Former Nebraska standout Cody Asche looks for new home with Royals

Cody Asche brings major-league totals of 390 games and more than 1,300 plate appearances into Royals’ spring training.

But after he spent parts of four seasons with the Phillies and last year with the White Sox, a dose of reality also followed Asche to Surprise, Ariz.

“I’m really open-minded about this,” said Asche, who signed a minor-league contract with the Royals in December. “I had an experience that many go through, walking into the clubhouse as the new guy. You don’t know how a club feels about you, or really what the roster make-up is until you get there.”

In Asche, the Royals are getting a multi-position athlete. Third base has been his primary position —Asche spent three seasons there in his All-Big 12 career at Nebraska — but he’s also played outfield and first base at the major-league level, and some of those positions for the Royals are not locked down by incumbents.

Leaders have emerged for those spots — Cheslor Cuthbert at third, Hunter Dozier at first — and manager Ned Yost said this week that he wants to get 500 at-bats each to outfielders Jorge Soler and Jorge Bonifacio and Cuthbert.

So Asche will spend the spring trying to prove himself to a new club, again. In Philadelphia, the left-handed hitter finished with a .240 batting average with 70 doubles and 31 home runs in 371 games and was released after 2016.

“That was a bitter pill to swallow,” Asche said. “I loved being there.”

Nor did it work out in Chicago, where Asche made the team out of spring training, appeared in 19 games mostly as a designated hitter and had one of the worst stretches of his career, hitting .105 before finishing the season in Class AAA.

“When you go to an organization that didn’t draft you, doesn’t have an investment in you or is riding with you, all you have is yourself,” Asche said. “It kind of stunk to be given up on so soon. But I should have played better to get more opportunities. That’s what hurt the most.

“You have to develop supreme confidence in yourself so when things don’t go your way you believe in yourself no matter what.”

That’s the approach Asche brings to the Royals, a team that made sense when he became a free agent after last season. Asche makes his home in Lincoln, Neb., a three-hour drive from Kansas City, less than an hour from Class AAA Omaha’s Werner Park.

But it wasn’t proximity that won him over. As he was contemplating his future over the winter, Asche said he didn’t strongly consider the Royals until meeting with assistant general manager Scott Sharp and liking what he heard about the opportunity and the notion of rebuilding his value.

And he has identified a game to emulate. Asche has never met Ben Zobrist, the jack-of-many-trades who helped the Royals win the 2015 World Series and was the 2016 World Series MVP for the Cubs. But Asche can relate to the beginning of Zobrist’s path.

In his 12-year career, Zobrist has played every position except pitcher and catcher, and in his first three years, he was a part-time player for the Rays.

“He’s the player I really look up to as far as career trajectory,” Asche said. “It took him a while to find his comfort level in the big leagues and now he’s one of the most dynamic players in baseball.”

Put him at any position, Asche said. Bring him off the bench as a left-handed stick. The Royals list him as a designated hitter, and he’s open to all possibilities.

“That goes back to being open-minded,” Asche said. “And being confident everywhere.”

This story was originally published February 20, 2018 at 1:10 PM with the headline "Former Nebraska standout Cody Asche looks for new home with Royals."