The Decade’s Best: No. 1 Andrew Miller

Andrew Miller
Chatham 2004 & 2005
Pitcher
North Carolina

My fascination with the Cape Cod Baseball League was sparked by two things: Twinkie Night and Andrew Miller.

The Twinkies might have held sway for a little while — they threw them into the stands! — but my interest was really cemented in the summer of 2004, when I read about a player named Andrew Miller.

I had been a Cape League fan for awhile. The prospect angle always seemed kind of cool — I liked knowing that I saw players before they were Big Leaguers — but it was nothing more than kind of cool. I liked the baseball, I liked foggy nights after sunny days, and I liked sitting on the hill at Veterans Field.

And then Miller. He brought it all together.

He was 6-foot-6, the article told me, and that was kind of a big deal. He was left-handed, also a big thing. His fastball was fast and his curveball dropped off the table. He had been a third-round pick out of high school, and he was coming to Chatham. For the first time, I was excited not just about the baseball, but about a player. A prospect.

I was not alone.

That first summer — after striking out 88 in his freshman year with the Heels — Miller generated a lot of buzz. I even remember reading about him in a Peter Gammons notes column. Miller ended up starting seven games. He went 2-0 with a 2.03 ERA and 48 strikeouts in 40 innings.

That could have been the end of the line, had Miller taken the familiar freshman star path — Cape League, huge sophomore year, then Team USA. Miller had the huge sophomore year — 104 strikeouts — but when summer rolled around, he was back in Chatham.

And he was better than ever. He went 6-0 with a 1.77 ERA and 66 strikeouts in 49 innings. He won both the top prospect and outstanding pitcher awards, a rare feat.

In addition to the impressive body of work, two particular nights stand out in my mind. On July 20, he faced off against Wareham’s Daniel Bard, his North Carolina teammate. The two would end up going 1-2 on BA’s top prospect list, and on this night, they toed the rubber for the best pitching match-up I can remember. I was there, and I have never seen so many scouts at a regular-season game. Miller ended up striking out nine, Bard six. Neither factored in the decision, but it was still a night to remember.

The other night lives only in the memory of those who were there — and in Cape League lore for the rest of us. It happened in 2004. It was a foggy night. Miller struck out the first three batters he faced. Then the next three, and the next three after that. In the fourth inning, he struck out the side again. Twelve hitters, 12 strikeouts — and the game was fogged out, never to be recorded.

It’s a shame that Miller didn’t get to continue, but in looking back, I think it’s kind of cool that it happened the way it did. A foggy night, an unhittable pitcher, no official history of it — it only adds to the legend of Andrew Miller on the Cape.

And it’s only one of the stories. John Schiffner told one to Baseball America in 2005, when Miller was named the summer player of the year: “I’m not going to say this kid’s name, but it was a righthanded hitter. He swung and missed at a slider that hit him right in the thigh. I’d seen him hit guys in the back foot on slider strikeouts last summer, but this thing was thigh-high and he swung as it hit him. He had no chance. We kept it very calm (in the dugout) because we didn’t want to show him up. But some guys had to bite their sleeve to not laugh out loud.”

The legend just kept growing, and it’s the reason Andrew Miller is the Right Field Fog Player of the Decade.

“He’s the Randy Johnson of the Cape League,” Yarmouth-Dennis manager Scott Pickler told Baseball America in 2005. “There’s a fear of facing Andrew Miller among the kids. There’s no one else like that in the league.”

And no one else like that in the decade.

After the Cape

Miller was a candidate to be the No. 1 overall pick in 2006, but he ended up dropping to the Tigers at the sixth spot, largely because of his high asking price. He made his Major League debut the same year, but he has had an up-and-down big-league career so far and has spent parts of every season in the minors. In 2007, he was traded to the Marlins in the Miguel Cabrera deal. Pitching for Florida in 2009, Miller had a 4.84 ERA with 59 strikeouts in 80 innings.

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