inflate strikeouts, which is bad news for Rasmus who has seen his strikeout rate rise for three straight years, a mark that skyrocketed above 30% for the first time in 2014.

Overall, Minute Maid park is actually neutral in terms of overall run scoring, while Rogers Centre inflates offense by 6%. So the park switch appears to be a slight negative, but not enough to be too concerned about.

What is concerning is two-fold. First off, he moves to a significantly worse offense, which should reduce his runs scored and batted in potential. Second, he’s not very good against lefties. Luckily, the majority of the Astros’ myriad of center field options bat from the left side as well. Except one guy. And that’s Jake Marisnick.

Before the flurry of activity by general manager Jeff Lunhow, Marisnick appeared to to be the favorite for the starting left field job. But the team then went out and traded for Evan Gattis, pushing Marisnick to a reserve role before Dexter Fowler’s departure opened up center field. Obviously, that job was then filled by Rasmus, but perhaps there’s a platoon opportunity now. Marisnick is likely to get some time in left field with Gattis shifting to DH every so often, but when that doesn’t happen, like when a southpaw is on the mound, Rasmus might take a seat on the bench. Becoming a strict platoon player will take another bite out of Rasmus’ fantasy value.

It’s not a great situation for Rasmus fans, if any of you still exist.





Mike Podhorzer is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year. He produces player projections using his own forecasting system and is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. His projections helped him win the inaugural 2013 Tout Wars mixed draft league. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.

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mg
9 years ago

im hearing singleton in the minors, gattis at 1b, carter at dh, marisnick starting in left and rasmus in center. looks like he could be an everyday starter but there could be potential platoons in play.

Neil
9 years ago
Reply to  mg

Sington’s making $2M in the first year of what could be an 8 year contract. What reason could they possibly have to keep him in the minors?

Rotoholicmember
9 years ago
Reply to  Neil

Maybe they don’t think he’s as good as their other options and they want him to get full playing time. It doesn’t seem unreasonable that they would want Carter and Gattis to fill the 1B and DH spots. The OF is crowded with good defensive players so they may not be all that enamoured with sticking Gattis out there.

OT
9 years ago
Reply to  Neil

if he needs more time in the minors to develop? They’re paying him regardless, might as well do what’s actually best for the team