Why The Guardians Chose Owen Miller Over Tyler Freeman
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Roster moves are never easy. Bringing up one guy means sending another down or letting them go. That's exactly what we saw on Saturday with Tyler Freeman being optioned to Triple-A in a series of roster moves made by Cleveland.
A lot of fans may have seen this move and thought, "Why not option Miller and keep Freeman around." I'll admit it, I had the same thought.
Now, I don't control the roster, so I don't know the exact reasons why Chris Antonetti and company make the decision they do. But after thinking about it, there are a few valid reasons to keep Owen Miller on the roster, for now.
The first is the first base conundrum. Optioning Miller would've meant there would've only been one first baseman on the roster, and that's Josh Naylor. I understand that Gabriel Arias has played a little bit there, but not enough to say it's a true position for him.
Sure in time Arias could get there. But for now, having someone who's played the position all season with Miller isn't a terrible idea.
The second is that Miller hasn't been all that bad lately. The defense at first base can definitely be questionable at times, but the offense has been there.
He had a batting average of .275 in the month of September which is the best he's had since back in April. This included a 10-game hit streak from September 3 to September 17.
It's also very possible that this is a temporary move and we will see Freeman right back on the roster for the postseason, but we'll have to wait until later in the week to see if that's the case.
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