The Pirates have agreed to a minor league deal with right-hander Shelby Miller, Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports (Twitter link). Miller will be assigned to Triple-A after completing COVID-19 protocols.
Miller was designated for assignment and then released by the Cubs in May, as he was rocked for seven runs over two innings pitched for Chicago. These two rough innings represent the only MLB action for Miller in the last two seasons, as he opted out of the 2020 campaign. He was also a member of the Brewers organization in 2019-20, so Pittsburgh represents the fourth different NL Central team of Miller’s career.
Best known for his three-season heyday with the Cardinals and Braves from 2013-15, Miller has a 7.15 ERA in 185 innings since the start of the 2014 season, battling injuries (including a Tommy John surgery) and a lack of effectiveness. The Pirates will be the latest team to see if they can fix Miller, who is still only 30 years old.
The righty can provide the Bucs with some pitching depth, perhaps as a starter though Miller only had three abbreviated starts with Chicago’s Triple-A affiliate this season. At this point in Miller’s career, a turn to relief pitching might be advisable, though he didn’t fare well in relief duty with the Rangers in 2019.
Disappointed he didn’t come back to the Cardinals…maybe he sees more opportunity with the Pirates, and Ray Searage has a reputation for fixing pitchers. Good luck to Shelby, good dude.
Ray Searage has been gone since ‘19
Maybe Ray still has his tools and is fixing pitchers part time on weekends out of his garage.
he hasn’t fixed a pitcher in a long before his 2019 departure.. though. In fact he really hurt some of the young guys
Yeah. Shelby really should try to turn it around with the Cardinals. He was good there for 2 years and they are the team that developed him so it seems like they might have the best chance to get him back to form. If he doesn’t work out for the Cardinals then he should try the Braves. He had his best overall season with the Braves before they traded him for that landslide of players in what will go down as the worst trade in Arizona Diamondbacks history. The Braves got him to perform at his peak level before. Maybe they can do it again. If neither of those 2 teams work out then he should just retire. I feel like he is definitely going to fail with the Pirates. They are a terrible team and they have a history of turning good pitchers into bad pitchers when Shelby needs the opposite. If the Pirates can make Chris Archer, Joe Musgrove, Tyler Glasnow and Gerrit Cole all look worse than their actual ability, imagine how bad Shelby Miller will look there. I wonder if Miller had a shoddy job done for his Tommy John surgery or something. Almost all the athletes get Tommy John surgery done by Dr. James Andrews. He is clearly the best athletic surgeon in the world. For some reason Shelby Miller chose to go with a much lesser known surgeon who I have never even heard of. You have to wonder if his arm would be producing better results if he had used better and much more renowned surgeon to operate on it.
Brit-Pirates coaching turned around the careers for Volquez,Nova,Burnett,Happ,,and Liriano.Not so good with developing young pitchers several of whom blossomed using “magical” rosin with other clubs.
Archer was hurt pretty much the whole time.Musgrove was fine and has further developed with age and experience.
And they were with the previous regime so who knows what will happen now.
As to surgeons if his guy is a noted experienced surgeon is it necessary to go to the best and most famous one?
Sometimes it pays to check facts than to make blind statements.
Cards and Braves are bad also! You must be having a dream.
Maybe the Cards didn’t make him a descent offer ? Or any at all
Oops. Well then I guess it was just about opportunity…they definitely were in discussions at least according to Miller’s Twitter a couple weeks ago. Can the minor league offer differ from team to team? I always figured those were basically the same contracts all around.
Yes long gone
I’m a little surprised AA didn’t re-sign him. Alex seems to be on a pitcher-reclamation binge this season.
Personally, I am glad the Cardinals didn’t sign him. He would be just another bottom dweller to take a chance with, Skip the sentimentality, the Cardinals need immediate help and not gamble on a good player gone bad, REAL bad. Thank you Pittsburgh.
Hey what can Pirates say right now? They are obviously tanking again and back to their “lightening in the bottle” method they used in the early part of 2000s and 2010s. The system is bad and a guy like Miller will fit right in.
STL is trying to catch the Bucs
more than acceptable risk. his only job is to get not bad and provide depth. assuming its just a one year. if it does flow over to 2 years then tradebait.
Probably the worst trade ever, at least Ender Incarcion and Dansby Swanson for Shelby Miller, if you ever want to know why the DBACKS are so bad, year after year
Yeah cause no other teams make bad trades…
The Buccos will bring Shelby up 1st chance they get to start vs the Cards and the Cards will give Shelby back his confidence by striking out 12 times and getting just 3 hit and no BB .
Give up 1 non earned run over 6 innings pitched for a 0.48 era .
Cards love making avg pitchers look CY like .