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Pain free and producing: Phillies prospect Aidan Miller is loving baseball again originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Aidan Miller is finally back in his happy place.

He is on the ball field. Playing. Pain free.

“Just being out here, being so grateful to be playing baseball again, feeling healthy while you’re playing,” he said during a recent interview on The Phillies Show podcast. “It’s definitely given me a new love for the game.”

Miller, a 22-year-old shortstop/third baseman, remains one of the Phillies’ top prospects even though he missed most of the 2026 season with a stubborn lower back issue that kept him from playing until September.

He helped Double A Reading rally to win the Eastern League Championship and has now moved on to the Arizona Fall League, where he was hitting .300 with a .571 on-base percentage and a .467 slugging percentage in his first 10 games for the Surprise Saguaros. The league runs through Nov. 11.

“Just playing baseball again, it’s been so much fun,” he said. “I think I took it for granted, honestly, my whole career so far. To have it taken away from me for a long time and getting back and having that itch again and that love and fire for the game. There’s nothing like it.”

Miller had a strong season, registering an .825 OPS with 14 homers, 42 RBIs and 59 stolen bases in 116 games at Double Reading and Triple A Lehigh Valley in 2025. There was a lot of talk that he could challenge for a spot on the big-league roster sometime in 2026. Then spring training arrived. A lower back issue that had bothered him on occasion over the years popped up again in spring training. From February through the summer, he had the Phillies’ medical staff searched for answers.

In June, the young player had a procedure called a radiofrequency ablation of the facet joints in his lower spine. “Basically, they find the pain and burn the nerve,” he said. Results from the procedure were only so-so. Miller found the pain relief he was looking for when he and team athletic trainers visited the TB12 Performance and Recovery Center in Tampa. The facility is co-owned by former NFL great Tom Brady. It specializes in optimizing recovery and eliminating pain through massage and other techniques that work on soft tissue.

Along with the folks at TB12 and Justin Ahrens of the Phillies’ athletic training staff, Miller has come up with an hour-long daily routine that keeps him on the field – pain free. The routine includes some yoga and jiu-jitsu techniques, some stretching and massage ball work.

“It’s all about keeping those joints lubed up,” he said with a laugh. “We’re at a point now where I feel 100 percent. I told my trainer the other day, it’s not even a thought anymore. When I wake up, it used to be how’s my back feeling, can I bend over and touch my toes? Now, I can swing a bat right out of bed, which is great.”

Miller expects to continue his back-maintenance routine throughout his career. Cole Hamels had to do that, as well. Like Miller, he had a lower back issue as a young minor-leaguer. He found a back-specific strength and conditioning program that helped him pitch until he was 36 and win 163 games.

“Back pain is no joke,” Miller said. “I have a checklist that I do before I even hit in the cage. I’ll probably do it the rest of my career. It just makes you feel great in general.”

Miller and Hamels have more in common than just overcoming back issues. Both dropped in their respective drafts, allowing the Phillies to swoop in and get them. Hamels fractured his pitching arm between his sophomore and junior year in high school. Many teams backed off him over health concerns, but the Phillies did their homework and nabbed him with the 17^th overall pick in 2002.

Miller was projected to be a Top 10 pick in 2023 before he fractured the hamate bone in his left hand in the first at-bat of his senior season in high school. He did not play a game after that. Some teams moved on, but the Phils liked what they’d seen enough in previous seasons and summers to select him 27^th overall.

“I’m glad I ended up here,” he said before the 2025 season.

Though he missed much development time in 2026, Miller believes he can make the jump to Philadelphia in 2027. It is an opinion shared and vocalized by president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski.

“We think we’ve got a really, really good player,” Dombrowski said earlier this month at his end-of-season news conference. “You see all the young players who jumped into playing this year. Aidan Miller, when he’s healthy, is as good as any.”

With an aging core roster and a huge payroll, the Phillies desperately need to inject some cost-effective, productive youth into their mix. Miller plays two positions where there could be openings in 2027 as third baseman Alec Bohm is likely to move on in free agency and shortstop Trea Turner could be subject to a position change.

Miller’s style of hitting would seem to fit the Phillies well. On a team that lacks overall plate selectivity, he has it. In Arizona, he has walked 18 times and struck out just 10.

