Pirates Select Shelby Miller
SEPTEMBER 1: The Pirates announced that Miller has officially been selected to the big league roster as part of September roster expansion.
AUGUST 31: Pittsburgh has added Miller to the taxi squad, manager Derek Shelton told reporters (including Mike Persak of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). He has not yet been added to the active or 40-man rosters.
AUGUST 30: The Pirates are planning to select Shelby Miller to the big league club, reports Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Twitter link). The Bucs already have a vacancy on the 40-man roster after releasing Gregory Polanco over the weekend.
It’ll be Miller’s second big league stint this year, as he made three appearances for the Cubs in April. The 30-year-old was rocked for seven runs in just two innings with Chicago before landing on the injured list with a lower back strain. Rather than bring him back to the active roster upon his return to health, the Cubs designated Miller for assignment and released him.
Miller latched on with Pittsburgh on a minor league deal in late June. Assigned to Triple-A Indianapolis, he has been excellent, albeit in limited work. While he’s allowed seven runs in fourteen innings, Miller has struck out 22 of the 56 batters he’s faced while issuing just three walks. The right-hander has also induced grounders on more than half the balls put in play against him and surrendered just one home run while racking up swinging strikes at a huge 16.8% clip.
That strong showing will earn the former All-Star another look down the stretch. Obviously, one shouldn’t expect a return to Miller’s peak form at this point in his career, but it’s not inconceivable he could reinvent himself as a quality bullpen arm.
Miller will be a free agent at the end of the season. There’s little long-term upside for the rebuilding Pirates, but there’s also no harm in giving him a look over the final few weeks of the year. At the very least, Miller can shoulder some innings in a bullpen that ranks in the top third of the league in innings pitched (495 2/3) but is among the bottom ten in ERA (4.59) and strikeout/walk rate differential (12 percentage points). If Miller proves able to carry over his strong Triple-A form to the big league level, the Pirates could consider pursuing a reunion this offseason.
Pirates Sign Shelby Miller To Minor League Contract
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.
Cardinals Sign Brandon Dickson
The Cardinals have signed right-hander Brandon Dickson to a minor league contract, as Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Twitter link) first reported. He’s been assigned to Triple-A Memphis.
Dickson, 36, is looking to return to the majors after nearly a decade away. He pitched 14 2/3 MLB innings for St. Louis between 2011-12 but joined the Orix Buffaloes of Nippon Professional Baseball before the 2013 season. Dickson spent the next eight years with the Buffaloes, pitching to a 3.32 ERA across 892 1/3 innings at Japan’s highest level. He began his NPB career as a starter but worked as a closer the past few seasons, suggesting he’s likely to serve as bullpen depth for St. Louis. Last season, Dickson worked to a 3.28 ERA with a 21.1% strikeout rate and a 10.5% walk percentage.
Dickson becomes the second arm the Cards have added in recent days, as St. Louis signed veteran lefty Wade LeBlanc to a big league deal yesterday. Nevertheless, the Cardinals front office is still hunting for pitching depth, Goold writes in a separate piece. St. Louis has been in contact with rival clubs about trading for starting pitching, he notes, and they’ve been active on the free agent market. Goold reported last week that St. Louis has been in contact with free agent Shelby Miller about a potential reunion, but he added today that Miller has received offers from several teams since being released by the Cubs last month.
The Cardinals rotation looks in need of an upgrade if the 35-34 club is going to make a run in the NL Central. Jack Flaherty and Miles Mikolas are down with injuries for extended periods of time, leaving St. Louis with a current starting staff of Adam Wainwright, Kwang-hyun Kim, Johan Oviedo, John Gant and Carlos Martínez. Oviedo and Martínez have struggled this season, while Gant’s elevated 15.8% walk rate raises some doubt about his ability to keep his ERA around its current 3.50 mark.
