Indians Top 100 Prospects: #4 Adam Miller

4. Adam Miller - Right-handed Pitcher
Born: 11/26/1984 - Height: 6'4" - Weight: 200 - Bats: Right - Throws: Right

Year	Age	Team	Lvl	W	L	ERA	G	GS	SV	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	K	BB/9	K/9	WHIP
2003	18	Burlington	R	0	4	4.96	10	10	0	32.2	30	18	2	9	23	2.5	6.3	1.19
2004	19	Lake County	A	7	4	3.36	19	19	0	91.2	79	34	7	28	106	2.7	10.4	1.17
	19	Kinston	A+	3	2	2.08	8	8	0	43.1	29	10	1	12	46	2.5	9.6	0.95
2005	20	Mahoning Vy	A-	0	0	5.06	3	3	0	10.2	17	6	0	4	6	3.4	5.1	1.97
	20	Kinston	A+	2	4	4.83	12	12	0	59.2	76	32	5	17	45	2.6	6.8	1.56
2006	21	Akron	AA	15	6	2.75	26	24	0	153.2	129	47	9	43	157	2.5	9.2	1.11
	21	Buffalo	AAA	0	0	5.79	1	1	0	4.2	4	3	0	3	4	5.8	7.7	1.50
2007	22	Buffalo	AAA	5	4	4.82	19	11	0	65.1	68	35	4	21	68	2.9	9.4	1.36
2008	23	Buffalo	AAA	0	1	1.88	6	6	0	28.2	26	6	0	12	20	3.8	6.3	1.33
		Career		32	25	3.51	104	94	0	489.2	458	191	28	149	475	2.7	8.7	1.24

History:  Miller was a 1st round pick by the Indians in the 2003 Draft out of McKinney High School (TX).  Prior to signing with the Indians, he had a commitment to play for the University of Arizona.  Miller's 15 wins at Double-A Akron in 2006 set a franchise record, passing Paul Byrd's 1992 franchise record of 14 wins in a season.  His 161 strikeouts also crushed the single-season team record of 149, which was set by Travis Driskill in 1996.  He was named the Eastern League Pitcher of the Year in 2006.  In 2007, Sports Illustrated magazine named him to their "Dream Rotation" which is an up-and-coming dream five-man rotation compiled by 11 high-ranking major-league executives.  Prospects with one season or less of major league service time were eligible for the list, and Miller was 4th in the rotation which also included Boston's Daisuke Matsuzaka, Philadelphia's Cole Hamels, New York Yankees' Phillip Hughes, and San Francisco's Tim Lincecum.  Miller is the only one in that dream rotation who has yet to appear in the majors. 

Strengths & Opportunities:  Miller is an extremely confident pitcher, and aggressively attacks every hitter.  His four-seam plus-plus fastball consistently clocks in at around 96-97 MPH and it has topped out as high as 101 MPH.  He also throws a two-seam fastball that bottoms out well and allows him to better change speeds on his fastball.  His best pitch is his plus-plus devastating power slider that he throws in the upper 80s that has excellent tilt and shows great late break.  He also throws a changeup, which has become a very good weapon for him and shows good depth.  When he is on with the pitch, the development of Miller's changeup has made his fastball and slider almost un-hittable. 

Miller has been able to harness his emotions and adrenaline on a consistent basis in order to allow better command of his fastball and secondary pitches when behind in the count.  He has very good command of his pitches, and has a clean delivery. He displays quick arm action in his windup, which makes it tough to pick up the baseball in his hand. His secondary pitches are crisp and he consistently keeps them down in the zone.  Since his recent injuries he has learned to be a pitcher rather than just a thrower the past few seasons by learning to be more efficient with his pitches, use all of his pitches effectively, and rely more on location than just sheer velocity.  While he still very much projects as a front-of-the-rotation starter if he can stay healthy, a backend bullpen role certainly seems like an option at least for the immediate future.  He is often compared to the likes of Rich Harden and Kerry Wood. 

