Wade Miley has officially graduated into “old friend” territory, as he’s headed off to join the Milwaukee Brewers in free agency.
Even after a year mostly los﷽t to injury with the Cubs, Miley gets a decent guarantee:
I don’t like this one bit. Not one bit.
No, it’s not because I had particular hopes for a reunion with the Cubs. It’s because Miley is still quite good when he’s healthy, and Milwaukee happens to be the place where he reinvented his game for his career’s second act (when he became a pretty masterful contact-manager with his cutter). If he’s healthy, he’s probably going to continue to be productive, and some of that production will come against the Cubs.
Relatedly, I just don’t want to see the Brewers get better. The Cubs will have a tall enough hill to climb to overtake the Cardinals in the Central, and although it’s relatively easy for me to imagine the Brewers taking a big step back in 2023, it gets a little harder to imagine with every positive move they make. Miley, if healthy, is a positive move.
Miley, 36, managed just 37.0 total innings in his year with the Cubs, posting a 3.16 ERA in the process, but battling all kinds of arm issues. Maybe it was a sign that he won’t be getting his health back frequently enough to hold up as a full-year starter at his age, or maybe it was just a one year flukey thing, and an offseason to rest will get him right. I can’t really root AGAINST him in that way; but I certainly can’t root for him to be great out there. Sorry, Wade.
