{"id":522403,"date":"2026-01-15T22:35:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T22:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/522403\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T22:35:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T22:35:19","slug":"mason-miller-all-in-on-closing-for-2026-but-will-he-ever-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/522403\/","title":{"rendered":"Mason Miller all in on closing for 2026 &#8212; but will he ever start?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/mlb\/san-diego-padres\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">San Diego Padres<\/a> contain a secret weapon. Closer <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/tag\/mason-miller\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mason Miller<\/a> has been dominant since he debuted for the Athletics a few seasons ago. Padres general manager A.J. Preller wanted Miller on his team and traded one of the top prospects in baseball to get him at last year&#8217;s MLB Trade Deadline.<\/p>\n<p>With former closer Robert Suarez now in Atlanta, Miller is going to be the new closer. Miller served as a setup option to Suarez during the second half of last season. The flamethrower will now take over in the 9th inning to close things off. San Diego should control a dominant bullpen once again in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Miller recently joined Foul Territory to discuss his new role for 2026 and if becoming a starting pitcher is in the books in the future.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\u201cI&#8217;ve had a lot of success in the bullpen, and to go away from that success right now doesn&#8217;t make sense for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mason Miller isn&#8217;t ruling out being a starter down the road, but he&#8217;s all in on closing in 2026. \ud83d\ude24 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/VdiyQyuROZ\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/VdiyQyuROZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FoulTerritoryTV\/status\/2011879809874346405?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">January 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s an exciting conversation that has been had year in and year out since I did transition to the bullpen. Right now, I&#8217;ve had a lot of success in the bullpen, and to go away from that success right now doesn&#8217;t make sense for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;m gonna keep that ball rollin&#8217; right now, but I am never going to be the guy that rules that out down the line. But, I will admit it is hard to go away with something you are having a lot of success with. I think my value right now is being the lockdown guy in the ninth or late in games, whatever that we need. Being a part of a really good bullpen is something I take pride in, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Padres could <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/mlb\/san-diego-padres\/padres-rumors-san-diego-interested-pitching-addition-catch\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">still be in the market for a starting pitcher<\/a>. Don&#8217;t be shocked if GM Preller continues to build a winning team in San Diego.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Diego Padres contain a secret weapon. Closer Mason Miller has been dominant since he debuted for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,1101,4,43,137,18,4339,4338],"class_list":{"0":"post-522403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego-padres","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mason-miller","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-padres","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-padres","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-sandiegopadres"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115901505512874301","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}