Keep an eye on the Springfield game tonight. If you want to see what our AA hitters can do against a borderline major league pitcher, Jason Marquis will be starting the game for San Antonio.
Springfield vs. Round Rock, 7:05pm – Shelby Miller
Springfield vs. San Antonio, 7:08pm – Scott Gorgen
Palm Beach vs. St. Lucie, 6:35pm – Anthony Ferrara
Quad Cities vs. Beloit, 7:00pm – Dail Villanueva

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Probably getting ahead of myself, but does anyone know when Carlos Martinez is scheduled to make his AA debut?
He’ll take Rosenthal’s place after Trevor gets promoted to AAA to take the place of a AAA starter heading to St. Louis.
Just kidding. However, I did read that he threw a 20-pitch bullpen yesterday and was scheduled to throw another one today in Springfield. Haven’t heard how that went. Should be within the next 7-10 days at the longest I would guess.
Miller’s struggles continue… Sigh.
looks like a mix of some bad umpiring and a surprising number of very high balls made for an eventful inning. he allowed only two hits (one of them the grand slam) but 4 walks. walks have not generally been a problem for him.
Looks like according to what? Did you get to watch the game on MILB.tv? I’ll watch it tomorrow I think at least Millers part. He’s not where he needs to be for sure. If this was the end of the year is Miller still the nuber 1 prospect?
according to gameday, there are a lot of borderline pitchers or clear strikes called balls.
not sure what your question is: if the season ended today, it would still only be 44 innings. so, no, it wouldn’t change my view of him much. if the season ends after 130-150 innings of performance like this, yes, you might see some adjustment in his status among a lot of prospect watchers.
as i’ve pointed out before, his walk rate is fine (8.5%) and his K rate is not down much from his half-season in springfield (22.9% v. 25.1%). his problems are the home run rate and the .369 BABIP. i don’t think either are likely to continue.
i wouldn’t mind seeing his K rate move in the other direction, though. i am a little concerned about word that his velocity is down, but i am not sure how much confirmation there is of this phenomenon.
Ok if you extrapolate this part of the year all the way to the end of the year. Meaning if everyone stays on the exact same tract for the rest of the year is Miller still number 1?
Most definitely not. If everything stays as is, then Taveras and Wong are probably 1 and 2. Carlos Martinez has a shot at being 2, probably 3. I’d put Rosenthal 4. Miller could be 5 or maybe even lower.
I don’t think miller is our #1 prospect anymore and not just because of his performance this year. I think we have over valued him a bit, I think he only turns into a # 2-3 starter at best, I think Jenkins and Martinez would rank ahead of him on my prospect list as of right now.
I tend to agree on Miller’s ceiling, FWIW. I’m just not sure his secondary stuff is that great. He’s struck out a lot at every level, but I’m still a little concerned that he remains over-reliant on the fastball. Right now I think he looks a fair bit like Lance Lynn, both in terms of overall stuff and approach (plus FB, which he goes to quite a lot in all counts, major league average-ish curve, and a so-so changeup). I think if someone told me 18 months ago that Lynn and Miller would end up on a similar trajectory within two years, I’d have thought they were crazy.
I guess he could still be Matt Cain if everything breaks right, but it took Cain about 5 years in the majors to reach true #1 starter status. I suppose we’ll see. The slight question marks over his velocity (this year) and maturity/approach over the last couple of seasons rankle a little as well.
I think Miller’s still probably our #1 prospect as I don’t think I’m quite as much of a Taveras believer as some on here (though I think both are arguably top 30 guys in baseball right now), but I think he’s lost a little lustre this year (despite an apparently unlucky BABIP/HR rate) and has maybe been overtaken by a handful of other pitchers in the overall rankings (for all of baseball).
That’s to take nothing away from Lynn, btw. I just think both he and Shelby are looking (at least at the moment) like long-term #3 guys in an MLB rotation. Of course Shelby probably has enough time on his side to improve that.