Diamondbacks Receiving Lots Of Interest In Miller, Corbin

While Diamondbacks general manager Dave Stewart emphasizes that his organization has in no way given up on struggling righty Shelby Miller, he also tells Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic that he has received “a ton” of trade interest in the 25-year-old. Arizona isn’t shopping Miller, Piecoro writes, and the D-backs aren’t willing to part with him for pennies on the dollar just months after acquiring him in exchange for the sky-high price of Ender Inciarte, Dansby Swanson and Aaron Blair. Similarly, Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweets that many clubs have called expressing interest in left-hander Patrick Corbin, but the D-backs aren’t inclined to move him, either.

If the Diamondbacks do ultimately move Miller, the key player coming back in the package would have to be Major League ready, according to Stewart, who recognizes that it’d be “difficult” to find the value they’d hope to receive in light of Miller’s 2016 troubles. “We know what he is,” said Stewart. “We know what we have. We believe he is the guy that we traded for. I don’t know that we’re going to be better off trying to go out there and find a guy to do what we think he’s already capable of doing.” Piecoro reports that the Marlins have had talks with the D-backs about Miller, and right-handed pitching prospect Luis Castillo’s name was a part of those talks. However, the Class-A flamethrower was included in Friday morning’s Andrew Cashner trade, so the two sides would have to find another piece to replace him if talks were to be revisited.

At just 25 years of age and just a season removed from a 3.02 ERA with the Braves, it’s natural that Miller is drawing interest as a buy-low candidate. Selling low an asset whom they acquired when his stock was at an all-time high seems like an unlikely route for the D-backs, though. While detractors will point to the fact that Miller has looked entirely ordinary (or worse) after a superhuman run in April and May of last season (4.90 ERA dating back to June 1 of last year), Miller has long been a coveted arm and has had success in both St. Louis and Atlanta prior to his Arizona implosion.

A similar line of of thinking could be applied to Corbin. While they’re not in identical situations, Corbin has endured his own struggles this season. The 27-year-old looked like an emerging force in the Diamondbacks’ rotation in 2013 but missed the 2014 season and a portion of the 2015 campaign due to Tommy John surgery. Corbin was sharp in his return to the bigs last season but has allowed the most earned runs in the National League this year en route to a 5.31 ERA. With two years of control remaining beyond the 2016 season, it’s tough to see the D-backs moving Corbin with his value at its lowest point since his operation.

In other D-backs news, Sherman also reports that Daniel Hudson, whom the D-backs were reportedly on the brink of trading on Friday before the deal fell through, isn’t likely to simply be given away (Twitter link). The Diamondbacks still view Hudson, who carried a minuscule 1.55 ERA as recently as June 21 but has been torched since (23 earned runs on 28 hits in eight innings), as a talented reliever who has gone through a bad stretch. Hudson has been plagued by a .610 BABIP over that incredibly poor run, so there’s some element of poor luck in play. He’s also yielded a stunning 48 percent line-drive rate over that slump, though, suggesting that he’s offering opposing batters far too many pitches to square up.