he’s a 6th overall draft pick from 2006, who made the majors that year, though just as a token gesture. because of that gesture, he is now out of option years, and will be required to stay on florida’s 25 man roster for the entirety of this coming season, so if he isn’t good enough to stick out of spring training, he’ll need to be exposed to waivers to reenter the minor leagues, at which point, he’ll likely get claimed by another team.
i wasn’t really big on andrew miller at the time he was drafted, but his performance in 2007 made me a believer. he breezed through 3 levels of the minors that season, where he had hitters putting 6 out of every 10 balls in play on the ground. he was K’ing only 7 batters for every 9 IP during these three minor league stops, but that rate was rising as he went up the ladder, and he K’d 56 batters in 64 innings during his first extended major league run.
this is the statline for the entirety of his professional career:
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i know this isn’t really what we do here, but miller’s an interesting case, and i think this should create an interesting discussion.
have at it.
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1. Torn_cuff (Special Ability Extra) Posted: November 17, 2009 at 05:59 PM (#3389456)He can keep this up for the next 12-15 years and make (more) millions...
Or MAY-BEEE....someone can coach him. He gets helped by that park also...
Too lazy to go to reference...does he at least get left-handed hitters out?
Maybe you make him the sixth man in the bullpen, graduating to more innings as injuries forced/usefulness earned ensues?
EDIT: In fact, taking a close look at his record, it appears that he was not optioned in 2008; his minor league appearances appear to be on rehab assignment. In which case, he's used only two option years, 2007 and 2009.
SECOND EDIT: In fact, taking an even closer look at his record, that "token gesture" of a callup in 2006 actually saved him an option year, because he was signed to a major league contract after being drafted, was optioned to Lakeland on Aug. 8 and then recalled to Detroit on Aug. 27. Options of less than 20 days are wiped off the books, per the Basic Agreement. So he used no option in 2006 and AFAICT none in 2008.
1. P Tim Lincecum
2. 3B Evan Longoria
3. P Clayton Kershaw
4. P Max Scherzer
5. P Andrew Miller
6. OF Travis Snider
7. P Brandon Morrow
8. P Kyle Drabek
9. P Ian Kennedy
10.P Luke Hochevar
11.P Daniel Bard
12.OF Drew Stubbs
Am I way off? Those are the guys with MLB experience or pretty close. Honestly, I can't tell you what happened to guys like Jason Place, Adam Ottavino or Colton Willems.
Joba would probably go before Kennedy.
As for Miller, I think he sucks and never becomes more than a reliever who occasionally has a good year.
EDIT: Basically...you've got a guy who doesn't throw that hard and has no idea where the ball is going. What is there to like? He's never dominated in the pros, never dominated in college, yet people keep betting on him. Throwing lefty really helps build an MLB career...
I've now overpayed for him in 2 roto seasons, and now I feel I'm stuck with him -- as he will no doubt fulfill his potential the moment I set him free.
I didn't really get why Miller was a consensus overall #1 at the time of the draft. I wasn't that impressed by him and thought he wasn't much better, if at all better than Lincecum, Morrow, Hochevar or Lincoln. Coupled with his salary demands I was pretty glad the Royals passed on him.
Course, I thought Lincoln was the best of the bunch, followed by Hochevar and Lincecum.
The Rockies took Greg Reynolds with the second overall pick, which I ridiculed at the time. It was a signability pick, I think, but a ridiculous one. What's the point of having the second pick overall if you're going to pick a guy like Reynolds? There was a strong chance from the start that he would never make the majors. Now I think he's hurt. Even if he hadn't got hurt, he still might never have made it, and the thing is, it's not one of those times why you're shocked that a high pick doesn't pan out -- nobody thought Reynolds was going to be any good.
Lincecum and Longoria are clearly 1 and 2, in whatever order you like; everybody else is still wait-and-see, I think. Kershaw's a strong bet to be the third-best talent out of that draft.
That Cabrera deal is looking better and better...
The first month was rough but he seemed to figure something out and pitched quite well from May-June of '09. I caught a start on TV and the difference was noticeable. He was stepping more towards home plate and coming more over the top. He really threw well in the game I saw - pounding low strikes with movement and sitting in the low-mid 90's.
But then it all fell apart again in July. He lost command, was quickly demoted and struggled with an ankle injury before a rocky September callup. I don't know what he'll do from here but if he can recapture that good stuff from early '09 and keep it going I guess he at least has a chance.
Sometimes Miller throws hard, sometimes he doesn't.
Boy, you've got us pegged. :-)
12.OF Drew Stubbs
Stubbs looks like a disaster. His ZiPS projection is 235/305/348 (73 OPS+) -- he was in the majors only because the Reds used to think Taveras (projected to a 67) was an ML CF. He's a guy who K's a lot without generating a lot of power (though he smacked the snot out of the ball in his brief ML stint). Dan does give him a VG on defense (as is Taveras). On the one hand, Stubbs will be only 25; on the other hand, Stubbs is going to be 25 already. Unless he's one of those guys for whom minor-league numbers end up being meaningless, he's a bust ... well, a 5th OF maybe.
