Miller fooling hitters into attacking the wrong pitches

If there’s a reason the Yankees may not trade Andrew Miller, it’s probably not because their recent run of eight wins in 10 games has kept their American League Wild Card hopes alive. It’s because the high return they received in the Aroldis Chapman trade may have set extremely high expectations. After all, if the Yanks could do as well as they did for an impending free agent with obvious off-field baggage, what would they require for a pitcher who’s just as dominant and is signed, reasonably, through 2018?

The price would be so high, in fact, that it hardly seems possible for anyone to meet it, but the Yankees wouldn’t be wrong for demanding it. Though Miller may not throw 105 mph like Chapman, over the past calendar year, he’s struck out more, walked fewer and basically been better — and he’s doing it in a way that we’ve rarely seen before.

Think about what a pitcher wants to happen on the mound. When he throws a pitch outside the zone, he’s probably thrilled when a hitter goes after it, because outside-zone swings tend to become misses or poor contact. When he throws a pitch inside the zone, it’s a pretty nice outcome if the hitter watches it sail by for a called strike. If you can combine high rates of those outcomes, then you’re in very good shape.

Miller’s doing that, and then some. This is something that we first noticed during a May 6 MLB Plus broadcast of a Yankees-Red Sox game, and while the numbers have obviously changed since, the impact hasn’t. Let’s look at where Miller is getting his swings this year, of the 155 qualified relievers through Tuesday’s games.

Lowest in-zone swing percentage, 2016 1. …

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