Mason Miller, a possible trade target for the Yankees

With an elite first-half, Miller would settle all lingering long term closer questions for the Yankees, but the A’s hold absurd leverage in any deal for the second-year power arm.

Last week, Mason Miller came in to pitch in the fifth inning of the All-Star Game and achieved one of the exhibition’s missions of having an introductory star-making moment. The 25-year-old Oakland closer pitched a clean fifth inning and struck out a pair in the process. His second batter of the inning, Shohei Ohtani, showcased the event at its best, with two of the flashiest talents in the game dueling on a national stage. There were no official stakes for the game needed to feel the intensity of this matchup, with Ohtani fresh off demolishing a 400-foot homer.

In that frame, the man who A’s announcers call “The Reaper” broke the record for the fastest pitch in All-Star Game history at 103.4 mph, displaying his deadly combination of league-leading fastball velocity and a slider that collapses out of the zone to a wider audience.

With the A’s in the middle of another hapless season and on the verge of a franchise-altering move to Sacramento (and Las Vegas), there has been speculation that Miller could be available if a team is willing to pay an inflated price. This has all come up despite his talent and the fact that he will not become a free agent until after the 2029 campaign. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported on Tuesday that the A’s could be sellers, but it may not be an all-out firesale. “The ask for closer Mason Miller,” Passan wrote in his trade preview column, “is so high that even teams who desperately need late-inning relief are balking.”

From that and other insider reports, it seems like Miller is available in the sense that any player on a team that is 41-63 can theoretically be had. As an idea for the return they seem to be aiming for with Miller, Ken Rosenthal from The Athletic wrote that the A’s asked the Padres for outfielder Jackson Merrill—MLB.com’s No. 12 overall prospect entering 2024 and who later joined Miller as a rookie at the Midsummer Classic—in return earlier in the season. Unless the goalposts move in the upcoming week, the reports indicate it will take a high-end, top-100 type prospect for the A’s to part ways with the prized arm. That could be a starting pitcher or a position player like Merrill.

Yankee fans know—having the G.O.A.T.—there’s an intangible impact of feeling the game is all but sealed if their team has the lead going into the ninth inning. However, relievers, even those who strike out 45.8 percent of their batters, have a cap on their value. Miami’s Tanner Scott (who, in contrast, will almost certainly be traded this deadline) led relievers in FanGraphs’ WAR last season with 2.8, which ranked 114th among all players that year. This year, Miller ranks 131st in FanGraphs’ WAR with 1.8. Value statistics do not capture the full context of a contending team needing an extra dependable bullpen arm for October. From the A’s perspective, however, a statistic like WAR tells you that a reliever should not be relied on as a fundamental block when building a team. Even if he carries out another full season with these numbers, it’s hard to imagine his value goes much further up.

The two highest-paid closers in the game in 2024 are Josh Hader and Edwin Díaz, and their up-and-down performances this year are Exhibits 1-A and 1-B why reliever performances can be volatile. Right now, Miller is healthy and has proven his stuff is nasty. From the A’s perspective, why wait if you will probably ultimately deal with him within the next couple of years anyway?

This season, Miller has a 2.21 ERA, 0.836 WHIP with 15 saves out of 17 opportunities. When you watch his visually rising fastball that ranges from 99-to-104 mph fastball combined with his 89 slider that suddenly dives out of the zone, it makes you wonder how hitters have had even that success against him.

Here is the overlay of the arsenal combo Juan Soto had to deal with back in April:

Miller debuted in the majors in 2023 as a starter. He quickly made his mark by throwing seven no-hit innings against Seattle in his third outing. After posting a 3.32 ERA over four starts, he sustained a UCL sprain* that kept him out until September. During the final month of the season, he was used in two-to-three-inning increments to limit his workload.

*The possibility of another elbow injury is another reason why the A’s should consider trading him for prospects while they can, but I digress.

This season, Miller was moved to the closer role, where he was able to turn his fastball up a notch; his average velocity was 98.3 mph last season. As a result he has become a Baseball Savant superstar, ranking first among qualified pitchers in xERA (1.48), xBA (.130), xwOBA, chase rate (38.2%), whiff rate (43.0%), and K rate (45.8%). To be balanced in my analysis, he is slacking a tad behind in hard-hit rate (29%), ranking eighth overall. The FanGraphs pitching model, Stuff+, which puts a value on different physical characteristics of a pitch, is also a big fan. His four-seamer ranks 41 percentage points better than the league average, and his slider rates 61 points percent better than average, both ranking third overall in their respective pitch types among pitchers who have thrown a minimum of 40 innings this season.

For a guy throwing an average fastball velocity of 100.9 mph, his control is solid. Although Miller walks batters at a higher-than-average rate of 9.2 percent, it has not yet caused many problems. He often gets away with throwing his heater right in the middle of the plate for a called strike, a privilege that comes with having 102-mph velocity. He also does a good job of hitting the corners with his fastball, often aiming for the lower outside corner of the zone.

Here is a look at where Miller’s called strikes have been located on fastballs:

Like what was shown in the Juan Soto at-bat sequence above, his whiffs often come when the pitch is elevated in the zone with and has the visual rise:

As seen in the pitch that punched Ohtani out in the All-Star Game, Miller’s slider is elusive.

It moves horizontally 84 percentage points more than the average slider with a similar speed, while also dropping 13 percentage points more than the average. He gets a higher percentage of whiffs on his slider (46.6 percent) than his fastball (41.3 percent). He generates a lot of whiffs on his slider on balls that drop outside the zone, low and away. He also likes to sneak in his breaking pitch to land higher in the strike zone that hitters cannot identify quick enough if it’s going to be a high fastball out of the zone or a change-of-pace slider for a called strike.

The Yankees may have an ultra-aggressive approach at the deadline, since they don’t for certain if they’ll be able to pair Soto with Judge again in 2025 (and beyond). But given the reported price of Miller, as tantalizing as his talent is, it would be hard to imagine a match here. The Yankees will not back up the truck of top-100 prospects for a bullpen arm alone, and likewise, the A’s will probably prefer a prospect package from a better system — if indeed they decide to trade him at all.