From one of the most despised pitchers in team history, to the potential bullpen savior. Didn’t see that coming.
Before this season, the mere mention of the name “Shelby Miller” would likely be enough to start any D-backs fan frothing at the mouth. For he was involved in what is arguably the worst trade in franchise history (it was voted as such in a 2016 poll here), and Exhibit A in the case for “Dave Stewart is the suckiest GM ever”. The news on February 17 that he had signed for Arizona to a non-roster contract and an invite to spring training, was greeted with a mix of disbelief and derision. I wasn’t immune to the skepticism. When it came time to do our annual review of NRIs, I was able to write coherently about Scott McGough. But all I could muster regarding Miller was, “This paragraph intentionally left blank.”
Yet barely a couple of months later, the first game of May saw him closing out a save situation for the Diamondbacks in Citi Field. It extended his streak to 13.2 innings without giving up an earned run – hell, he hadn’t allowed a HIT until his tenth frame. While there have been players who have come back to the D-backs after time away, including the likes of Randy Johnson, Lyle Overbay and Andrew Chafin, none have seen such a startling difference between the manner of their departure, and their subsequent return. Let’s crank up the SnakePit Time Machine, in order to review the history of Miller and his remarkable fall and rise as a Diamondback.
The fall
December 9, 2015: Traded by the Atlanta Braves with Gabe Speier to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Aaron Blair, Ender Inciarte and Dansby Swanson.
Miller came off a season where he had an excellent 3.02 ERA for Atlanta, but still managed to lead the majors with seventeen losses. There were a number of teams interested in acquiring the pitcher, but it was Stewart who literally made the Braves an offer they couldn’t refuse. The immediate reaction at the time, was that this was a massive overpay, even if Miller was as good as his 2015 campaign. Our trade analysis article said, “The stark fact is that the D-backs are giving up almost complete control (17 years) of three players of undeniable potential, in exchange for three years of Shelby Miller and a guy who couldn’t crack John Sickels’ top 20 Braves prospects”.
However, you could see the goal of the trade, in that the Diamondbacks were in “win now” mode. They no longer wanted to hoard prospects, but instead, convert them into major-league ready pieces, which could help immediately. In what feels not dissimilar to recent Arizona teams, the 2015 D-backs outscored everyone in the NL bar the Rockies. But they had only league average pitching, which is why they finished the season 79-83. The trade for Miller was intended to address that, coming a day after the team had signed Zack Greinke to a then club record six-year, $206.5 million contract. Add Robbie Ray, Patrick Corbin and Archie Bradley and – again, echoes of 2025 – the team had a rotation to fear.
Well, on paper, anyway. Because the whole pitching staff fell apart, the D-backs having the highest ERA in the entire majors at 5.09, as they collapsed to a record ten games worse. It’s often forgotten now, but Miller was far from the only pitcher to struggle with Arizona that year. While he was certainly the worst affected, the problems were universal, to the point you wonder if there was potentially something larger at play. Of the five starters mentioned above, who combined for 128 starts, Greinke’s 102 was the best. We then had Ray (91), Bradley (89), Corbin (87) and Miller (73). All bar the rookie Bradley were significantly worse than the previous campaign.
But just as with Jordan Montgomery last year, one pitcher became the focus of attention, and it was Miller. Not just for the poor level of performance, but the way in which it was achieved. Few things illustrate how out of whack Miller was out of the gate, than that he had to leave just his third start for Arizona (above), after scraping the knuckle of his pitching hand on the ground with his follow-through. We weren’t even through the first month, and I was writing articles like The Strange Undoing of Shelby Miller. At that point, Miller had made four starts, failed to get past the second inning in half of them, owned an ERA of 8.59 and had walked more people than he had struck out, with 11 in only 15.2 innings.
By the end of May, I’d seen enough and wrote ”It’s time to pull the plug on Shelby Miller”. “Sorry,” said the team, “Best I can do is four weeks on the disabled list with a strained right finger.” He came back, notably unimproved, and the team was reported as shopping Shelby around to the rest of the majors not long after the All-Star break. Nobody was returning Dave Stewart’s calls. Miller finished the year 3-12 with a 6.15 ERA, despite throwing a complete-game shutout in his final appearance. Okay, it was a 5-inning rain-affected shutout, but we took what we could get. Maybe it showed Shelby had turned the corner, and he would be better next year?
Morgan Freeman voice: “He was not.” Miller threw only 38 innings combined with a 6.89 ERA the rest of his time here, around Tommy John surgery in May 2017. He became a free agent at the end of 2018, with a record for Arizona of 5-18. He made just twenty-eight starts, had a total value of -1.1. bWAR, and a 6.35 ERA. Making matters worse, while Blair didn’t amount to anything (-1.9 bWAR), Inciarte won three Gold Gloves and was a 2017 All-Star, while Swanson got MVP mention during his time with Atlanta. Speier, incidentally, was traded with Elvis Luciano to the Royals for Jon Jay. So I call that a zero. Doing the bWAR math, it cost 18.2 wins, about $145m in value. So, yeah: worst trade ever? It’s certainly a contender.
The wilderness years
“I’m really just trying to replicate what I did in the past, go back to what makes me successful. I’ve had people tell me to change ways back in the day, and the past couple years weren’t necessarily what made me good. And not that that’s their fault; this is my career. But just get back to what works and what makes me successful on the mound.”