“I’m a pretty picky hitter,” he said. “My approach is to try to hit a line drive to center field. I like to work at-bats and hit something hard.”

During his long summer rehabbing his back injury, Miller didn’t pay much attention to what was going on in Philadelphia.

“There was a point when I was hurt that I wanted no part of watching baseball,” he said. “I’d do my rehab, go home and go fishing. I wanted to take my mind off baseball and not pay attention. I wasn’t on the field and I didn’t want to go through it with my mind.”

Now he’s back on the field, smiling and succeeding.

Where does Aidan Miller see himself in 2027?

“In Philadelphia, playing,” he said.

Since the abolition of the post-deadline waiver trades, a new trend has arisen around the majors. After the Trade Deadline, if some teams are headed towards missing the playoffs, they will opt to put a player with an expiring contract on waivers, seemingly mainly just to get the last couple months of their contract off the books. The Yankees themselves did that with Harrison Bader in the doomed 2023 season.

This past season, the Yankees ended up being the beneficiary of one of those moves, as they picked up reliever John Schreiber for nothing. Schreiber was having a pretty solid season already, and he put in a good couple months for the 2026 Yankees.

Grade: Incomplete

2026 Stats (Overall): 66 games, 60.1 IP, 3.28 ERA, 4.62 FIP, 4.62 xFIP, 16.3 K%, 10.6 BB%, -0.2 fWAR, 0.8 rWAR
2026 Stats (with Yankees): 11 games, 11.0 IP, 1.64 ERA, 3.46 FIP, 4.97 xFIP, 9.3 K%, 9.3 BB%, 0.1 fWAR, 0.4 rWAR

2027 Contract Status: Free agent

Schreiber is an eight-year major league veteran, who had been playing for the Royals for the last three seasons. Other than arguably his 2022 with the Red Sox, he’s never been an especially dominant reliever, but with a career 120 ERA+, he’s been a pretty good one.

Prior to going on waivers, he had been solid but not spectacular in 2026. His 3.65 ERA with the Royals graded out to an above average 116 ERA+, however there was one glaring issue. Schreiber was walking a good amount of people. In Kansas City, he had issued 22 walks in 49.1 innings. That was a major reason why his FIP ended up so out of whack from his ERA. That’s also why FanGraphs WAR rates him in the negatives for 2026 but he put up a totally respectable reliever WAR number according to Baseball Reference.

However as a team, the Royals weren’t particularly going anywhere. On August 29th, the team opted to put him and the rest of his expiring $3.75 million contract on waivers. (They were definitely out of it at the Trade Deadline too, so why they wouldn’t flip Schreiber for just anything seems short-sighted to me, but I don’t make the big bucks.) Luckily for the Yankees, he ended up making it through to them and they claimed and acquired Schreiber on the 31st.

In addition to generally just being a solid reliever having a fine season, Schreiber also had one big thing going for him: he is very good against right-handed hitters. For his career, he allows a .587 OPS against righties and .439 in 2026 in particular. The Yankees’ bullpen was already pretty solid in general, but that aspect added another dimension.

Adding him so late in the season, the Yankees only used Schreiber in 11 games, but it’s hard to have any complaints with what he did. He allowed just two earned runs in 11 innings and dropped his walk rate as well. We felt compelled to give him an incomplete grade as he wasn’t around for that long, but if you had to pin me down, I’d personally go B+.

As for the future, Schreiber is now a free agent. While bringing him back wouldn’t cost that much exactly, there will probably be plenty of suitors, considering how good he’s been against righties over the years. That being said, if the Yankees wanted to, I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing him get another season working with Matt Blake.

See more of the Yankees Roster Report Card series here.

Diamondbacks News

Which Diamondbacks are Entering Free Agency?
As the World Series draws to a close, free agency looms.

Diamondbacks Led the Way with 10 Walk-off Wins – Here They Are
A look back at some of the more exciting moments of Arizona’s 2026 season.

Key Dates for the MLB Hot Stove
These are the key dates and decision milestones for the upcoming, likely abbreviated 2026 MLB Hot Stove.

Other MLB News

Rays Walk Off Brewers in 12 to Force Game 5
Ben Williamson sent the Milwaukee Brewers back to their hotel, forcing them to wait at least one more night before potentially celebrating their first-ever World Series trophy.

