The Reincarnated Andrew Miller

In his three seasons of college ball with the University of North Carolina, Andrew Miller was a lights-out starter who gained national attention. He gradually improved through each season and posted a 2.93, 2.98, and a 2.48 ERA with a 8.9, 9.68, and a 9.71 K/9. His innings pitched also increased from 89 innings in his freshman year to 123 innings in his junior year. All signs pointed to Miller being the next big thing in the Majors so the Detroit Tigers drafted him sixth overall in the 2006 Amateur Draft.

However, Miller struggled in his time with Detroit. His mechanics began to go haywire, which caused his command to be erratic. He walked 49 batters in 74.1 innings in his first two seasons which gave him an atrocious 6.0 BB/9. The Tigers eventually moved on and traded Miller as part of the deal for Miguel Cabrera. His time with the Miami Marlins, then the Florida Marlins, was not any more impressive and he continued to struggle with his command. Miller’s innings pitched dropped over three seasons with the Marlins from 107.1 in his first season to 32.2.

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In an interview with the YES Network, Miller said about his time with the Marlins, “I struggled. I didn’t play very well— kind of went backwards, developed some bad habits.” His bad habits were problems that any baseball player experiences at some point in his career.

He fell into a habit of bad mechanics which involved a large leg kick and hitch with his arm on his delivery. A player with poor mechanics is a death sentence because it throws off every other part of his game. For a pitcher, in the case of Miller, it can affect your command by throwing off the timing of your release. His inability to recreate the same delivery or release points for his pitches are what contributed to his downfall as a starter.

The Red Sox eventually traded for him in the hopes that he could rebound and help their rotation. Instead they got the same Miller as the Tigers, and Marlins. He posted a 5.54 ERA in 65 innings in 2011 with them. Heading into 2012, Miller hurt his hamstring, which delayed him from starting his season on time. He returned from his injury in May and began working out of the bullpen. In his time in the bullpen, he began tinkering with his delivery under then-manager Bobby Valentine. He recommended Miller do what most relievers do and ditch the wind up, and only pitch from the stretch. This eliminates a lot of the complications of a delivery and returns a pitcher back to a short, fundamental delivery. By returning to basics and keeping it simple, Miller broke out of the bad mechanics he had been stuck in.

“It was like watching two different guys out there. One look was when he came out of the windup. The other was out of the stretch, where he looked terrific, crisp and nearly unhittable,” Valentine said.

From that point on Miller honed he was a reliever and not a starter. He began to show the premier stuff he always had but couldn’t find in the beginning. Valentine’s recommendation pointed to an obvious solution to a complicated situation. Miller’s next two seasons were adjustments to the bullpen but he gradually became better as he figured it out.

“In a sense, my attitude changed from trying to hit the corners and inducing this kind of contact to do this or that to kind of ‘I’m going to come at you as hard as I can as quick as I can.’ And whatever you had working that day, make it happen for you. You didn’t have to time to fiddle around and figure it out,” Miller told YES.

The rest is history. Now in 2015, the Yankees signed an elite left-handed reliever in Miller. It was all possible because of Bobby Valentine.

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