The Cleveland Guardians shouldn’t have traded Owen Miller

Yeah, the Cleveland Guardians shouldn’t have traded Owen Miller.

The Cleveland Guardians made a decision in the offseason to trade first basemen and utility infielder Owen Miller. They made the move to ship him to the Milwaukee Brewers for a player to be named later or cash. As far as I can see, that trade pick hasn’t been determined yet. Miller, to his credit, is not taking the trade lying down.

Miller has been hitting very well as a player for the Brewers and is playing more and more as the year goes on. His yearly splits for 2023 are impressive, 333/.354/.528, and an OPS of .882. The Guardians could seriously use someone who’s hitting well over .300.

To make matters worse, the Guardians just don’t have many players hitting as well as Miller, who just on the 23 of May, had a three-hit game. And while I don’t care for the stat, as it really tries to simplify a complicated game, Miller has a W.A.R. of 1.0, which would place him fourth on the Guardians behind Shane Bieber, Jose Ramirez, and Andres Gimenez.

Trading Owen Miller was a mistake for the Cleveland Guardians

The team has gotten into a rather nasty habit of trading away solid players all for the hope that the guys behind them in Double and Triple-A would end up being better. Well, right now none of the Triple-A call-ups this year have been that good, and the guys that the Guards preferred, Gimenez, Amed Rosario, and Josh Naylor, are all playing significantly worse than Miller.

Now, don’t get it twisted, Miller alone isn’t lifting the team to new lofty heights. But considering how well he’s hitting, and that he hasn’t committed an error yet for the Brewers, despite playing different positions defensively, it’s very fair to say that the Guardians screwed up in trading away Miller before he could find his swing.

It’s also fair to say that maybe the Guardians need to fire their hitting coach as well. After all, Miller clearly can rake.