Brewers’ Ashby Sets Postseason Scoreless Innings Record for Relievers
Left-hander Aaron Ashby retired all seven batters he faced in Game 4 against Tampa Bay and broke Andrew Miller’s record for scoreless innings by a reliever in one postseason.

With the season on the line as the Milwaukee Brewers took a 3-2 lead in the top of the 12th inning against the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 4 of the World Series, the home team rallied for two runs in the bottom of the 12th inning and the Rays won the game and avoided the sweep. Milwaukee and Tampa Bay will meet today at 5 p.m. with the Brewers needing one win to earn their first championship in franchise history. Meanwhile the Rays would like to send the series back to Milwaukee with a win.

For baseball fans, a 12-inning World Series game is just what you want — more baseball. For Brewers fans it was probably excruciating to know your team was that close to closing out the series and completing a dominant postseason run. Fans without a rooting interest in the series, just wanted a good competitive series that allowed them to hang on to baseball for as long as possible. With a looking lockout likely coming when the CBA expires in December, it’s hard to say when or in the most dire circumstances, if baseball returns.

The optimists hold out hope a deal can be reached to avoid a lockout altogether. The pessimist says the 2027 season will be at least cut in half if not lost completely as the owners and players reach a stalemate about a potential salary cap and salary floor. With all the uncertainty surrounding the game, fans should enjoy the baseball that is left. If you’re not a fan of the Brewers or Rays, then root for more games. It should be an exciting finish to the season and fans should hope the offseason is held off just a bit longer between the top seeds from the National and American leagues.

Padres News:

• Reliever Jeremiah Estrada missed a chunk of the 2026 season with injury. How did that affect his grade from Gaslamp Ball’s Lincoln Zdunich?

• Cheri Bell of Gaslamp Ball takes a look at what role the Padres play in the CBA negotiations.

• Alex McCoy has been getting the headlines but other Padres prospects have impressed in the Arizona Fall League.

Baseball News:

• Francisco Lindor won the 2026 Clemente Award.

We’re doing the player reviews. The first part is a lot of “this guy was injured” and “this guy was cut early” and “you don’t even remember who this guy is.”

But, someone has to get the PAs and pitch the innings. Maybe you’d prefer it was someone else in the organization instead.

Here’s your chance to lobby for that. Lobby to no avail, of course, since the season has already happened and you presumably can’t go back and change it. Have at it.

I’m not even saying it can’t be someone that played for the Braves in 2026. But, if you felt like, for example, JR Ritchie got too many innings, who should’ve gotten those innings instead?

Josh Walker has learned not to take it personally. Well, to be honest, I haven’t actually asked him, but you figure somebody DFA’d seven times in his career—twice by his current team—has developed some thick skin.

He’s also developed his game in this, his fourth season, and it was good news for us, because the unsung lefty was an essentially costless addition to the team, and turned out to be one of its best relievers, with a 2.08 ERA in 30 1/3 innings, 29 strikeouts, a 1.19 WHIP, and his first big-league save. Along the way he put up 18 straight scoreless outings, the longest such streak by an Oriole in a decade.

You may have heard this story, or one like it, before. Walker was taken in the late rounds of the draft (in 2017, by the Mets, out of the University of New Haven), then saw his career delayed by injury/bad luck. First, a car accident left him needing elbow nerve-transposition surgery. Then the pandemic wiped out the 2020 season.

When Walker finally reached the majors, he got hit hard: an 8.10 ERA in fourteen games in 2023 and a 5.11 ERA in ten games in 2024. The Mets DFA’d him, then traded him to Pittsburgh. From there, waivers, waivers, waivers, as Walker made stops with the Pirates, the Blue Jays (a 7.20 ERA in three games in 2025), the Phillies, Baltimore, Atlanta, and Baltimore again. The O’s DFA’d him too, to clear room for Shane Baz, and he cleared waivers in January.

Walker entered 2026 with a 6.59 career ERA, little in the way of expectactions, and his season started like this: a May call-up, an option, another call-up, another option, a doubleheader 27th-man cameo, an on-paper move, and then, around August, a quiet turn into the most reliable arm in the Orioles bullpen. This was around the time he posted an 18-inning scoreless streak.

