3:53pm: Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times tweets that there are no new issues with Rasmus, adding that the outfielder may simply wish to spend more time with his family. Rasmus is married and has children and has previously gone on record to state that he likely wouldn’t play even into his mid-30s because of a strong desire to be with them.
2:53pm: Rays outfielder Colby Rasmus has been placed on the restricted list as he has decided to “step away from baseball,” per a club announcement. Rasmus is not expected to return to the organization this year; he had been under contract only for the 2017 season.
Details of the matter are not apparent, with the club stating that it wishes to “respect[] the privacy of Colby and his family.” He had been on the DL already with what was described as a sore hip but had been extremely productive when healthy. Through 129 plate appearances with Tampa Bay, Rasmus hit .281/.318/.579 with nine homers, seven doubles and a triple. Rasmus inked a one-year deal with the Rays this offseason that guaranteed him $5MM on the heels of an injury-plagued second season in an Astros uniform. He will not be compensated for time spent on the restricted list.
The goat
Hope everyone and everything is okay with his family.
He must be pretty hurt
I’m sure it’s a serious situation weather it’s a family member or even his mental health. I wish him nothing but the best.
Whether*
Settle down.
Amish Colby the best…I mean, I wish..I wish Colby the best.
lol
Probably family. But I wish him the best of luck
It is not probably family, at least not in that a family member is sick.
It is Colby being Colby, he doesn’t want to play baseball very much.
Rasmus has been a clubhouse nightmare since he got to the big leagues. I hope nothing is wrong with his family, but with his tude he may never play in the bigs again
He was well liked in Houston and was fine in the clubhouse.
Hmmm let me guess: Cardinals fan?
La Russa (the biggest nightmare of a human in recent MLB history) hated him into not liking baseball. Most toxic manager in history and a blight on Cardinals lore.
Tell us how you really feel about one of the great mangers and a player who underachieved and blamed others rather than himself. Didn’t care for him In St .Louis or in Toronto.
I liked him in Toronto but he was definitely a guy who didn’t seem to take it all that seriously. I’m pretty sure he got suspended at least a couple of times for showing up late. And he was part of a clubhouse problem according to the media
If you can’t play for a Hall of Fame manager because you trust your pops over a Hall of Fame Manager, you probably shouldn’t have a huge ego and maybe need to check yourself.
The problem was he thought he knew better and his never did much father controlled his life and had arguments about how Tony wanted to use him.
If you’re talented, you accept that other people are trying to improve you and get all out of you that they can. Everyone wants to win. Unless you think you’re bigger than the game, which is where Rasmus wanted to be. Talent never matched up with ego.
What? Larussa is one of the best managers of his generation.
He won in Chicago, then Oakland and then St. Louis. Maybe by toxic you mean outstanding.
Maybe he wouldn’t sign an autograph for you one day and you’re still holding a grudge?
True, a dishonest Creep, Made millions Protecting Mark McGurie during PED use, Knew about it and Defended it use.
Who didn’t have a roider?
One of the few times I will ever agree with you probably, but La Russa is awful. Can’t stand that guy or the way he went about things. I hated when he managed the all star games because you always knew he would pick his guys as the backups or replacement players over more qualified players.
Hahah what? The only people in baseball that played for TLR that didn’t like TLR where the lazy and entitled players he was stuck with
Colby Rasmus wasn’t known to be a club house thorn in Houston
He was actually the exact opposite during his time with the Astros so he has definitely changed since you’ve seen him last, which I am assuming was when he was on the Blue Jays which was almost 3 years ago. It’s time to wake up.
He was a big boost for the Rays when he was in the lineup. It was a small sample but losing a .896 OPS hitter who also was a pretty good defender in the OF hurts the overall depth.. Hope whatever the cause of this ends up being okay.
Didn’t he announce at the start of his tenure in Houston that he only wanted to play for a couple more seasons?
This means mallex smith will be up all year now. Cannot wait for this to see how he truly is
That means mallex smith will be up the rest of the year. Not as much power but still exciting in his own sense, glad we won’t have to see him going down again but man Colby was killing it with his favorite hitting coach again. It was clicking all over again. This hurts. And the guys in the clubhouse seemed to love him
didn’t he have an overbearing dad a la Todd Marinovich?
LaVar Ball
Maybe the Rays trade for Yasiel Puig? Thoughts
why do the dodgers trade that right fielder while contending
Colby is a close friend of mine. I don’t want to disclose too much but the furniture building and butter making business is far more lucrative than baseball ever has been for him. He’s stepping away from baseball to oversee the day to day operations on the farm. Please don’t tell too many people that I shared this info…
Furniture and butter pays better than a QO contract followed by a one year $5MM deal with incentives? Let me get my tools and churn.
Haha Amish joke I got you!
Trying way too hard
Melky Cabrera + Cash for ?
a PTBNL or cash considerations. Maybe a lottery pick.