It’s still too early in the year for many teams to abandon hope of competing, but there are a couple arms who could offer passable innings at the back of the rotation and should be available right now. The Diamondbacks have no hope of contending this season and could consider moving Merrill Kelly, who’s controllable through 2022 via a $5.5MM club option. He only has a 5.40 ERA this year but his peripherals (21.4% strikeout rate, 7.1% walk rate, 4.26 SIERA) are closer to average. Pittsburgh figures to be willing to trade Tyler Anderson, who has a similar combination of poor ERA (4.89) but more adequate underlying numbers (21% strikeout rate, 6.5% walk percentage, 4.33 SIERA). The Rangers and Tigers would surely listen on Mike Foltynewicz and José Ureña, respectively, although it’s not clear either is an upgrade over Martínez or Oviedo with how poorly they’ve pitched this season.
Cardinals Have Been In Contact With Shelby Miller
The Cardinals have reached out to free agent Shelby Miller about a potential reunion, reports Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Twitter link). St. Louis is looking to add depth at Triple-A Memphis, per Goold. It’s not a foregone conclusion a deal will get done, though, as Goold adds the Cardinals believe at least other team is interested in the right-hander.
Miller began his career with the Cardinals as a first-round draft pick in 2009. He broke into the majors as a 21-year-old in 2012 and found quite a bit of success in St. Louis. Miller worked to a 3.33 ERA across 370 innings with the Cards, earning a third place finish in NL Rookie of the Year Award voting in 2013. The Cardinals traded him to Atlanta after the 2014 season.
Miller’s career has gone off track over the past few years, thanks to a combination of injuries and underperformance. He only managed an 8.59 ERA/6.27 SIERA in 44 innings with the 2019 Rangers. Miller opted out of the 2020 season before signing a minor league deal with the Cubs this past winter. Selected to the big league roster in April, he pitched two innings of relief for Chicago, allowing seven runs on as many hits with five walks. The Cubs designated Miller for assignment late last month and released him shortly after he cleared waivers.
In spite of those struggles, there’d be little downside for the Cardinals or any other club in adding Miller on a minor league deal. He could offer depth for either the rotation or the long relief group. Miller impressed over 10 1/3 frames with the Cubs Triple-A affiliate in Iowa earlier this season, allowing two earned runs with 15 strikeouts and six walks. He also averaged a decent 93.5 MPH on his four-seam fastball in his brief MLB time, suggesting his arm strength hasn’t disappeared despite his recent series of injuries.
Cubs Place Nico Hoerner On IL, Designate Shelby Miller
The Cubs have placed infielder/outfielder Nico Hoerner on the 10-day injured list, designated right-hander Shelby Miller for assignment and selected the contract of outfielder Rafael Ortega, Gordon Wittenmyer of NBC Sports Chicago was among those to report.
Hoerner suffered a left hamstring strain earlier this week, forcing the team to place him on the shelf for the second time this month. He missed time earlier with a left forearm strain, but a healthy version of Hoerner has been a standout this season. Even though the 24-year-old hasn’t homered in 84 plate appearances, he has made up for it with a .338/.405/.432 line and a paltry strikeout percentage of 14.3. Hoerner has also seen some time and both middle infield positions and all three outfield spots, though he has primarily lined up at the keystone. The Cubs figure to use a combination of Eric Sogard and David Bote at second while Hoerner’s out.
Miller, 30, is a former star hurler whose career fell off course in 2016 after a trade to Arizona, and he hasn’t been able to get back on track since then. Injuries have been part of the problem along the way, and Miller was on the IL with a back problem before the Cubs designated him. They signed Miller to a minor league contract last winter but have only gotten two disastrous innings of seven-run, seven-hit, five-walk ball from him.
Ortega, also 30, has past MLB experience with a handful of teams, though he has slumped to a .229/.287/.290 line in 447 plate appearances at the game’s top level. He has, however, hit a much more effective .294/.368/.447 with 39 home runs and 86 stolen bases across 2,232 trips to the plate in Triple-A.
