Aidan Miller: Phillies 2024 Minor League Player Of The Year
Aidan Miller’s goal for this season was to finish the year at Double-A, and for a while, he wasn’t sure if he’d reach it.
Miller started the season at Low-A Clearwater and moved to High-A Jersey Shore on June 11. At the two Class A stops, he hit .265/.373/.460 with 11 home runs and 22 stolen bases in 97 games.
The minor league season was winding down, so Miller thought he might have been running out of time. But the Phillies wanted to challenge him, so they promoted him to Double-A on Sept. 3. He appeared in five games for Reading.
“I was a little surprised at first, because there was only a week left in our season at High-A,” Miller said, “so in the back of my head I was like, ‘I’ll probably finish the year and get there next year.’
“But I got a call when I was at Walmart getting groceries, and my manager was like, ‘You might want to put a hold on that. You’re going to Reading.’ “
Nobody who has followed Miller’s season should be surprised. The 20-year-old shortstop fell to the 27th overall pick of the 2023 draft because of a left hamate bone injury that caused him to miss time his senior year of high school in the Tampa area.
He’s been making teams regret their decisions ever since.
Miller has plus power, hits for contact and has a mature approach at the plate. He struggled in his first few weeks at High-A, batting below the Mendoza line across 58 at-bats in June. But he responded well to the adversity and didn’t panic—despite the temptation to tinker with his swing.
“(I realized) it was just a normal baseball slump,” Miller said. “That helped me ease my mind and helped me get through it.”
He put up a .907 OPS in 25 August games, with three home runs.
Miller spent the bulk of his time at shortstop in Double-A—which is another reason he was promoted. Bryan Rincon was activated off the High-A injured list in late August, and the Phillies wanted each player to get consistent reps at shortstop.
