ANAHEIM, Calif. • The most-prized arm in the Cardinals' system, kid pitcher Shelby Miller arrived at the Team USA clubhouse Sunday morning to see two personalized jerseys, a pair of Nike sunglasses, a new official-issue Cardinals hat, an All-Star logo-stamped ball and shiny cleats lined up neatly for him.
"Big-league atmosphere," he said. "That's for sure."
In other words: It's a long way from seventh-period art class.
Less than 14 months after graduating from Brownwood (Texas) High School, Miller appeared Sunday in the 12th annual Futures Game, the first event of All-Star week at Angels Stadium, and the yearly showcase of select prospects. Of the 50 players on the two Futures Game teams, only four were younger than Miller, 19. He and four others were at the lowest level represented, Low-A. A year ago, he was bouncing from art class — where even a project was a cause for competition, he said — to the Brownwood mound in the span of a few hours.
Now, he wakes up already on pro baseball's clock.
"I'm so young and these other guys (in the Team USA clubhouse) are at higher levels," Miller said. "It kind of reminds me of big-league camp in some ways. But everybody in here is doing the same thing as me, trying to make it to the big leagues. ... We're always working on something. It's a job, and I've learned you've got to put everything into it."
The Cardinals had two pitchers selected for the Futures Game — Miller, the team's first-round pick in 2009, and righty Eduardo Sanchez, a Venezuelan picked for the World team. The Cardinals signed Sanchez, a Class AAA reliever with an upper-90s fastball, as a 16-year-old free agent, back when he was throwing 89 mph. He's since blossomed as a late-inning prospect.
Each of the two batters Miller faced in the seventh inning Sunday chopped groundballs to shortstop. The righthander touched 96 mph with his fastball and pitched a scoreless two-thirds of an inning. Sanchez, who also hit 96 mph, got three groundballs but was undone by an error and a wild pitch that allowed one unearned run.
Like Sanchez, Miller was a first-time participant in major-league camp this past spring. Miller, drafted with the velocity Sanchez has developed, caught the eye of the big-league coaches in Jupiter, Fla. Pitching coach Dave Duncan lauded the youngster's poise in several big-league assignments.
Started at Low-A Quad Cities, Miller has made 14 starts, going 2-3 with a 3.96 ERA and 72 walks against 18 walks in 52 1/3 innings.
"I think he's starting to realize (the work ahead)," said Cardinals minor-league pitching coordinator Dyar Miller. "Early in the year, it was like he thought he'd jump right in and start blowing everybody away. After you see the league a couple times, it's like he understood, 'This is a little tougher than I thought.' It's not going to be quite as easy, and you saw him grow a lot."
The Cardinals are taking a conservative approach with the righty, and that could include a second break from game action after his Futures Game appearance.
At the end of May, the club removed him from the Quad Cities rotation and had him work, exclusively, in bullpen sessions. The goal was twofold. First, he needed to refine his curveball and changeup, and the side sessions provided a laboratory. Second, the Cardinals want to judiciously measure his innings.
Jeff Luhnow, the Cardinals vice president and farm director, said there is no strict innings limit for the teen ace. Rather, there are scheduled down times to keep the innings mileage from adding up.
"It's something we're concentrating on, and at the end of the day it's a judgment call on how we use him," Luhnow said. "The injury risk is higher for young pitchers in that 19-, 20-, 21-year-old range. We know that. The data tells us that. And we want to be careful exposing him to that workload. The injury rate is higher for pitchers who have not made it over that hump."
For guidance, the Cardinals are learning from what Texas did with a pitcher the Cardinals coveted. The Rangers took Blake Beavan with the 17th pick in the 2007 draft, one ahead of the Cardinals, who took shortstop Pete Kozma. Beavan, who was just traded to Seattle, spent his first year in Low-A and then leaped to High-A and Class AA in the next two seasons.
The minor-league Cardinals are also borrowing suggestions from the major-league staff. During Shelby Miller's three-week sabbatical, Dyar Miller contacted Duncan for suggestions and Luhnow said Duncan had input on the "blueprint" for the young arm's development. Duncan agreed with the mechanical adjustment the young righty had to make to improve his curveball. Instead of throwing across his body, his coaches worked with him to throw his curve hard and firm, like a fastball.
The side work's benefits revealed themselves last week. In a rain-shortened start, Miller threw three perfect innings and struck out seven of the nine batters he faced. His fastball routinely hit 95 mph. Since his break, Miller has allowed one run — on a homer — in 11 innings. He's struck out 16.
His secondary pitches "have come a long way, so far," Miller said. "We'll see how well that stuff works. I'm looking forward to throwing those pitches (in the Futures Game). But I know I'm a dominant fastball kind of guy, and I'll try to use my fastball most of the time."
The Cardinals are now considering keeping Miller at Low-A so he can be part of a playoff team. It's an experience Luhnow would like Miller to have. Ditto with the Futures Game, where even as one of its youngest players Miller "got to sense the pomp and circumstance of the All-Star Game and see it's an inspiring event that should make him aspire to get back there," Luhnow said.
Miller learned about his spot in the Futures Game from his father, Mitch, who couldn't keep a secret so the kid's agent could tell him. Mitch has driven from coast to coast to watch his son pitch this season. In the family Denali, Mitch hauled from Brownwood to Jupiter for Miller's big-league spring appearances, and he drove the 1,300 miles to Anaheim on Friday to see the Futures Game.
Mitch has traveled the distance from high school to the majors, literally.
Shelby is getting a feel for how far it actually is.
"It's a grind, and you're really on your own and you've got to grow up a lot," Miller said. "I'm here to try and make my dreams come true and make it to the big leagues someday. The minor leagues and doing it the way I am now is the only way to do it. Not everybody is Stephen Strasburg.
"You've got to wear out the minor leagues first."
