Fantasy Baseball Trade Values: Sell high on red-hot rookie Bryce Miller?

On Wednesday night's episode of Fantasy Baseball Today, we had a poll up asking listeners to pick their favorite of four rookie pitches: Tanner Bibee, Bryce Miller, Kodai Senga, and Eury Perez. 

Miller won that one pretty easily, and it's not too hard to see why: In three starts since joining the rotation, he's allowed just one run over 19 innings of work, with seven hits allowed, just one walk, and 18 strikeouts. He's been incredible, even better than Perez (2.79 ERA in 9.2 innings), Bibee (3.22 in 22.1), and Senga (3.77 in 43), and I think it's reasonable to rank him at the head of that class – I have him just behind Perez, who I think has just a tad more upside 

But, if you look at my rankings, you might see that I'm still not that high on Miller. He's 212 overall in my Roto rankings, at SP63 overall. That's quite low, because I'm pretty sure his perceived value is a lot higher than that. And you know what that means: It's probably time to try to sell high on Miller.

That's easier said than done, obviously, at a time when pitchers around the league are posting ugly numbers when they aren't going on the IL. Miller has been a significant find for anyone who picked him up, and I think he's likely to be pretty good moving forward. Miller's fastball is giving hitters fits so far, generating a solid 24% whiff rate and leading to a .093 batting average allowed that is largely backed up by the underlying metrics thanks to how many weak fly balls it generates.

However, the secondary pitches have been pretty middling to date. His slider has just an 11.1% whiff rate and his curveball is generating a solid 29% rate, but the underlying numbers suggest he's been lucky to not get hit hard with it so far. The changeup is mostly just a show-me pitch at this point, as advertised, and when you add it all up, he's been almost dangerously fastball-reliant so far, throwing it 63% of the time. 

None of that is an insurmountable obstacle, to be clear, but it gives him a fairly narrow pathway forward. If he maintains his elite control, it'll work; if the slider starts to play up, that'll help even more. But right now, he's a flyball-prone pitcher who isn't generating a ton of whiffs, and that's a risky profile.

He did strike out plenty of batters in the minors, putting up a 30% strikeout rate last season, so I certainly don't want to write him off entirely. But that rate fell to 21% in the small sample size of this season before his callup, with a diminished whiff rate, too. That, combined with a 2.29 HR/9 led to a 6.41 ERA in four starts before his promotion.

Bryce Miller

SEA • SP • #50

ERA.47

WHIP.42

IP19

BB1

K18

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It won't get that bad for Miller, but I do think his hot start is, at least to some degree, a mirage. Whether he settles in as a low-to-mid-3.00s ERA guy or someone who ends up north of 4.00 probably depends on how the slider comes along. If he figures that out, Miller's upside is pretty solid, but probably still lower than someone like Perez. I'm happy to have Miller, but I also think there's room to profit if you could swap him out for someone like Chris Sale or Jesus Luzardo – I would even look into a Miller-for-Carlos Rodon swap if I don't necessarily need someone for the next few weeks. 

Miller should be useful moving forward, but I'm not so sure he has ace upside. See if you can take advantage of his hot start to find someone who does. 

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