Pittsburgh Pirates Offseason Simulation: Signing Wade Miley

With already completing a trade to in this year’s MLB FanSided offseason simulation, it was time to head to the free agent market to find a way to improve the team.

For the last few years, the MLB Division at FanSided has put together an offseason simulation with the sites playing General Manager.  I am in charge of the Pittsburgh Pirates offseason simulation this year.  Each team has been able to submit trades to one another as well as trying to bid on free agents.

Yesterday, I discussed my trade with the Philadelphia Phillies (Phillies TBOH).  The trade had the Pittsburgh Pirates sending outfielder Starling Marte and reliever Keone Kela to the Phillies.  Coming back to the Bucs in the deal was a package of four prospects, including three who are close to MLB ready.  The list included top pitching prospect Adonis Medina, outfielder Adam Haseley, catcher Deivy Grullon, and infield prospect Kendall Simmons.

While the trade made with the Phillies was supposed to help bring in talent that will help in a shorter time frame, the team still needs plenty of help.  When looking at the free-agent market, I thought it was important to not just add some starting pitching depth, but some quality starting pitching depth.  On top of that, it was important to find a quality left-hander for the rotation, something the team has been missing in the last few years.

So as General Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates I extended a reasonable, two-year contract offer to free-agent pitcher Wade Miley.  Miley was getting a lot of one year offers and so the second year was a big part of getting a deal done.  Financially speaking, the deal was worth $17.5 million or, $8.75 million per season.  A two-year deal seemed like a perfect fit on the Pittsburgh Pirates end of things.  This gives them a quality lefty to help compete and win games with a growing team.  Also, he would be back for 2021 when the team projects to really compete.

Wwith it being a two-year deal, it is a relatively safe deal to make.  He would be easy to flip in a trade if he was not performing well enough, or if he was really performing well and a team was looking to get a starter with contractual control. Really, the contract made a lot of sense from all angles in terms of team success or value of a solid, left-handed starter.

Miley pitched for the Houston Astros last season and was with the Brewers in 2018.  Over the last two years, Miley has had somewhat of a career resurgence.  In 2018 he was really impressive in his 16 starts with the Brewers posting a 2.57 ERA.  He followed it up with a 3.98 ERA with Houston this past season.  While he regressed some, he still put up a strong season and if he repeated those results he would be worth $8.75 million per season.

With Miley slotting into the rotation, it gives some extra flexibility to potentially deal one of the starters.  With the change over in management, it might be the time to just move on from Chris Archer.  He is owed $9 million this upcoming year and has an option for 2021.  Miley has been much better than Archer the last two seasons and would essentially replace him at a cheaper rate.  To say the least, there has been a decent bit of interest for Archer by other FanSided GM’s so it seems likely that a deal will be struck.