Andrew Miller is sitting on a winning lottery ticket. The left-hander has every right to cash it in this offseason.
Miller, who was traded from the Boston Red Sox to the Baltimore Orioles for pitching prospect Eduardo Rodriguez before the Major League Baseball non-waiver trade deadline, has enjoyed a career year with free agency looming. While the 29-year-old is open to returning to the Red Sox, he also realizes that other clubs could be more aggressive in their pursuits.
“Something tells me it’ll be pretty clear what the options are when it comes down to that,” Miller told reporters, including the Providence Journal’s Brian MacPherson, before Monday’s Red Sox-Orioles game at Fenway Park. “You can pick where you want to go, but that might not be your best option financially. That’s just the reality of it. It seems kind of cold, but this might be my chance at free agency. The hope is that I get some good offers. I feel like I’ve put myself in good position to have that. I plan on finishing strong and improving that.”
Miller entered Tuesday with a 2.09 ERA over 65 appearances spanning 56 innings this season between Boston and Baltimore. His impressive strikeout ability has been joined by increased control, resulting in a career-best 5.56 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Miller’s 14.3 strikeouts per nine innings rank second among major league relievers behind Cincinnati Reds closer Aroldis Chapman (17.54).
“Having not been down that path, the way it seems to me from the outside is that it pretty quickly gets narrowed down to a couple of teams that were in the bidding, and you choose from them,” Miller said. “You don’t go to the 28th-most interested team on the list because you like living there or like the ballpark.”
Miller is an interesting free agent because there’s a chance a team could view him as a potential closer given his swing-and-miss stuff and his propensity for handling both left-handers and right-handers. The Red Sox obviously would like to retain Koji Uehara for such a role, but the idea of re-signing Miller as another back-end bullpen option is intriguing.
“I certainly have relationships with a lot of people here,” Miller said of a potential reunion with the Sox. “I loved my time here. There’s no secret to that. My wife and I loved it here. It’s a great place to play, the way you get treated by the organization. It’s a great place to live. It’s a hard situation to leave.
“If I could script it, I’d say, certainly, I’d love to be back.”
Miller is in a position to land a nice payday on the open market, whether it comes from Boston or elsewhere.
