There are few things I love more than watching good prospects come up through the Cardinal’s system. And this guy…

is the talk of the town right now with his recent suspension; since he’s one of the best prospects we’ve had come through in quite some time. As most of you know, Miller cruised through A ball at Quad Cities and Palm Beach, before coming to AA Springfield this year (quick side note: if you have never made the trip to Hammons field in Springfield, you are missing out). Miller is listed as a top 10 prospect in many publications, including Baseball America and USA today. In his minor league career, Miller has 152 strikeouts in 122.2 innings pitched with a WHIP of 1.24.

On June 3rd, I had tickets for Miller’s AA debut for Corpus Christi. Unfortunately, work got busy and I wasn’t able to make the game, but man that would have been fun.

I did get to see him pitch July 7th in Springfield against Frisco Roughriders. Here are a few tweets I sent from the game that night (follow me on twitter here for more awesome tweet like this, shameless self-promotion!)

-Miller 18 pitches in 2nd. 10 strikes, 15 fastballs, 2 changeups, 1 curve. Hit 99 on the gun. 21 of 33 so far for strikes

-Shelby miller strikes out side in the 4th. First 3 k’s of the game. Went to the curve earlier and more often in 4th

-20 pitches in 4th, 64 thru 4. 12 strikes. 6 curves this inning 3 for strikes but all foul balls. No swing and misses

-Millers night is done after 4 2/3 innings. in 5th E6, stolen base, k, stolen base, k, double and pulled. Struck out 5 in a row before double to Leonys Martin ended his night

I’ll say this after watching him, the kid’s fastball is impressive. His changeup is very good also. However, his breaking ball is not good, and I don’t see him being a quality pitcher in the big leagues until he develops that breaking ball. The good news is he is young, and has time (and good coaching) to help him along the way.

Speaking of being young…..

Miller has not made a lot of friends among the STL media. Go read through some of Joe Strauss’ tweets. The Sunday after I watched Miller pitch against Frisco, Matthew Leach ran a story on the team’s website about Miller after interviewing him at Future’s game. In the interview, Miller kept talking about how he can’t wait to be in the big leagues (this is also a recurring theme in his tweets). I retweeted the article and commented “seems to be a very confident young pitcher”. Leach saw the tweet and replied “very”.

Here are a few of Miller’s tweets I was referencing…