Colby Rasmus is on fire in the month of June, but the question remains: will Colby draw a walk this month?
Let's put the odds that Colby takes a walk in the month of June at 4:1, to throw a random, arbitrary number out there. If he can make it the whole month without walking and still have a June OPS over 1.000, I'll devote an entire post to how freakin' cool Colby Rasmus is. Raz, the ball's in your court.
We all know that Colby is "the slow starter"; ever since his rise to blue-chip prospect status, we've started each season looking for the Raz to set the world on fire, only to see him slowly crawl along the first month or so with pedestrian stats. Last year in Memphis, it seemed like he was never able to truly get in his comfort zone, and, for a streaky hitter like Colby, not finding your comfort zone means lots of 0-4 nights.
Nothing's changed this year, as Colby started his first season in the majors a tad below expectations, if our expectations were what he's truly capable of producing: .254/.357/.305 in April and .212/.250/.447 in May. This month, halfway through, Colby has finally turned on the gas and hasn't looked back, batting .396/.396/.708 in 48 at-bats, including a 31% line drive ratio. In comparison, Albert Pujols, who has been on his own recent tear of hitting, is batting .273/.379/.745 in 55 June at-bats.
To put up those kind of numbers without taking a walk is near insane. Then again, why would you walk when the ball is magnetically attracted to your bat?
I don't think it's been communicated enough how big of a boost Colby's hot streak has been to the offense. Fangraphs has Colby's true value worth $9.7 million so far this year, compared to the several hundred thousand he's making as a rookie. If Colby can learn to start taking more walks while still making the solid contact he's been capable of this month, that dollar amount will rise even more. That's called running your way to a big payday.
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