12:23pm: The Giants formally announced that Miller has been selected from Sacramento and Waites has been optioned there in his place.
12:21pm: The Giants are selecting the contract of veteran right-hander Shelby Miller from Triple-A Sacramento prior to Thursday’s game against the Rockies. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle tweeted earlier that Miller was in the clubhouse, and Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic now adds that Miller has been informed he’ll be active for today’s game (and not simply on the taxi squad). The Giants designated outfielder Lewis Brinson for assignment yesterday, so they already have an open spot on the 40-man. Slusser adds that righty Cole Waites looks to have been optioned to Sacramento to open a spot for Miller on the active roster.
San Francisco will be the seventh Major League team for Miller, once one of the game’s brightest young arms but now a journeyman who’s found himself closing games for the Giants’ top minor league affiliate in 2022. Still just 31 years old, Miller opened the year with the Yankees’ Triple-A club but opted out of that deal early in the season and signed with the Giants in June. He’s logged a combined 2.87 ERA between the two Triple-A clubs this season, punching out 31.2% of his opponents against a 9.5% walk rate. He’s also picked up a dozen saves (eight with the Giants organization) and five holds out of the bullpen this year.
A former first-round pick who was regarded as one of the sport’s premier pitching prospects, Miller debuted with the Cardinals as a 21-year-old in 2012 and spent the two subsequent seasons as a mainstay in the St. Louis rotation. The Cards parted with Miller in a trade that sent then-star outfielder Jason Heyward from Atlanta to St. Louis, and Miller made the All-Star team in his lone season as a Brave (despite an MLB-worst 17 losses, which were the result of a dismal team surrounding him).
Despite Miller’s sterling 3.02 ERA in his first season with the Braves, Atlanta couldn’t resist when the D-backs offered up Dansby Swanson, Ender Inciarte and then-top pitching prospect Aaron Blair in return for Miller — just six months after Swanson had been drafted with the No. 1 overall pick. It’s gone down as one of the most lopsided swaps in recent memory, as Swanson has blossomed from steady everyday shortstop into one of the NL’s top all-around players in 2022. Inciarte, meanwhile, had several seasons as a strong everyday center fielder in Atlanta.
Miller, meanwhile, struggled immediately with Arizona and wound up limping through a trio of injury-plagued seasons in Phoenix. He’s since pitched in the Majors with the Rangers (2019), Cubs (2021) and Pirates (2021), but Miller has just a 7.04 ERA in 195 2/3 frames since being traded by the Braves nearly seven years ago.
There’s little denying, however, that he’s been impressive in a bullpen role with the top affiliates for the Yankees and Giants in 2022. Whether that leads to an eventual early-30s renaissance for Miller remains to be seen, but this is the healthiest and most effective he’s been in years. And with his 32nd birthday not yet having taken place, there’s still plenty of time for the once-vaunted righty to be reborn as a quality big league reliever. Both Miller and the Giants surely hope that today’s promotion can be the first step toward just such an outcome. He’ll be a free agent at season’s end, and a strong couple weeks to close out the season could make him an interesting, low-cost target for clubs over the winter.
Don’t understand bringing in an aging veteran and not give that spot for future development.
I”m a Giants homer and I couldn’t agree more.
There are probably four bullpen spots the Giants need to fill in 2023, not a bad idea to see if their “fixing former first round picks late in their career” formula still works.
Miller is well beyond fixable
Well, Darkside, his MiL numbers suggest that isn’t true. I wouldn’t bet either way, time will tell, but there’s only one way to find out.
It’s been 7 years since any success. He is done and minor league numbers….really.
The PCL is notoriously hitter-friendly. There’s a reason the league has a median 5.42 ERA. Dry weather, some higher altitude ballparks, some of which tend to be smallish. So, yes, Mil numbers.
I don’t normally respond to single-minded trolls, but “nonsensical logic” made me laugh.
Giantshave had much success with reclamation projects. Pomerantz, Gausman, etc etc. And those projects have greatly helped Giants, and other organizations. And still the logically nonsensical criticisms. Even though I know you’re actually not a Padres fan TGSD19, I will ask this…if you had a player in the minors hitting .229 in 140 at bats with 4 hrs and 13 rbis would you think of bringing him up, similar to giants bringing up Miller. Is there any sensical logic to not only having that player in San Diego but also giving up a TON of personnel to acquire that.229, 4 homer , 13 rbi player? How nonsensical was that trade? That team is battling to make the wild card. As much as the Giants season has been a huge bust, Padres could be joining them not watching postseason from a dugout
If only you were fixable
If only you weren’t stupid……LOL
How can Waites prove himself when Zaidi shuttles him back to AAA. Same for Hjelle. And Miller will never be on Giants roster in 2023.
This move isn’t stopping any other player’s development. Development happens at every step through the minor league system. If guys look like they’re ready for promotion they usually are. Bringing young guys up too soon often sets their development back. Plus when to start a guy’s service clock is an important factor.
Zaidi just playing games with players. He knows this year’s Giants. Won’t get by with this next year now that Buster is here.
