The Twins and the agents for Yu Darvish, Lance Lynn, Alex Cobb, Wade Miley, Chris Tillman and Mike Napoli are “maintaining regular dialogue,” according to Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN (on Twitter). Minnesota’s interest in nearly all of those names was already known before Saturday, though this is the first reported connection between the team and Miley.
While the Twins are seeking a front-end starter to complement their only reliable options – Ervin Santana and Jose Berrios – chief baseball officer Derek Falvey revealed this week that they’re also pursuing “value adds” for their rotation. The 31-year-old Miley would qualify as the latter, considering the struggles the left-hander has endured lately.
As a member of the Orioles in 2017, Miley made 32 starts to reach the 30 mark for the fifth straight year, but he averaged fewer than five innings per appearance and finished with 157 1/3 frames – the lowest full-season total of his career. He also notched personal worsts in ERA (5.61), FIP (5.27) and walks per nine (5.32). As a result, the Orioles decided after the season to decline Miley’s $12MM option for 2018 in favor of a $500K buyout, thus sending him to the open market.
Despite his impressive track record of durability, run prevention hasn’t been a strong suit for Miley for the majority of his career, which began in 2011. At his best, Miley combined for an outstanding 3.44 ERA/3.57 FIP across 397 1/3 innings as a Diamondback from 2012-13. Since then, he has pitched to a 4.89 ERA/4.32 FIP over 718 1/3 frames in Arizona, Boston, Seattle and Baltimore.
Miley, to his credit, isn’t that far removed from serving as a competent innings eater with the Red Sox in 2015. And while last season was mostly disastrous, he did manage an 8.12 K/9 – the second-highest figure of his career – along with a quality groundball percentage (50.3). Maintaining those numbers and cutting walks closer to his career mark (3.13 BB/9) would help make Miley a useful back-end option for the Twins or another club in 2018. He’ll also need positive regression in the home run department after last year saw him record a 19.4 percent HR-to-fly ball rate (compared to a lifetime 12.5 percent).
Why is Wade Miley the headline lol? Probably the worst player of that group
Miley’s numbers are t there, but as an O’s fan who’s watched him carefully, and been frustrated by him, his stuff is actually quite compelling. Really good movement and deceptive arm action. If he gets with the right coach and environment, he could be a real asset. In other words, I totally get the Twins’ interest in him.
He makes you use your bullpen s lot in his starts. One of my favorite punching bags !
The inference I drew was that Miley’s name is the headline because his is the only new name amongst a list of otherwise already known and reported players of interest to the Twins.
Juiced ball has killed him. Needs a pitchers park and weak division. Too much RH power in AL East . Even then he is a 5th starter
I don’t think his 5.3 BB/9 last year were because of a juiced ball. He’s awful.
Because it’s an oddity. And unless he pitches a no-hitter, Miley probably won’t make any headlines again. Let ol’ Wade have his moment.
Dumb. They have plenty of depth, they need someone like Darvish who can push Santana and Berrios down in the rotation. They need an ace.
It would be very Twins to sign this dude and someone like Lackey/Vargas for peanuts and call it a day.
edit: reading is hard I guess as they are trying for him and Darvish.
If you read the article, it says the Twins are looking at BOTH top end and value starters. Signing one wont stop the other.
I don’t really think the twins have a ton of depth in their rotation. They look like a team who could add a Wade Miley or Jason Vargas for back of the rotation competition and insurance.
Three weeks until catchers and pitchers report.
There are no dominoes set up to fall. There are no big trades coming. Time to start discussing the pillow contracts.
Yep. MLB teams made 981 million dollars in profit last year, so I’m assuming they know how to avoid spending too much…still, though – a very sad off-season
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Miley is the kind of pitcher you can go to war with.
Miley is such a twins type pitcher
I don’t think wade Miley got much support from the o’s last year either.
His era was 5.61 last season. If anything he didn’t give his team support at all lol
please no
Forget Miley. Man, Nolasco would be a better choice.
Come on. Give us fans someone to cheer
Can’t you see what is happening? The LHC in Switzerland is colliding subatomic particles at previously unknown energy levels which threatens to disrupt the metastable state of the false vacuum in the Higgs field, thereby annihilating everything in its path at the speed of light.
So the fact we still exist is something “us fans” can cheer about.
If they are going to sign a pitcher with those type of numbers I’d much rather them bring Bartolo back.
Yeah. At least Colonis marketable.
promised Shohei, and Yu ,im guessing wade and garza
“run prevention hasnt been a strong suit of Miley”. i love that.
it’s a nice way of saying “he sucks at the only thing that matters when it comes to pitching”
While being honest why would you want to sign someone who knows he’s bad at his job ?