The big red flag with Miller is his injury history.  He missed the first few months of the 2005 season when he strained an elbow ligament in spring training, but came back and had a healthy 2006 campaign, his best season as a professional.  The injuries have really started to pile up since early 2007 as he went on the disabled list in late May of that year with a slight strain on the last digit of the middle finger on his pitching hand and missed a month and a half.  After returning to the rotation in late June from the finger injury, Miller was shutdown for a month because of inflammation in his pitching elbow and pitched sparingly the rest of the season.  He came to spring training last year healthy, but was sidelined early in camp for a few weeks by a blister on the middle finger of his throwing hand so he had to stay behind in extended spring training to ramp himself up to be ready to pitch and joined Triple-A Buffalo a few weeks into the season.  At the end of May his season ended when he had to have season ending surgery to repair a broken callous on the middle finger of his right hand. 

The issues with Miller's middle finger on his pitching hand are believed to be the result of all the torque he puts on his middle finger when he pitches.  According to Dr. Tom Graham, who is the hand specialist the Indians use to routinely evaluate Miller's hand, he is more susceptible to this type of injury because of his big hands, longer fingers and how hard he throws.  When he initially came down with the finger injury in 2007, it was felt with rest the issues he had with his tendon would correct itself on its own.  But, when the issue cropped up again in 2008, he had to undergo surgery because he had developed two calluses on it and between the calluses the skin had become soft and developed into a hole in his skin which put his finger at serious risk of infection.  Dr. Graham performed surgery in late May to surgically repair the pulley system in Miller's middle finger, but during the surgery he found that Miller's tendons in the finger were starting to fray and that the pulley system in the finger was not working properly.  His tendon was off the bone and it had started to rub his skin from underneath and caused a hole from the inside out.  So he had reconstructive surgery on it to reattach the flexor tendon to the bone of his finger. 

Because Miller has thrown such a small amount of innings over the last two years, this year the Indians will be very mindful of his innings pitched workload. With that in mind, Indians GM Mark Shapiro decided to convert him to a temporary bullpen role for 2009.  Such a move may be long overdue given Miller's injury problems, and a move to the bullpen has been favored by many because of his exceptional makeup to go along with his 97-98 MPH fastball and wicked slider combo that he commands well.  It is a role that Miller would need to grow into, but one he feels he could handle.  After seeing the success that the Cubs had with Kerry Wood in converting the oft-injured starter into a closer, the Indians obviously took notice and probably see Miller in much the same vein as Wood from a talent and medical perspective.  With Wood now in Cleveland, he could end up serving as a mentor for Miller.  He has limited experience pitching in the bullpen, but when he came back from the finger and elbow injuries in 2007 he pitched in eight total games out of the bullpen for Buffalo and he handled it well (1-1, 4.09 ERA, 11 IP, 10 H, 2 BB, 14 K).  Down the road Miller could move back to the rotation, but right now he impacts the Cleveland Indians the best in 2009 pitching out of the bullpen. 

While he did not pitch in any regular season games the rest of the season because he was recovering from surgery, Miller got a lot of work in late in the year pitching in sim games at Mahoning Valley and Akron, as well as in Instructional League and in the Dominican Winter League.  In the winter leagues, he was up to 97-98 MPH again, using his lower half better, and was getting some punchouts with his slider.  Going forward, the big thing is for Miller to prove he can stay healthy.  He still needs to continue to develop a feel for pitching to go with his power approach, and his changeup still needs a little more work.  He also needs time to get acquainted with the new bullpen role and develop a routine. 

The Outlook:  Miller is reportedly 100% as his arm feels great and the finger feels good.  It has been a frustrating two years for him as the finger injury has delayed his big league debut and the start of a promising baseball career, and if he can remain healthy he should make that big league debut sometime this season.  He will be a longshot to win a bullpen job in Cleveland when camp breaks, and should open the 2009 season in the Triple-A Columbus bullpen, but should see time in Cleveland this year. 

Photo courtesy of Ken Carr 

Adam Miller MinorLeagueBaseball.com stats page 

Adam Miller Baseball-Reference page 

Adam Miller MinorLeagueSplits.com page 

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