If he figures out his control, he could still be really good, if not, he won't. I don't know if there's any way to predict which tall, hard-throwing lefties are going to figure out how to throw strikes, and which ones aren't.
But Miller now isn't the same guy he was coming out of college. He was reaching back for 97 98 when he needed it and sitting 90-95 with sink. In retrospect his ceiling was something like what Sabathia has become almost to a tee....big breaking low/mid-80s slider thing, stiff changeup 86-88 and a power fastball. Lost some of the FB, lost some command and that's all it takes.
Everyone loved Lincecum's stuff but no one saw him developing the command or the changeup he actually has. His BB-rates in college sucked and he had that wild delivery---forget the injury stuff, throwing everything in your body into a pitch typically is not conducive to pinpoint command. Turns out his change is his best pitch and he's figured out how to make all those moving parts come together. Obviously Reynolds was dumb, but I can easily understand how teams had Miller or Kershaw at least rated higher.
Actually in college, and when he was first called up, I thought he slider was far better than his fastball.
I thought it was pretty loopy and he needed to tighten it up, but in any case it wasn't anywhere close in style or quality to Randy's monster.
Sure, but that is like saying (insert good crafty LHP starter) isn't Tom Glavine. It isn't his fault people make silly comparisons.
Miller's problem, to me, is that he seems to have fallen apart. The handful of times I saw him as a Marlin his stuff was weaker and he was just plain messy on the mound. Even in college his stuff would vary. Part of that was in a positive way, he could slow his FB down to the low-90s get nasty movement on it and drill guys on the hands, but he'd also have bizarre WTF outings.
Seems like a typical lefty story to me: good enough stuff (FB at ~92 MPH is pretty hard for a lefty) but no idea where it's going (5 BB/9 in the majors).
If he figures out his control, he could still be really good, if not, he won't. I don't know if there's any way to predict which tall, hard-throwing lefties are going to figure out how to throw strikes, and which ones aren't.
Yeah. Pretty much. The frame probably can't help him keep things together mechanically.
That being said, while we're talking about silly Big Unit comparisons, RJ took awhile to figure out how to pitch consistantly.
So Miller's cup of coffee in 2006 means that he can't be optioned in 2010 unless no one claims him.
Stubbs, at the very least, is an elite defensive CFer with a serviceable bat (he was widely considered the best defensive OFer in the minor leagues and put up impressive UZR numbers in his brief MLB appearance). If you believe he still has untapped power, he could be very good.
Isn't Stubbs' whole deal that he purposefully retooled his swing to trade power for contact? So it's not so much that he's got untapped power, but rather...de-emphasized power? Which is a better thing? I guess it's probably better to know that he could at least do it at some point, rather than a guy like Jordan Danks, where you're reduced to saying "He has to eventually hit for power--just look at the guy!" Though looking at their numbers at Texas, it doesn't look like Stubbs ever hit for appreciably more power than Danks, so maybe I'm making this whole thing up.
Yes, but they anticipated that his power would re-emerge as he got used to the approach (as of last year's BA scouting report). The fact that he 8 in 180 MLB at bats at least shows that he has the ability, whether he can consistently show that kind of power is yet to be seen. Here's a list of the distances (per hit tracker):
410
410
402
383
417
393
369
363
I just think it's too early to write him off, especially given his defensive abilities.
And, oddly enough, for all the letters in his screen name.
I'm mostly confused by his semicolon. And I'm not one of those anti-semicolon bigots, either. I use them overmuch, or so I've been told. I just don't understand that one.
Again, he's rated as VG, same as Taveras. He's projected to a 73 OPS+ vs. Taveras at 67. A 73 OPS+ is not a "serviceable bat" unless you're a C or a SS. And yes, he hit 8 HR in 180 AB ... which led him to a 99 OPS+ in what was probably the best 45 game stretch of his career.
Look, if you don't believe the projection you don't believe the projection -- that's fine, there are plenty of projections I don't believe. Just don't expect anybody else to believe that Stubbs is currently an ML-quality player or anywhere close to it.
Since Miller has not been an immediate success in the majors I'm wondering why the Tigers and Marlins have kept him in the majors almost twice as much as the minors. Why not let him learn his craft at AA or AAA ball?
The projection doesn't tell us much about his future. He's a prospect and as such will see a pretty mediocre ZIPs projection (unless you think that Alvarez is an 88 OPS+ hitter going forward).
As for the defense, I suspect that Dan applied some regression since he only has a 42 game stretch of data to work from. In those games, his defense was 7.6 runs above the average CFer. He was 1.5 wins above replacement in his short time in the majors. It's absurd to make the accusation that he's not an ML-quality player.
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