In early December, the Milwaukee Brewers decided to ink a one-year deal with veteran pitcher Wade Miley. Last season, Miley made 23 starts for the Brewers, posting a 3.14 ERA and a 1.14 WHIP over 120.1 innings. Additionally, opponents batted .223 against him.
Miley missed some playing time due to injuries in 2023. However, he still made 20+ starts and threw 100+ innings last season. Nonetheless, Miley just turned 37 last November. Do the Brewers really make a great decision to bring back Wade Miley?
Firstly, looking at the Brewers pitching performances, there were 5 pitchers who tossed 100+ innings in 2023. Corbin Burnes, who won the 2021 NL Cy Young award, made 32 starts, posting a 3.39 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP over 193.2 innings. Meanwhile, Freddy Peralta threw a career-high 165.2 innings and owned a 3.86 ERA and a 1.12 WHIP. Moreover, Colin Rea and Adrian Houser each finished the 2023 season with an ERA over 4. Now, let’s look at Wade Miley, he had an ERA of 3.14, which was the lowest among those 5 pitchers. He doesn’t punch out many batters, but he knows how to pitch effectively.
In addition, besides the Brewers, Miley used to pitch for the D-backs, the Red Sox, the Mariners, the Orioles, the Astros, the Reds and the Cubs. As we can see, in the NL Central, there’s only one team that he hasn’t pitched for, and that team is the Cardinals. Over the last several seasons, Miley spent most of his career with teams in the NL Central. Hence, pitching against teams in the NL Central has been very common. Looking at his stats against NL Central opponents, he did pitch well against the Reds with an ERA below 3 over 78.2 innings. Furthermore, against 3 other opponents in the division, he has an ERA below 4. Nonetheless, against the Cardinals, his WHIP is over 1.50 and it seems that the Cardinals batters did hit well against him with a batting average over .290.
Finally, let’s look at Miley’s main pitch arsenal, his cutter. Miley began to use his cutter in 2017 and back then his cutter usage was below 15%. However, since 2018, Miley has relied on his cutter most of the time. His cutter usage has never dropped below to 40% over the last several seasons. In 2018, Miley’s first time playing for the Brewers, his cutter was so effective. Opponents only batted .196 against his cutter. It wasn’t a surprise because opponents couldn’t make solid contact against his cutter. Last season, Miley threw his cutter 44.3% of the time and opponents batted .232 against his cutter. So, it’s not so easy to hit well against Miley’s cutter.
When we look at the Brewers’ decision to bring back Miley, we shouldn’t be too surprised because he knows how to use his cutter to fool batters. He might not throw a lot of strikeouts, but he can avoid hard hits. Nonetheless, Miley missed games in 2023 due to injuries. As he just turned 37 last November, the most important thing is to see whether he can stay healthy during the whole season.
No comments:
Post a Comment