Mustangs Tab Dennis Rasmussen as Pitching Coach

Longtime MLB pitcher and veteran minor league baseball coach Dennis Rasmussen has been named the pitching coach for the Billings Mustangs for the 2023 season. Rasmussen is the first coach to join the staff after the hiring of manager Billy Horton on February 1.

Rasmussen, 63, comes to the Mustangs from the Frederick Keys of the MLB Draft League, where he coached during the 2022 season. That followed up a season as the pitching coach for the Bluefield Ridge Runners in the Appalachian League in 2021.

Those two stints followed a long period where Rasmussen stayed out of the spotlight, focusing on his family and limiting his coaching to Little League.

He began his coaching career in the Pioneer League in 1996 with the Butte Copper Kings before moving on to the Class-A Charleston RiverDogs in 1997, both of which were Tampa Bay Devil Rays affiliates. Rasmussen then took a job within the Boston Red Sox organization, coaching for the Short Season-A Lowell Spinners in 1998-99.

As a player, Rasmussen was a left-handed pitcher for 16 professional seasons, of which parts of 12 (1983-93, '95) were spent in Major League Baseball, pitching for the San Diego Padres (1983, 1988-91), New York Yankees (1984-87), Cincinnati Reds (1987-88), Chicago Cubs (1992), and Kansas City Royals (1992-93, '95). Over his career, Rasmussen primarily worked as a starter, going 91-77 with a 4.15 ERA over 256 games (235 starts), striking out 835 batters over 1460.2 innings. 

Rasmussen was originally selected 17th overall in the 1980 MLB Draft by the California Angels out of Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, where he struck out 79 batters in just 55.1 innings with a 3.09 ERA in 1980. He was inducted into the Creighton Athletics Hall of Fame in 1993.