Cubs Select Shelby Miller
The Cubs have selected right-hander Shelby Miller from their alternate training site in South Bend, per a team announcement. The Cubs also reinstated righty Jason Adam from the injured list and optioned righty Adbert Alzolay and lefty Brad Wieck to the alternate site. These moves come in addition to the reinstatement of Austin Romine and the DFA of Tony Wolters, which were announced earlier in the day.
A first-round pick in 2009, third-place Rookie of the Year finisher in 2013 and All-Star in 2015, Miller appeared to be on a trajectory to superstardom not long ago. He debuted in the Majors as a 21-year-old in 2012 and over the next four seasons tossed 575 1/3 innings of 3.22 ERA ball between the Cardinals and the Braves. The Cards sent him to Atlanta as part of the return for then-star outfielder Jason Heyward, and Atlanta flipped him a year later when the D-backs offered up shortstop Dansby Swanson just months after he’d been selected with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.
Miller’s career fell off a cliff almost immediately after the trade. The righty lost some velocity, lost his control of the strike zone and began giving up considerably more hard contact, leading to more home runs. He was eventually optioned to Triple-A by the D-backs, and the following season he underwent Tommy John surgery. Miller attempted a comeback with the Rangers in in 2019 but had even worse results than he did in Arizona. He’s since spent time with the Brewers organization but didn’t pitch for them in the Majors.
All told, Miller has pitched just 183 big league innings since the conclusion of that All-Star campaign in 2015. He’s been rocked for a 6.89 ERA and 5.21 FIP in that time. Miller did, however, put together a very nice spring showing with the Cubs. In 12 innings, he held opponents to just two earned runs on nine hits and six walks with 16 strikeouts.
There’s little harm for the Cubs in trying to catch lightning in a bottle with Miller, even if recent history provides little indicator that a turnaround is on the horizon. It’ll surprise many readers to learn that he’s still just 30 years old,, and we’ve seen unexpected resurgences at considerably later points in pitchers’ careers than this.
Cubs Re-Sign Cameron Maybin
MARCH 28: Maybin has signed a new minor league deal with the Cubs and will report to their alternate training site.
MARCH 27: The Cubs have released outfielder Cameron Maybin, the team announced. Three other players (Shelby Miller, Pedro Strop, Rafael Ortega) on minor league deals were assigned to the team’s minor league camp, as was right-hander Trevor Megill.
Maybin was first acquired by Chicago in a swap with the Tigers at last season’s trade deadline, and the veteran outfielder re-signed with the Cubs on a minors deal in February. Maybin’s 14th Major League campaign saw him hit .247/.307/.387 over 101 total plate appearances with Detroit and Chicago, and he also spent two weeks on the injured list due to a quad strain.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if Maybin signed a new deal with the Cubs and remained in the organization as depth, or if the release means that the two sides are truly parting ways if Maybin wants to find a clearer MLB opportunity elsewhere. Jake Marisnick will handle fourth outfielder duties in Chicago, and the Cubs also have a couple of utilitymen in Eric Sogard and Ildemaro Vargas who can play the corner outfield in a pinch. On the minor league front, the Cubs have Ortega, Michael Hermosillo, Ian Miller, and Nick Martini as outfield options with some big league experience.
