Last winter, the Cardinals cleaned relief house, including their LOOGys, whose wildness — Ron Villone’s 6.7 BB/9 and Randy Flores’s 7.0 — became too much to bear. After stymying the Cardinals as an Astro, Miller gained fame in 2008 with the AL champion Rays, and the Cardinals moved quickly after the end of the season to add him. After a physical revealed some damage, John Mozeliak adroitly redid Miller’s contract based on performance, and the deal worked out for both parties, as Miller equalled a career low in BB/9 with 2.3, was second on the team with a 4.18 K/BB and led the ‘pen with a 3.50 xFIP … Has evidently completely phased out his curveball, down from 1.4% of his repertoire in 2007 to 0.6% in 2008 to 0% in 2009. He’s throwing fewer fastballs and increasingly relying on sliders, which he threw 40.2% of the time, the most frequent on the staff; for good reason: it was his most-effective pitch at 2.98 runs above average per 100 pitches … his defense turned balls in play into outs more often than for any other Cardinal pitcher, at a rate of .761.

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