What exactly is Buster going to do?
Show me a championship caliber team that doesn’t have at least one veteran anchoring their bullpen. Now is the perfect time for the Giants to see if Miller can become that veteran. If he can pitch with similar results that he put up in AAA this year the Giants might have lucked into a bullpen leader capable of handling the 8th-9th. Cashman handles his veteran AAA arms the exact way you want and look at the results. He could be in their bullpen right now but Cashman wouldn’t give him a shot. He was dominant at Scranton and took a step back with the Giants but that was mainly due to issuing more walks. The Giants are doing exactly what a rebuilding team should be doing. If Shelby can ever move past the damage Freddi Gonzalez did to his arm he will be a solid pitcher again. He went from a St Louis team that was probably the best in baseball at keeping their pitchers healthy to one of the most notorious managers at telling pitchers to walk it off.
Had no idea this guy was still even in the league.
Zoinks!
Shelby getting another chance. Wow.
Best of luck to Shelby.
Every year the Braves still send him a fruit basket as a thank you.
Its crazy to see how Miller went from an exciting young arm to washed up journeyman so quickly
He is only 31? Wow. Either he is aging to slowly or I’m aging too quickly…
MeltingMetsLOL, Shelby was part of the biggest trade heist of the last 10 years.
Mets should give him 40 million like they did to their soiled Maxey Pad
Gotta love the ‘mute’ button
Lol
If only it worked right on the iPhone app.
Farhan checking into what he has got with Shelby, so if he pans out good, if he doesn’t he will have an article here in about 4-6 days or so about being DF’A.
Wow. Congrats to Miller for making it back.
I wonder what the SF coaching staff was able to do with Miller. The Yankees Scranton staff didn’t fix him.
He pitched much better for Scranton than he did for Sacramento (Giants AAA affiliate).
It’s spring training come early at the Giants.
Shelby Miller makes me sad as a cardinals fan.
One is he was drafted before trout, two he had so much promise, and three is we traded him for only one season of Heyward and never got a return like the braves got.
The one season of Heyward was pretty good. In fact, it was so good it inspired the Cubs to hand him a boat load of money. A fact we still get to take pleasure in today. You can cure your sadness by checking out Heyward’s stat lines/salary from the last couple of seasons. None of that would be possible without Shelby Miller.
On a related note, as a Cardinals fan I always wondered back in 2013 why the Cardinals withheld Miller from pitching in the NLCS and the World Series. He won 15 games that year, with a 3.06 ERA and a 1.206 WHIP. The Cards only allowed him to pitch in one inning in one game of the NLDS that year, where he allowed a run, but his WHIP was only 1.000.
Did he reach some innings pitched limit or some other line (arbitrary or otherwise) which kept him from pitching any more in the postseason? Inquiring minds want to know.
Matheny probably saw him drinking a White Claw or something and declared him too soft for postseason baseball.
White Claws didn’t exist back then.
Looks like their playoff rotation was Waino, Lynn, Kelly, and Wacha. Shelby was probably the designated long man out of the pen.
If Daniel Bard can have his best career year as a reliever at age 37 with a 1.95 ERA pitching half his games at Coors Field, there’s no reason Miller can’t become a successful reliever at age 31 in San Francisco’s pitcher’s park.
Not so much a pitcher’s park anymore.
It ranks 21st in runs this year and it’s tied with the Oakland Coliseum for last in home runs. Seems like it’s still a pitcher’s park, Pete.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor/_/sort/HRFactor
There’s more to what determines a park as hitter, or pitcher friendly than runs and HRs. Those two depend a lot on the players. Plus, you really need more than a single season, as it can be an outlier. A 3 year average is much better.
According to Statcast, Oracle ranks 14th in overall park factor with a neutral score of 100, over a 3 year average. So, maybe it’s not a hitter’s park, but it’s not a pitcher’s park either, and it is more hitter-friendly than 16 others.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/statcast-park-factors
I need to correct an error in my post. Oracle is not ranked 14th, and is not more hitter friendly that 16 other parks. Oracle is tied with 6 other parks for 12th, which is more hitter-friendly than 13 other parks. But it still stands that, since the changes, it’s not the pitcher’s park it used to be.
When did these changes in the park occur? If you look at the park factors from 2019-2021, Oracle Park ranks in the 24th tier. If you look at 2018-2020, it’s in the 25th tier. If you go to 2017-2019, it’s tied with Marlins Park in the 29th tier, last place.
Never mind. I found it:
‘Giants Make Changes to Oracle Park
‘December 13, 2019
‘The San Francisco Giants have moved the bullpens to behind the center-field wall and shortened outfield dimensions by as much as six feet. Still, Oracle Park will remain a pitchers’ park with a deep alley in right-center.’
???
Funny to see Jason Heyward in there. That one year in St. Louis Heyward had 6.9 BWAR (not a typo) which was his contract year and led to the enormous deal we still shake our heads at.
Why?
This guy hasn’t been good since 2015, so why waste the time and space?
soon he’ll still be 32
you can only be still for so long