Fireballing Mason Miller latest in distinguished lineage of A’s All-Star relievers
Mason Miller is the latest in a long history of Oakland Athletics relief pitchers to be invited to the All-Star Game.
The lineage of All-Star relievers in Oakland is storied. It includes Hall of Famers Rollie Fingers and Dennis Eckersley as well as crowd favorites such as Grant Balfour, Sean Doolittle and Liam Hendriks.
In all, Miller is the 14th reliever to earn the nod in the franchise’s 57-year run in Oakland. The hard-throwing rookie right-hander will not only be the last, but he is unique among Oakland’s all-time bullpen stars. His elite four-seam fastball is one of the best in MLB – by some metrics, the very best.
It’s a good bet that at some point on Tuesday night the 25-year-old Miller will take the mound at Globe Life Field and dazzle his largest audience yet.
Miller has thrown the fourth-fastest major-league pitch this season at 103.7 mph, trailing only legendary fireballer Aroldis Chapman of the Pittsburgh Pirates (104, 103.8) and Los Angeles Angels rookie Ben Joyce (103.9), who broke the NCAA record with a 105.5 mph heater while pitching for the University of Tennessee in 2022.
But Miller’s sheer volume of triple-digit fastballs stands alone. Entering the weekend, Miller has thrown 299 pitches over 100 mph, 98 more than the second-ranked player, Justin Martinez of the Arizona Diamondbacks).
But Miller is much more than a hard thrower. Toss out his three intentional walks and he’s walked just 11 to go with his 70 strikeouts in 39 2/3 innings entering the weekend and opposing hitters are batting just .149 against Miller, the seventh-lowest mark among all MLB relievers.
“I feel like Mason’s different than a lot of closers,” said A’s starter Paul Blackburn, who represented Oakland at the All-Star Game in 2022. “A lot of guys just throw hard and sometimes will run into command issues. Mason has starter command with closer stuff. That’s scary to see. And fun to watch.”
Among qualifying pitchers, Miller also has the highest average fastball velocity with 100.9, leading Martinez by almost a full mile per hour. Joyce (101.6) leads all major-league pitchers with at least 100 pitches thrown but has not thrown enough to qualify for the league leaderboard.
“He’s throwing 100-plus, and those are the guys you can’t try and do too much, you’ve just got to keep it simple,” Boston’s Jarren Duran, who faced Miller on Wednesday, told reporters at Fenway Park. “Those are the guys you try to muscle up and hit a homer, they’ll just carve you right up.”
For good measure, Miller’s splitter also leads MLB with an average velocity of 97.6. The Minnesota Twins’ Jhoan Duran is second at 96.8.
Miller’s high-speed exploits aren’t without risk, of course. He sprained his ulnar collateral ligament in 2023 after four starts and returned to the A’s in early September after missing nearly four months.
In 2024, Miller converted to a full-time reliever, and the results have been stellar. Miller has a 2.27 ERA through this first 32 appreances, picking up 15 saves (the A’s win on Friday night was just their 36th of the season) with a WHIP — the average of hits and walks per nine innings — of 0.857.
“You can’t not feel that kind of adrenaline,” said Miller of being a closer. “You feel that atmosphere, the fans, the moment in the game, the situation – it all adds up, for sure.
“Being able to pour it all into one at-bat – I’m not saving anything, I’m not hiding anything. It’s going to be my best from the moment you step in the box. … That moment, it just feels like all that competitive juice just gets compressed into that one at-bat, that one inning.”
On July 7, when Miller was selected for the American League All-Star team, none other than Fingers himself had high praise for what Miller has accomplished this year.
“He’s a big kid, he throws hard, he’s got a pretty good idea and he’s got pretty good control. I see him being around a while if he can stay healthy,” Fingers said on NBC Sports Bay Area. “He does throw hard. He has nasty stuff. I don’t think I’d want to face him. He’s going to be around a while as a closer.”
Miller came up in Oakland’s system as a starting pitcher and fired seven no-hit innings in his third career start. But it appears he’s going to stick as a reliever. Miller won American League Reliever of the Month in April and may be in the conversation for Rookie of the Year.
He has found his role, and he’s playing it well: the next great A’s closer.
“I’m proud of the work that I’ve put in, so seeing it reflect on the field is almost the expectation I have for myself,” Miller said in May. “But seeing myself do it on the big stage or watching a video back, I think there’s definitely been some moments where it’s like, ‘I really did that.’”