{"id":680585,"date":"2026-04-21T21:13:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/680585\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T21:13:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:13:31","slug":"guardians-have-past-links-to-newly-available-6-67-million-1st-round-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/680585\/","title":{"rendered":"Guardians have past links to newly available $6.67 million 1st-round pick"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cleveland Guardians<\/a> are a bit of a pitching whisperer as an organization.<\/p>\n

When arms turn up in this system, they get better.<\/p>\n

That has raised the idea of Asa Lacy, who is now a free agent after the Kansas City Royals<\/a> released him earlier this week.<\/p>\n

“Curious to see if a team gambles on Lacy,” wrote MLB Draft writer Jeff Ellis on X<\/a>. “Back in 2017 I mocked him to the Guardians out of high school as he fit their type. They drafted him in the 37th rd knowing he wouldn’t sign. Could be a fun reclamation project.”<\/p>\n

He’d certainly fit the bill of a low-risk pitching signing that the Guardians could turn into something better.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Nathan Lukes is on fire since Blue Jays discovered his vertigo<\/a><\/p>\n

The odds do appear to be stacked against Lacy, though.<\/p>\n

The Royals drafted Asa Lacy with the No. 4 overall pick in the 2020 MLB Draft. He was a star from Texas A&M, a left-handed pitcher meant to become a front-line starter.<\/p>\n

He signed for a franchise-record $6.67 million signing bonus.<\/p>\n

In six professional seasons in Kansas City’s organization, he totaled 80 innings. He had a 7.09 ERA.<\/p>\n

He dealt with lat and shoulder problems in 2021, a couple seasons of back injuries, and needed two Tommy John surgeries.<\/p>\n

Lacy hasn’t pitched in a pro baseball game since August 2022.<\/p>\n

Could he get another chance? Maybe. And maybe it’ll be the Guardians who give it to him.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Guardians are a bit of a pitching whisperer as an organization. When arms turn up in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,135,51,2565,538,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-680585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-guardians","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cleveland","10":"tag-cleveland-guardians","11":"tag-clevelandguardians","12":"tag-guardians","13":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116444765246863551","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}