CLEARWATER, Fla. - In late March of last year, Alec Asher got the news that he would start a third straight season at the double-A level. By mid-May, there was a call from the Major League Baseball Players Association telling the righthander, then 24, that he was about to be hit with an 80-game suspension for a failed drug test. A week later, while pitching for triple-A Lehigh Valley, he took a line drive off his leg that left him with a fractured shin.
So, of course, 2016 was the best season of Asher's career.
"Statistically, it was probably my best year," Asher said before a recent spring-training workout at the Carpenter Complex.