— Shelby Miller, March 2021
Given that, it was no surprise that Miller didn’t find post-Arizona employment easy to come by. In 2019, he spent time with both the Rangers and Brewers, but was released by both teams. He opted out of the COVID-19 season in 2020, and transitioned from a starter to a full-time reliever in 2021. But initially, there was no more success to be found by Shelby there. He allowed seven runs in two innings for the Cubs, who let him go in May, and the numbers after signing with the Pirates were not great either (5.06). The following year saw him add two more teams to his resume, in the Yankees and Giants, but he only made four appearances in the majors.
He turned 32 that October, and seven years removed from his last significant success, it felt like the end was in sight. But a renaissance was in sight – as seems to happen with almost suspicious frequency, it came in Dodger Blue, where he added a splitter to his repertoire. While he missed two and a half months of 2023 with a herniated disk in his neck, he was highly effective when healthy. As with Arizona this season, he made an impact from the start for Los Angeles, pitching 14.2 innings before he allowed his first earned run. He ended the season with an ERA of 1.71 across 42 innings, and made it onto the Dodgers post-season roster, pitching two scoreless innings against the D-backs in Game 1 of the NLDS.
“I initially thought they signed me for my slider because I was throwing that so much in 2022. They liked that pitch, as well, but (McGuiness) was like, for the way I release the baseball, my arm slot, mechanically, the splitter makes sense. We tried it, got a grip we liked and the rest is history… It was nice to get back on track, right? Developed that splitter to help me level out lefties. Lefties used to slug a lot against me in the past. I developed it for lefties but I started using it against righties as well. That was really a fun pitch.”
— Shelby Miller, December 2023
As a result of his success, he was able to parlay the season into another one-year deal, but this time was guaranteed $3 million by the Tigers, twice his earnings with the Dodgers. He earned an additional $100,000 for reaching 50 appearances, but with a mediocre 4.54 ERA the team decided not to exercise its $4.35 million club option for this season, paying a $250,000 buyout instead. That send Miller onto the free-agent market again. Though he should be used to that by now. Because every year since the D-backs let him go at the end of 2018, has seen Miller without a team for Thanksgiving, getting signed instead at some point between early December and March 27.
The return
February 17, 2025: Signed as a Free Agent with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
As noted above, it was a shock to many fans when the team opted to make Miller a non-roster invitee. But Shelby proved a force to be reckoned with out of the D-backs bullpen in spring training. Small sample sizes be damned, he faced 25 batters and struck out 11, while not walking anyone. His velocity was a healthy 94.7 mph, better than the 93.5 mph averaged last year in Detroit. His chances were helped by the pre-season injuries to Kendall Graveman, Kevin Ginkel and (I guess) Jordan Montgomery, all of themlikely higher up the relief pecking order than Miller. Their absences opened the door, and Shelby was happy to walk through it.
“The D-backs were number one on my list, because this is home. It’s an incredibly strong team. Great offense, great pitching, signing [Corbin] Burnes and everybody. I’m just really excited to be here. I knew it would be a tough team to make with the arms that they have, but I have confidence in myself… You always want to come in with tons of confidence, saying you’re going to make the team and all that. Honestly that’s how I felt. I know I can pitch at a big league level.”
— Shelby Miller, March 2025
The results proved undeniable, with Miller pitching a no-hitter for the D-backs across his first nine innings for the team. He faced 30 batters, retiring 27 of them (the others drew two walks and reached on an error) before – oh, the irony! – Dansby Swanson, now a Cub, got the first hit off Miller in the 2025 season. That came in an extra-inning game at Wrigley and was the only run Shelby allowed, until that heart-stopping May 4th win in Philadelphia. He is already 3-0 on the season: that matches his entire tally of victories in the entire 2016 campaign with the D-backs, where he made twenty starts. Despite the blown save in Philadelphia, his ERA is still only 1.15, and even his FIP was a highly respectable 2.76.
Fangraphs had an interesting article looking at Miller, noting the increased velo mentioned above, and a change in his arsenal. “Miller has changed his breaking ball from a slider to a sweeper. The sweeper, in addition to spinning faster, moves horizontally instead of vertically; basically, Miller traded about six miles an hour for 11 inches of horizontal break. When Miller was throwing a hard slider with more up-and-down movement, he could throw it to batters on either side of the plate, and for strikes. This grander breaking ball is more of a chase pitch. Miller is working his secondaries low and out of the zone. And now that he’s throwing pitches outside the strike zone more, batters are obliging him by chasing.”
Initially, Torey Lovullo wasn’t confident enough to use Miller in crucial situations. 1.0 is an average leverage: Shelby’s first three appearances had leverages of 0.03, 0.31 and 0,22. But his good performance, combined with further injuries to those ahead of him (A.J. Puk and Justin Martinez) led to Miller’s promotion up the ladder. His last eight had an average leverage index of 2.51. He now owns three of the five highest leverage appearances this year by a D-backs reliever. Despite that first trio of outings, his season average of 1.76 is highest on the team (min. 5 games), and it feels like Shelby Miller would currently be the pitcher most likely to be chosen by Lovullo in a save situation.
That’s quite a sentence to find myself writing. If you’d gone back to 2018, and told younger, considerably more angry me I’d be saying that, I would have looked at you very oddly. But as they always say, You Can’t Predict Baseball, and here we are, with what is currently one of the coolest comeback stories in Diamondbacks history. We’ll see what happens with Miller going forward: some regression seems likely, but I’d be more than happy to take the FIP the rest of the year. If he keeps this level of performance up, who knows – Shelby might even still be employed come Thanksgiving 2025.
“It’s just been a whirlwind of years for sure. I think just having that perseverance. Not only doing it for myself but for the people around me. People who love me and my family. I still have a ton of love for the game. I still know I’m capable of pitching quality innings. I guess that’s the main point that kept me.”
— Shelby Miller, February 2025