The Dodgers are signing a reliever Shelby Miller to a big league contract, reports Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic (Twitter link). The deal is pending a physical.
Miller will step right onto the 40-man roster despite not having had much recent MLB experience. He’s made just 17 appearances at the game’s highest level over the last three years. That includes four late-season appearances with the Giants. Selected onto the big league roster for the final two weeks of a lost season, Miller was called upon four times out of the bullpen in San Francisco.
The right-hander allowed five runs in seven innings for the Giants, but he struck out 14 while walking just three. That came in spite of a lackluster 8.4% swinging strike rate, but Miller excelled at freezing batters on pitches inside the strike zone during that brief look. Opponents offered at just over half the would-be strikes that he threw, well shy of the 68.8% league average for relievers.
He’s almost certainly not going to maintain that pace over a full season, but he flashed some ability to keep MLB hitters off balance with a pared-down repertoire. Miller featured only two pitches — a low-80s slider and a four-seam that averaged a bit above 94 MPH — during this year’s MLB action. He also found a fair bit of success in the upper minors, striking out an excellent 32.4% of opponents en route to a 3.62 ERA across 32 1/3 frames with the Giants’ top affiliate in Sacramento.
More to come.
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