As an Astros fan I’ll never forget what he brought to the team. In just the short time he was here he had become 1 of my all time favorites. He almost single handedly beat the WS Champs (KC) in ’15. It was a magical run he put on. Hope all is well with him and his family.
Wtf is wrong with you dude
Wtf is wrong with you dude!
I remember when he was playing for the cardinals. He went against everything that Tony LaRussa wanted as far as managing his club. Here’s LaRussa one of the greatest of all time and Rasmus simply wouldn’t take orders from him.
TLR isn’t exactly a pillar of level-headedness either, and he has been criticized by more than his fair share of people in the past.
The whole TLR/Rasmus situation reeked of misinformation and speculation. Rasmus can and should certainly take his share of the blame, as it is clear he had an issue taking orders…but TLR is a known hot-head who loses his cool when criticized and not bowed down to. Remember when the Pirates announcers said something and TLR stormed the broadcast booth? Nutter.
He may be a HoF Manager, but that certainly doesn’t make him a HoF Executive, or a HoF person. All mutually exclusive stuff.
LaRussa is a drunk
As a die hard cards fan, that is truth…DUI for passing out behind the wheel haha
As a Cardinal fan, Rasmus was a disappointing prospect. I wished him well when he was traded away — Hoping he would mature, listen to his coaches, and find the holes in his game. He did get a little better but never met his full potential. His personal life has seemed to be a difficult mix since the beginning. He has 8 years and some change in MLB service time. I hope he can stick it out until he gets his 10 years of service so he can get his MLB penchant. That’s money in the bank for the rest of his life. Even if he has managed his money well, it never hurts to cover his children’s life as well.
Teams didn’t line up for his services his last 2 trips into free agency. If he walked away from TB to take a break from the game for the rest of the season, he’ll prob have to rebuild his value in Japan or Korea if he wants another MLB contract in the future.
Ah good for him. People always complain about players “phoning it in for a paycheck” or some such nonsense, but this guy is walking away from a few million dollars and the possibility of millions more because he doesn’t value the game as much as he does his family. The constant injuries can’t have helped.
But look at it this way; he made 44 million dollars over 9 years to play baseball. (That’s exactly as much as Rickey Henderson made in 25 years, which is a travesty of epic proportions, but that’s salary inflation, I suppose.) I’m sure Rasmus is set for life financially, and he decided the other things in life were more important. So good for him.
Can’t someone work and take care of their family at the same time? He plays in MLB, he isn’t walking point in Mosul. He sounds like a big baby to me.
If you didn’t like your job and had the financial means to quit to do the stuff you actually liked, you’d do that, right? Plus, I’m assuming Rasmus would just like to get out before he suffers even more injuries. Most players don’t know when to quit; it sounds like he did.
Rays are in the hunt for the playoffs. Hope Colby Rasmus cares enough about his baseball family (his teammates) to come back and finish the year.
He wasn’t exactly a big part of their success. And he’s a big walking injury waiting to happen. I’m assuming the Rays can find another half-win backup outfielder somewhere.
Yes hit over 700 against the angles had a lot RBI he rip us up
Being a multimillionaire with the ability to retire and spend time with your family isn’t 100% crazy… it’s the 2nd American Dream! Right behind playing in the MLB-haha.Being 5 ft 6 and having a passion for the game I can’t understand giving up a second of the gift to physically play ball on that grass. But I would definitely quit all 6 of my crappy jobs if I could work outside, and spend all my time with family. Health and family first, but thinking the media won’t discover/reveal his private reasoning and speculate/spread hateful gossip until then is delusional. Praying for the Rasmus family and hoping he has just lost his competitive fire.
He’s had multiple injuries that have required surgery, mostly to his hips, oblique, groin, core. I suppose weighing the desire to walk without pain for the rest of his life, raise his kids without being physically limited, etc. is important to him.
And there’s another thing to consider; as most people know Rasmus’ father was heavily involved in his career, even serving as his de facto hitting coach during parts of his career. That sounds like one of those helicopter parents who pushed his kid from an early age to play baseball and pushed him hard. Like that NBA dad, LaVar Ball. It’s possible this was never the career path Colby Rasmus wanted for himself, and now he can get out and be financially secure and relatively healthy, with enough life ahead of him to do anything else he wants with his life.
In the ’80s the Padres had a guy named Kevin McReynolds, who had all the talent in the world. A similar guy to Rasmus actually – an athletic, fast center fielder with power. McReynolds was a right-handed hitter, though. He was gifted, but you could just tell by watching him on the field that he just really didn’t have much desire to be doing this for a living; he just happened to be good at baseball. The Padres traded him, in his prime, to the Mets, where he put together four solid seasons but had a reputation as aloof and a loner. He eventually walked away from the Royals mid-season when he was 34.