At 9-16, the Sacramento-bound Athletics are more competitive than expected early this season. Of course, 9-16 is not good, but the A's did not win their ninth game until May 12 last year, which improved them to 9-31. They even took a series from the defending World Series champion Texas Rangers on the road earlier this month.
Starters Paul Blackburn and JP Sears have combined for a 2.65 ERA in their 10 starts, and after a wretched start (2 for 20 with 12 strikeouts!), Brent Rooker has slugged five home runs in his last nine games. The star of the show, however, is rookie closer Mason Miller. Miller is 5 for 5 in save chances and he's struck out 20 batters in 10 innings.
Monday afternoon at Yankee Stadium, the 25-year-old Miller struck out Anthony Volpe, Juan Soto, and Aaron Judge on 14 pitches to close out a 2-0 win. He was overwhelming.
"The kid has embraced this role from day one," A's manager Mark Kotsay said after Monday's game (via MLB.com). "He's got the stuff to be a back-end guy, and he's starting to prove it. There's a lot of confidence when he takes that mound. It's a good sign for a young pitcher to come into Yankee Stadium for his first save and go 1-2-3."
To be clear, Miller is not an out-of-nowhere success story. Our R.J. Anderson ranked him the game's 49th best prospect coming into 2024. Here's the write-up:
Some players are impossible to rank. This is likely too high for Miller, who has appeared in 26 games since being drafted in 2021. (He even missed a chunk of last season because of elbow issues.) Too high, that is, unless he does find a way to stay healthier. How often does that happen in cases like these? Not that often, we reckon. Should it come to pass here, Miller has the kind of stuff that will make him a high-quality performer (if only on a rate basis). Miller's arsenal includes an upper-90s rising fastball and a slider so fearsome that it generated 47% whiffs at the big-league level. He's already demonstrated that he can pitch and pitch well. We can only hope that his body holds up.
Four weeks into the season, chances are you're already dreaming of your favorite team getting Miller at the trade deadline. That's how it is with flamethrowing relievers on bad teams. You can't help but wonder when he'll become a flamethrowing reliever on a good team. Maybe it happens at the deadline, maybe it happens in four years in Las Vegas. We'll see.
Better than expected start aside, the A's still aren't very good, but you don't want to be behind on the scoreboard when the ninth inning rolls around. The case can be made they have the best closer in the sport. Here now is what you need to know about Miller, baseball's newest bullpen dominator.
1. He is MLB's hardest thrower
Miller's fastball has averaged -- averaged -- 100.7 mph in the early going this year, a full mile an hour better than the next hardest thrower (Milwaukee Brewers righty Abner Uribe at 99.7 mph). Here are the fastest pitches of 2024:
- Mason Miller: 103.7 mph
- Mason Miller: 103.3 mph
- Mason Miller: 103.3 mph
- Mason Miller: 102.9 mph
- Mason Miller: 102.9 mph
- Mason Miller: 102.6 mph
- Mason Miller: 102.5 mph
- Mason Miller: 102.5 mph
- Mason Miller: 102.4 mph
- Ryan Helsley: 102.4 mph
Miller has thrown 15 of the 18 fastest pitches in baseball this year and he's thrown 72 of the league's 297 100 mph pitches, or 24%. Michael Kopech is a distant second with 42 100 mph pitches. Stuff+, which grades pitches based on velocity and movement and things like that, says Miller's fastball is 42% better than average, one of the highest marks in the game.
Hitters have missed with an incredible 46.2% of their swings against Miller's fastball. That's the highest fastball whiff rate in baseball -- Rays reliever Shawn Armstrong comes in next at 42.1% -- and more than double the 21.8% league average for heaters. In this era of enormous velocity, Miller reigns supreme.
2. He's more than a big fastball
No matter how hard you throw, man cannot live on fastball alone. Miller pairs his high-octane heater with a razor blade slider that is averaging 87.5 mph with a 53.6% whiff rate. That's a top 10 slider whiff rate and well above the 33.8% league average for sliders.
The Stuff+ on Miller's slider is even better than his fastball: 169 vs. 142, meaning the slider is a nice 69% better than average while the fastball is "only" 42% better than average. Miller is top five in fastball and slider Stuff+. The only other pitcher in the top 25 on both pitchers is Kansas City Royals ace Cole Ragans (14th in fastball and 22nd in slider).
Miller also has a changeup, though he's only thrown two of them this season. During his stint as a starter and multi-inning reliever last year, he threw his changeup 4.9% of the time, and that pitch had a 42.9% whiff rate. That's top of the line. Miller may only use his fastball and slider as a closer, but he has three legitimate swing-and-miss pitches. It's top 1% stuff.
3. An internship changed his career
Miller began his collegiate career at Division III Waynesburg University, not far outside his hometown of Pittsburgh. He had a 7.10 ERA in 64 2/3 innings his freshman and sophomore seasons, and struggled to keep weight on his body and velocity on his fastball. That's when an internship during the summer of 2018 changed his career, and really his life.
Here's The Athletic with the details:
He landed a finance internship at a local hospital following his sophomore year, but his required drug screen was flagged as diluted. When Miller objected, the lab coordinator ran another test and told Miller there were two possibilities in play, and "neither is good." Either Miller had diluted the sample in an attempt to manipulate the outcome of the test or he had dangerously high blood sugar.
Miller was admitted that day to UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. He was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
Following his diagnosis, Miller adjusted his diet and training, and pitched to a 2.09 ERA with 121 strikeouts in 81 2/3 innings from 2019-20. Granted an extra year of eligibility because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Miller transferred to Gardner-Webb University in 2021, threw 92 2/3 innings with a 3.30 ERA, and got himself drafted in the third round by Oakland. He received a $599,100 signing bonus.
Like several other big leaguers, most notably Adam Duvall and Jordan Hicks, Miller uses an insulin pen and a glucose monitor daily to manage his diabetes. Prior to his diagnosis, he was a fringe prospect at best. Applying for that summer internship completely changed the trajectory of his career.
4. His injury history is worrisome
Injuries are an epidemic among pitchers these days, especially hard-throwers, and yeah, Miller does have an injury history. That includes missing close to four months last season with a sprained ulnar collateral ligament (the Tommy John surgery ligament). He also missed the entire 2022 regular season with a rotator cuff strain.
The injury history is why Miller is in the bullpen rather than using his three-pitch mix to front Oakland's rotation. The A's want to keep him healthy. Miller has not yet pitched back-to-back days and only once has he pitched with one day of rest. He'd had at least two days of rest for seven of his eight appearances. The A's aren't contending this year. Their priority is keeping Miller healthy.
"The biggest goal for us is to get Mason Miller out of this camp healthy," Kotsay said in spring training (via MLB.com). "That's our focus. We'll prepare him as a reliever. He's a guy that can throw two or three innings. But I think we'll probably see him in two-inning stints at most (in 2024)."
The best predictor of future injury is past injury and Miller has already had injuries to his shoulder and elbow. Significant injuries too. He lost a season to a shoulder issue and most of a season to an elbow issue. The A's are doing what they can to keep Miller on the field. With pitchers though, sometimes there's just no avoiding injuries. Miller, unfortunately, carries heightened injury risk.