With Keegan Akin out due to injury, Josh Walker became Craig Albernaz’s most trusted lefty out of the ‘pen. And one of its most valuable, his 0.9 WAR ranking behind only Rico Garcia and Tyler Wells among relievers.

So what turned Walker from discarded over most of his career to indispensable this year? It’s not so much changed stuff: his four-seamer averaged 93.0 mph this year, slightly slower than before, and his slider was much the same as ever.

But the pitch mix was indeed different. As a rookie Walker was close to a two-pitch pitcher: 65% four-seamers and 33% sliders. This year, he threw 38% sliders, 27% sinkers, 25% four-seamers, and about 10% changeups. The changeup, in particular, was new: he didn’t throw the pitch at all in 2024 or 2025, and this season it was his best strikeout pitch, with a 44% whiff rate and a .172 xwOBA (the slider was close behind, at a 32% whiff rate and .195 xwOBA). Walker mostly threw the change mostly against righties, who actually hit him much worse than southpaws.

Improved, too, was Walker’s control. While Walker’s strikeout rate of 23% wasn’t much to write home about, he did avoid hard contact, with the lowest barrel, sweet-spot, and xwOBA rates of his career.

He also got ahead in counts. His first-pitch strike rate was 62.1%, up from 50% as a rookie, and his walk rate fell from 12.5% to 9.5%. It appears that, because Walker was able to land his offspeed stuff, hitters could no longer sit on his four-seamer.

So, is the Walker revival smoke and mirrors, or something to rely on next year? Mostly the former, I’m happy to report. His 3.33 FIP says the ERA is somewhat too flattering. But his 2.70 xERA, which accounts for the quality of contact he allowed, backs up his stinginess, and there is barely a gap between his actual and expected wOBA (.265 and .255), speaking to the weak contact he allowed. That said, we don’t have a huge sample size from him (30 innings), and relievers who thrive on weak contact, as opposed to strikeouts, are more prone to year-to-year swings than pure flamethrowers.

Still, this version of Walker seems convincing. A four-pitch lefty who throws strikes, has a real weapon against righties, and limits hard contact definitely has a role to play in the bullpen. And he’s still on a pre-arbitration salary. After seven DFAs, Josh Walker has earned the right to be taken seriously—and perhaps some prime real estate in next year’s bullpen, too.

Former New York Yankees catcher Jorge Posada, who won five World Series rings as a member of the team's "Core Four" during his playing career, says he no longer feels welcome by the organization.

On a new episode of "The Show" podcast, Posada told New York Post writers Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman that the current version of the team needs a coaching staff that will "push" them to be more accountable to themselves and each other.

But he said he doesn't think he'll be involved in any official capacity.

“I could, but I don’t think they want me there, to tell you the truth,” Posada said on the episode, which premiered on Tuesday, Oct. 27.

“I don’t feel welcome when I go there, you know? Even in spring training, I don’t feel like – I’m just like, I don’t know, like, I don’t feel welcome. I don’t feel like they want me there, so I don’t go.”

Meet the Mets

Danny Abriano at SNY imagined how the Mets might rebuild their bullpen ahead of next season.

Voting is open for the 2026 Heart and Hustle Award, and Carson Benge is the Mets nominee.

Like many Mets fans, Daryl Strawberry is “heartbroken” over the Mets 40 year championship drought, but he isn’t losing faith in the team.

Ron Darling clarified his recent comments on his future in the SNY booth.

Around Major League Baseball

Jim Bowden at The Athletic ranked the top 40 free agents this offseason and speculated on where they could end up.

Cam Schlittler seems like a lock for the Cy Young Award, but he’s not the only Yankee with a chance at some hardware.

Jackson Chourio is growing into his superstar potential this October, raising the standards for young stars in the postseason.

William Contreras—or “Wild Bill” as he’s becoming known—has been showing off his many talents this postseason, including his mastery of ABS challenges.

Aaron Ashby now holds the record for the longest scoreless streak by a reliever in postseason history.

Ben Williamson’s walk-off single gave the Rays life for at least one more game.

Yesterday at Amazin’ Avenue

Micah Noe reviewed Ronny Mauricio’s disappointing season abbreviated by injury.

This Date in Mets History

65 years ago, ground was broken on an ash heap in Flushing Meadows, soon to be the home of the New York Mets.