GOING FOURTH
Royals make Lacy the highest-drafted A&M baseball player ever
Growing up somewhere between the Astros and Rangers geographically, Asa Lacy didn’t have a favorite team as a kid in College Station and then Kerrville.
The rangy lefthander did, however, have a preferred player: a Texan and fellow lefty who made his name on the West Coast.
“I had a lot of favorite players growing up, but the one guy who I loved to watch from middle school on, and usually on late because he was pitching out west, was Clayton Kershaw,” Lacy said of the Dodgers ace. “I loved just watching him pitch. He was my idol. He still is.”
Perhaps within a couple years Kershaw, who signed with Texas A&M out of high school but chose to turn pro, will enjoy watching Lacy pitch at the big league level — provided he’s not in the opposite dugout.
Lacy, owner of a 98 mph fastball and plenty of movement on his pitches, was selected fourth overall by the Kansas City Royals in the MLB draft Wednesday night, making him the highestdrafted Aggie in program annals. Fellow lefty Jeff Granger went No. 5 to the Royals in 1993.
Lacy, a graduate of Kerrville Tivy High, struck out 46 batters in 24 innings as a junior this year and was 3-0 with a 0.75 ERA before the Aggies’ promising season abruptly ended in mid
March because of the global pandemic.
“He could not have pitched any better and put himself in a better spot through four weeks of the season leading to the draft,” A&M coach Rob Childress said.
The draft is only five rounds this year because of the pandemic. Rounds two through five come Thursday.
A number of reputable prognosticators had Lacy (6-4, 215 pounds) going No. 3 overall to Miami, but the Marlins opted for Minnesota righthander Max Meyer, leaving the Royals with the option of Lacy, who some experts had said might even go No. 1 overall to Detroit.
“(He’s) one of the best lefthanded pitchers we’ve had in the SEC in the 18 years I’ve been there,” Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin said on MLB Network during the draft.
Lacy also is bound for a franchise that has enjoyed more recent success than Miami. The Royals won the second of their two World Series titles five years ago; the Marlins won their second of two World Series titles 17 years ago.
Tivy coach Chris Russ, a pitcher who helped lead A&M to the 1999 College World Series, began mentoring Lacy when the lefty was 8 years old. Russ, an A&M graduate student at the time following a career in the minor leagues, helped coach a College Station youth baseball program that Lacy participated in.
The Lacy family moved to Kerrville when Asa was in junior high, and he later played for Russ at Tivy. Russ watched a gangly, at-times clumsy hurler work hard to become one of the most intimidating pitchers in high school and then college.
“He really transformed himself,” Russ said.
Childress, whose strength and conditioning program helped Lacy add 30 pounds of lean muscle in his three years with the Aggies, said Lacy owns an extraordinary work ethic and is “motivated to be the best at his craft.”
The Royals love the transformation Russ spoke of, and the slot value of the No. 4 selection in this year’s draft is a little more than $6.6 million.
“He was the No. 1 pitcher in the draft, high school or college,” ESPN baseball analyst Kyle Peterson said. “I saw him two years ago trot out of the bullpen at Texas A&M, and we didn’t know his name. His first pitch was 96 (mph), and you knew his name from that point forward.”
Peterson added that Lacy should be on a “fast track” to the majors if the Royals are inclined to put him on it.
It’s been a solid six months for high-drafted Aggies in soccer, women’s basketball and now baseball.
Ally Watt went sixth overall to North Carolina of the National Women’s Soccer League, and Chennedy Carter went fourth overall to Atlanta of the WNBA. Watt, Carter and Lacy all were the earliest selected Aggies in history in their respective sports.
Another player of local interest was drafted when the Colorado Rockies selected The Woodlands catcher Drew Romo with the 35th overall pick, a compensatory choice.
Romo, an LSU commitment, is considered the country’s top defensive catcher at the high school level. As a junior, he caught 11 runners stealing and had three pickoffs.