After beginning the season on the injured list with an oblique strain, Bryce Miller debuted on May 13 for the Mariners. Since that point, he’s been one of the best pitchers in baseball.
In four outings, Miller has a 1.71 ERA across 21 innings, along with an excellent 20-3 strikeout-to-walk ratio. After struggling in 2025 (5.68 ERA in 90 1/3 innings) in part due to bone spurs that led to two IL stints, Miller has rebounded in a big way and looks closer to his ‘24 version (2.94 ERA and 171 strikeouts in 31 starts).
What’s changed for Miller so far? The biggest change is a huge uptick in stuff. That’s led to a 25.3 percent strikeout rate and a 29.3 percent whiff rate, both of which would represent career highs.
“I feel great. The stuff has been really good this year, quite a bit better than it’s ever been at any point in my career,” Miller told reporters, including MLB.com’s Josh Kirshenbaum, after his last outing. “Every outing just adds to the confidence, bleeding into the next one.”
This all starts with the four-seamer, which is sitting at 96.7 mph this season -- it was at 94.8 mph last year. It’s a notable development for Miller since he already blended good velocity and the ability to spin the baseball and produce perceived rise on his heater.
Miller’s 19.3 inches of Induced Vertical Break (IVB) -- essentially how much perceived rise his heater gets -- is a top 20 mark among qualifying pitchers. The only other starting pitchers with fastballs sitting 96-plus mph with 19-plus inches of IVB are Taj Bradley and Ryne Nelson. Those fastball qualities have led to a 22.3 percent whiff rate and a .226 average against.
“I think the fastball’s been really good,” Miller said. “Any time you add velo and command the heater like I have, it just makes the other pitches better.”
That velocity bump has extended to all of his other pitches too. Miller’s slider, his second-most-utilized pitch, is up from 85.6 mph to 87.9 mph. Miller’s sharper slider is generating whiffs on 45 percent of swings and has been a weapon against both righties and lefties.
Miller’s splitter, next in usage behind the four-seamer and slider, is also up a few ticks to 85.8 mph. Like his other offerings, the newer and faster splitter is generating gaudy results, including a 31.6 percent whiff rate and a .190 average against.
Miller has also utilized a cutter more, a pitch he threw sparingly before this year, but has ramped up its usage to 7.2 percent. That cutter has been something of a bridge pitch between his four-seamer and slider, an oft-used strategy by pitchers to add more deception between fastballs and breaking balls.
“It’s cool to see the whiff, the swing-and-miss on non-fastballs. The slider has performed really well. The splitter’s been good. The curve and sweeper have been good when I’ve thrown them,” Miller said. “Seeing the breaking balls and the offspeed come along has been fun. Overall, I’ve located all of my offspeed [and breaking balls] really well.”
With the improved stuff has come better command. Miller’s miniscule 3.8 percent walk rate is a huge improvement on his 8.7 percent mark last year and his 6.8 percent clip in his career-best 2024 season.
Miller’s strike rate has jumped to a career-best 69.1 percent but it’s not because he’s in the zone more (it’s at a career-worst 50.5 percent). It’s because hitters are chasing WAY more out of the zone. Miller’s chase rate is at 36.2 percent, a 10.5 percent increase from last season. His chase rate ranks in the 93rd percentile of qualified pitchers this season, after ranking in the 19th percentile last year.
Miller’s stuff is better, he’s throwing more strikes and he’s generating weaker contact, something of an optimal trifecta for pitchers. While the improvements in stuff and command are plenty notable, Miller’s improved contact quality might be even more drastic.
Miller in 2025 vs. 2026
Barrel rate: 9.4% (30th percentile) vs. 3.6% (92nd percentile)
Hard-hit rate: 48.6% (2nd percentile) vs. 25.0% (98th percentile)
Avg. exit velocity: 92.4 mph (1st percentile) vs. 85.5 mph (94th percentile)
Miller has had the biggest drop in average exit velocity from 2025, the second-biggest improvement in hard-hit rate and the ninth-biggest decline in barrel rate.
It’s important to remember that we’re only dealing with four outings, but Miller certainly looks primed to make a big leap this season. If this is real, the 27-year-old could vault himself into frontline starter territory.