As is Baseball America, who named the Tigers first round draft pick as the 2006 College Player of the Year:
Andrew Miller's 13-2, 2.11 season stands as a key reason for North Carolina's first College World Series berth since 1989. But the junior lefthander would rather be known as one of many Tar Heels piled atop one another after Chad Flack's game-ending home run to clinch a super-regional series win at Alabama.
But Miller, all 6 feet and 6 inches of him, can't hide from the attention now. His dominant junior season, in which he posted a 119-36 strikeout-walk ratio and allowed seven extra-base hits (and only one home run) in 111 innings, not only helped him meet a personal goal of reaching Omaha, but also earned him Baseball America's College Player of the Year award.
"I appreciate all the awards and the accolades, but the biggest memory for me is going to be we went to Omaha and what we accomplished there," Miller said. "I certainly wouldn't want to have a good year on a team that's not as good. I've never really been a part of a team like this."
Miller becomes the sixth pitcher to win the award in the last 25 years and the first lefthander to ever claim the award. The honor--and humility--came in the middle of perhaps the best week in Miller's life. The Tigers drafted him sixth overall on a Tuesday, and three days later he struck out 11 Alabama batters over seven innings without allowing an earned run to put his team just one game from Omaha. He used his mid-90s four-seam fastball, 88-90 mph two-seamer and power slider to dominate the Crimson Tide, recording three strikeouts against leadoff man Emeel Salem.
"There's a reason he's the sixth pick in the draft. He's a great pitcher. And it's really hard to solve a guy like that," said Salem, who hit .356 and was the only consensus selection on the all-Southeastern Conference first team.
"He has three pitches and even movement on a 97 mile an hour fastball. We didn't capitalize when we had chances but he didn't make enough mistakes for us to get anything going."
Congrats goes out to Andrew Miller, as we can't wait to see what he can do with the Detroit organization.