{"id":548186,"date":"2026-01-31T21:33:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T21:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/548186\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T21:33:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T21:33:17","slug":"the-last-man-in-free-agent-tournament-brad-miller-vs-neil-walker-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/548186\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cLast Man In\u201d free agent tournament: Brad Miller vs. Neil Walker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Here\u2019s the next matchup:<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Stats with the Phillies (in 2021): 140 games, .227\/.321\/.453, 20 HR, 49 RBI, 0.5 WAR<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Brad Miller spent the 2019 season with the Phillies, serving mostly as a utility man off the bench. He played multiple infield and outfield positions (albeit none of them especially well). He left for a season to join the Cardinals in 2020 but then returned to the Phillies for 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Once again, he played multiple positions (poorly) and provided some decent pop from the left side of the plate. The problem was, he tended to run very hot or cold. He could have a multi-home run game (three times in 2021) but then go a month without hitting another. On the other hand, he introduced a bamboo plant to the clubhouse and that was a big hit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Stats with the Phillies: 18 games, .231\/.244\/.308, 0 HR, 3 RBI, -0.1 WAR<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">After a solid career, spent mostly in Pittsburgh, Walker was coming off two disappointing years by the time 2020 hit. The Phillies signed him before 2020 (as part of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thegoodphight.com\/2020\/1\/24\/21079183\/meet-your-philadelphia-pirates\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">an odd trend of signing former Pirates<\/a>), hoping he could serve in a utility infield role.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Maybe in a normal season, Walker would have had more time to find his footing. But he was largely awful in the COVID-shortened 202o season. His defense was never his strong suit, but the former Silver Slugger winner didn\u2019t do much at the plate either.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Who should advance? Vote now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s the next matchup: Stats with the Phillies (in 2021): 140 games, .227\/.321\/.453, 20 HR, 49 RBI, 0.5&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2397],"tags":[5,4,144,25,4216,40,72344],"class_list":{"0":"post-548186","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-phillies","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-philadelphia","11":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","12":"tag-philadelphiaphillies","13":"tag-phillies","14":"tag-phillies-features"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115991858909665182","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548186","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=548186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}