NL Notes: Padres, Preller’s Winter, Cubs, Extension Talks, Shelby Miller
There was a point in the offseason when Padres’ GM A.J. Preller almost acquired Blake Snell, Yu Darvish, and Joe Musgrove on the same day, he said on Jon Heyman and Tony Gwynn Jr.’s Big Time Baseball podcast. Ultimately, it took a span of roughly three weeks to get all three arms dressed in brown, white, and gold. The deals took some finagling, as at one point, at least one of the players who ultimately went to Tampa Bay was slated for both the Snell and Darvish deals. Once the Snell deal went through, Preller and the Cubs had to renegotiate and swap in new names. Preller did not say which of the Rays’ new prospects was also coveted by the Cubs. But he did touch on their pursuit of one-time free agent and current Los Angeles Dodger Trevor Bauer. Preller and the Padres felt Bauer was going to take his time making a decision, and they didn’t want to be left holding the bag, so to speak, if he chose to go elsewhere. The Padres executed their trade plans instead, completing the most dramatic winters in recent memory. Despite the myriad additions, the Padres will have room for an in-season addition, should they feel the need, noted Preller. More on the Cubs…
- After months – years, even – of trade speculation around their star core, the Cubs see varying levels of uncertainty around the respective futures of Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, or Kris Bryant, writes Gordon Wittenmyer of NBC Sports Chicago. Bryant seems destined for free agency. Rizzo is confident that he’ll remain a Cub beyond 2021, and the Cubs’ affection for Rizzo has never wavered. He’s the likeliest of the trio to receive an extension. Baez wants an extension, but given the potential options in free agency next winter, the Cubs would be wise to wait unless the Wasserman client succumbs to team friendly terms. Our speculation need not end on April 1st, however. Unlike some other players seeking extensions – namely and most apropos, Francisco Lindor – Baez has no problem continuing extension talks into the season, notes Wittenmyer. It’s worth noting that Wasserman also represents Kyle Hendricks, with whom the Cubs worked out an extension late in March, 2019.
- Newfound command of his slider has helped Shelby Miller make a compelling case to make the Cubs’ roster, per Meghan Montemurro and Lamond Pope of the Chicago Tribune. Said Miller, “Opposing hitters have to respect a whole other pitch that they haven’t seen. I’ve just got to keep throwing it, and hopefully it gets better. And I’m just going to go out there and get outs. That’s all I can say really.” Miller is a long shot to make the rotation out of camp with Hendricks, Zach Davies, Jake Arrieta, Trevor Williams, Alec Mills, and Adbert Alzolay ahead of Miller in the pecking order. He’s in the mix for a bullpen spot, however. A lot may depend on whether Alzolay is granted another option season. If not, he’ll be on the roster in one form or another. Miller is a non-roster invitee who would need to be added to the 40-man roster to make the team. The Cubs have one open 40-man roster spot.
Cubs To Sign Shelby Miller
The Cubs have agreed to a deal with right-hander Shelby Miller, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reports (via Twitter). The non-guaranteed contract will pay Miller $875K if he makes Chicago’s big league roster, with another $600K available in bonus money. The signing will be official when Miller passes a physical.
Miller signed a minor league deal with the Brewers last winter but didn’t see any action, as he opted out of the 2020 season in August. Since the start of the 2017 season, Miller has tossed only 82 big league innings, thanks in large part to a Tommy John procedure that sidelined him for much of 2017 and 2018.
Still only 30 years old, Miller will be joining his sixth different organization in a pro career that has seen major highs and lows. Drafted 19th overall by the Cardinals in 2009, Miller posted very strong numbers over his first three MLB seasons — with St. Louis in 2013-14 and with Atlanta in 2015, after Miller was swapped to the Braves as part of a noteworthy trade that saw Jason Heyward go to the Cards. Unfortunately for Miller, he was part of another blockbuster trade a year later, going to the Diamondbacks and then never again regaining his early-career form.
There isn’t much risk for the Cubs in adding Miller as a reclamation project, as Miller could be one of a few veterans brought into camp on low-cost or non-guaranteed contracts as Chicago looks for veteran rotation depth. Beyond Kyle Hendricks and Zach Davies, the Cubs’ other rotation candidates don’t have much experience — projected third and fourth starters Adbert Alzolay and Alec Mills, and then a plethora of young arms competing for a look as the fifth starter.
Shelby Miller Opts Out Of 2020 Season
Righty Shelby Miller has opted out of the 2020 season, the Brewers announced. He had been working out at the team’s alternative training site.
Miller, once an exciting young MLB hurler, has fallen on hard times on the mound of late. He has thrown only 82 innings in the majors over the past three seasons due to a combination of injuries and ineffectiveness.
The Brewers had inked Miller to a minor-league pact in hopes of unlocking some of his former promise. Now, we’ll have to wait and see whether Miller elects to mount another comeback attempt next spring.
Miller joins a still-growing list of players who have opted out of the campaign.