Houston Astros Rumors: Three things Wade Miley brings to the rotation
By T.A. Mock
A new and improved cutter-curve combo
Miley, as previously mentioned, has had a lot of up and down to his career so far. He was a very solid starting pitcher for the Diamondbacks in 2012 and 2013. In fact, his lone All-Star appearance came in his rookie year in 2012.
After that, things began to go slightly downhill and he became a below average starting pitcher for his final two seasons in Arizona. The Diamondbacks tried to capitalize on what value Miley had left and the traded him to the Red Sox for the 2015 season. That didn’t work out to well for either side and he was shipped off to the Mariners for the 2016 season.
Miley lasted half a season in Seattle and was traded to Baltimore for a miserable 1+ seasons. After the worst year of his career, 2017, he hit the open market for the first time. Naturally, this did not go well for him and he signed a minor league deal with the Brewers organization.
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He began to reinvent himself with the Brewers and adapted his pitcher arsenal to be more effective. He took his cutter, a pitch he rarely threw and made that his primary, go-to pitch to great results. In doing so, he pretty much dropped his fastball and sinker which were much less effective pitches.
In addition, he relied on his changeup and curveball to supplement his newfound love of the cutter. This new combination saw Miley have his greatest season yet, albeit in a smaller sample size due to the minor league contract and a couple of injuries.
All in all, this regrouped arsenal allowed Miley to post career bests in ERA, WHIP, and ground ball percentage. Miley also only allowed three home runs in over 80 innings. Which is also a career low by a wide margin. Quite honestly, these stats with him being a lefty could result in him being ‘Keuchel-lite’ for the Houston Astros.
He also posted a career-low .269 batting average against last season which was backed up by a .283 wOBA which is well below league average. Both of those are thanks to a sub-.200 average and sub-.300 slugging percentage off of both his cutter and curveball.