I could Wade a Miley in those shoes

[OnWisc]

SSS, but Miley's .308 BABIP is in line with his .303 career average and he's yielding just .57 HR/9, so it would seem that the problem is less grooving too many pitches that are getting hammered than it is throwing up a walk rate over 6/9 and suffering a sub 50% strand rate. Even his low K rate isn't that far out of line with his career prior to 2014. Small consolation, but his FIP is almost 4 turns below his ERA.

According to data pulled from Baseball Savant, Miley saw a large uptick last year in his called strike rate on pitches thrown out of the zone, which likely played a role in boosting his K rate to a career high. Despite those extra strikes, he still worked outside the zone so much that his walk rate also jumped to a career high (excepting his 7 starts in 2011). Some of what's happening is probably just reversion and he's not going to have the same success staying outside the zone, though that's unlikely to fully explain a 6.32/9 walk rate. The PitchFX chart posted above also doesn't seem to be painting a picture of someone who just isn't getting borderline calls.

If he brings that walk rate down the problem may work itself out leaving us with our mid/back end of the rotation starter. If it doesn't, hard to see anyone- including Miley- finding fault with a phantom DL stint and some rehab starts.

 

[Harry Hooper]

Struggling to get 18 outs from a starting pitcher is a problem, but having a starter trot out to the mound who is a 50-50 proposition to get even 10-12 outs is an intolerable situation. The leash for Miley might be pretty short if nothing really changes from here.

 

[curly2]

I won't even post this season because of the SSS, but the trend is very discouraging:
 
2012: 1.9 BB per 9/1.182 WHIP
2013: 2.9 BB per 9/1.317 WHIP
2014: 3.4 BB per 9/1.401 WHIP
 
Obviously they wouldn't have made the trade (and done the extension) without thinking they could reverse this, but it would be nice to see some results soon.

 

[OnWisc]

I won't even post this season because of the SSS, but the trend is very discouraging:
 
2012: 1.9 BB per 9/1.182 WHIP
2013: 2.9 BB per 9/1.317 WHIP
2014: 3.4 BB per 9/1.401 WHIP
 
Obviously they wouldn't have made the trade (and done the extension) without thinking they could reverse this, but it would be nice to see some results soon.

His K rate also jumped substantially in 2014, and the higher walk rate could be a byproduct of that as he pitched less to contact and worked around the zone to get those strikeouts.

Same SSS caveat but a quick glance at his Fangraphs PitchFX data for this year would simply seem to indicate a great deal of trouble locating his two-seamer, which is his primary pitch(his FT O-Swing% is currently 12.5% vs a career avg closer to 30%).

He's still in the zone with a frequency approaching his career average, it's just seems that when he's missing, he's missing badly and not eliciting swings. His swinging strike rates on both his fastballs right now are below 2%.

 

[Yelling At Clouds]

So: Wade Miley. He's emerged as what I think the Red Sox were expecting when they got him: a league-average-ish guy who can throw some solid innings (although it was one too many last night). The overall numbers still don't yet quite reflect that, but he's had a 3.70 ERA since May. That's still not great, but it's acceptable. 
 
One problem, though: he's been absolutely terrible against Baltimore and Toronto - Looks like he has an ~8 ERA against them. Strip that out, and his season ERA would be 3.53. But the "[Stat X] against [Specific Teams Y + Z]" stat isn't necessarily super-instructive. In this case, though, I think it's a symptom of his trouble with right-handed hitters (and Baltimore and Toronto have RH-heavy lineups), who have an .810 OPS against him. The possible good news is that this is an outlier for him - he's always had a platoon split, but never this drastic. Maybe this is a chicken-or-the-egg thing.