Phillies top prospect Aidan Miller learned from his ‘first taste of failure’ during a rapid ascension to double A

Earlier this week, shortly after Phillies shortstop prospect Aidan Miller found out that he’d be heading to double-A Reading, he heard from two of his closest friends. One was a former teammate; the other, a future teammate.

“About time,” said Phillies outfield prospect Justin Crawford.

“You’re going to love it here,” said Angels pitching prospect George Klassen.

Klassen and Miller grew close in low-A Clearwater this season. A lot has changed since they shared a clubhouse. The hard-throwing righty was traded to the Angels as part of the Carlos Estevéz deal and since has been promoted to double A.

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Miller, who was taken in the first round of the 2023 draft and is ranked the No. 1 Phillies prospect by MLB Pipeline, has jumped from low A to high A and, as of Tuesday, to double A. He was a little surprised by the timing. The Phillies don’t typically promote their prospects that quickly, but it was a pleasant surprise, nonetheless.

His goal at the beginning of the year was to finish his season in Reading. Now he’s there with Crawford, who is one of his “best buddies.”

“He was super excited for me,” Miller said. “He reached out right away.”

The numbers don’t reflect it, but in some ways, this season has been challenging for Miller. It’s been challenging in the kind of ways you want a prospect to be challenged. After he was assigned to high-A Jersey Shore in June, he struggled. Through his first 20 games, Miller hit .171/.276/.303 with 20 strikeouts.

“It was really my first real taste of failure, I think, in baseball,” Miller said. “So learning how to deal with that, overcoming that, was big.”

Miller, 20, leaned on high-A hitting coach Adam Lind and manager Greg Brodzinski to work through it. Lind joined the Phillies’ player development staff in February, and played in the big leagues from 2006 to 2017. He hit at least 20 home runs in six of those 12 seasons.

“They were an incredible help to me,” Miller said. “They really just helped ease my mind with it and put things into perspective. They would tell me it’s never as bad and also never as good as you think.

“I was thinking about changing things with my swing and my load and all of this stuff, and realized it was just a normal baseball slump that players go through. Realizing that helped me ease my mind.”

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Lind said he has seen younger players get discouraged if they go hitless through their first few at-bats. He encouraged Miller to not resign himself to an 0-for-4 if he started 0-for-2.

“All you need is one good swing,” Lind said. “It doesn’t matter what happens in the cage, in [batting practice], or in your first three at-bats. Sometimes, the at-bats that change the game the most are your fourth or fifth at-bats.”

The message resonated. Miller hit .302/.392/.519 with a .909 OPS over his next 38 games with 37 strikeouts and 21 walks. He has hit .264/.372/.455 with 11 home runs across three levels this season. The Phillies saw enough to want to push him more.

They also wanted him to get more reps at shortstop, a position Miller has been bullish on his ability to play. Miller played short almost every day at Jersey Shore, but when Bryan Rincon was activated off the injured list on Aug. 27, their infield got a bit crowded.

Now, he’ll get everyday playing time in Reading.

“It was kind of my first time playing every single day,” Miller said. “I think it prepared me for being here because I think I’ll be doing the same here. It took a little bit to adjust, just normal soreness, but once I got a good routine, it kind of settled down a little bit.”

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He played his first two games in double A on Tuesday and Wednesday and is excited to finish out his minor league season. Klassen, for one, will be following along — and Miller will follow him too.

“We text every day, check in each other,” Miller said. “It’s tough to watch each other’s games because usually when he’s playing, I’m playing too. So I usually look at the box score and see how he did.”