Houston Astros: Team needs to re-sign Wade Miley as a top priority

The Houston Astros will be making a ton of moves to add the pitching rotation and one of the first should be re-signing Wade Miley. Why? Let’s dig in.

The Houston Astros are in the thick of the offseason and over these next few weeks, the team will have to add multiple players to their roster to keep the continuity, especially in their pitching rotation.

It was a high priority for the GM Meetings this week and will continue to be for the Winter Meetings in San Diego early next month. A lot of the team’s arms are no longer under contract and they must fill those roster spots to ensure that this team remains robust in that department.

Luckily, two of their best arms are still under contract and that’s Justin Verlander and Zack Greinke, two proven veterans that can carry the honorable burden of being an ace on this team. Verlander was terrific last season and it earned him his 2nd AL Cy Young Award of his career and Greinke; to which I was skeptical of how he’d perform in the postseason, won my heart over with the hellacious way he pitched Game 7 of the World Series.

But that’s just two guys and with Lance McCullers Jr. scheduled to jump on deck with the rotation next season after missing all of 2019 recovering from Tommy John surgery, there are more spots to fill with Gerrit Cole all but admonishing that he’ll no longer be a member of the Houston Astros.

But here’s the deal — the Houston Astros have a talented arm in their backyard and they should be clamoring to try to bring him back because of his skill set, he can chew up innings and can still strike guys out which is ultimately the goal, to try to get those outs to win baseball games.

Yes, I’m talking about Wade Miley, our lefty starter that was signed on a whim last season with hopes pinned that he’d have a solid season to help the Houston Astros get to the postseason.

That certainly happened and for most of 2019, Miley was terrific, minimizing the number of runs that he’d give up, racking more than a few punch-outs along the way. Then September rolled along and he totally fell off a cliff and his ERA for that month climbed to what the equivalent of an appetizer would be a Vic and Anthony’s Steakhouse.

It was obviously clear that his arm had gone dead and there was nothing he could do about it. He was awfully close to the 200-inning mark, one he had not hit in two seasons so it was definitely something he wasn’t used to.

His woes carried over into the ALDS and then the decision was made by AJ Hinch to leave him off the roster for the rest of the postseason.

But with 2020 on the horizon, his arm will be fresh, he’ll be re-energized and the Houston Astros better serve him with a contract that includes a notable pay bump. Miley made $4.5 million last season in a one-year deal and I’d expect that Miley would want a two-year deal minimum with a target that

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would be no less than at least a 25 percent pay bump, putting him around $5.63 million per season.

The Houston Astros need to get Tom O’Connell, his agent on the line and get this deal done as I’d like him back with the team and then you’d have a capable lefty on the staff and that’s one less guy you’d have to worry about bringing in.

I’m confident that the two sides can get a deal done.

Miley had the third-highest Adjusted ERA+ (116) of his career that saw him start 33 games, something he hasn’t done regularly since the earlier part of his career.

I think you get two more solid seasons out of the 32-year-old vet and I think the Houston Astros should sign him to a deal as such. I’ll be looking forward to seeing his iconic cutter while on the bump in the future.

Next. Astros: Zack Wheeler will morph into an All-Star if signed. dark

Let’s get it done Jeff — go Houston Astros!

Miley posted a 14-6 record, a 3.98 ERA while tossing 140 strikeouts to 74 earned runs along with a 1.35 WHIP in 2019.

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