Miller on road to redemption after tough 2016

America adores winners, celebrities and dominant athletes that bring glory to their respective cities. We also love redemption stories, and Shelby Miller has just finished a compelling first chapter.

He could be more than an early candidate for Comeback Player of the Year. He could be authoring a comeback story for the ages.

“Right now, we’re in a really good place,” Miller said. “We just have to keep it rolling.”

Miller’s debut season in the Valley was the stuff of nightmares. His acquisition was immediately ridiculed by many baseball experts who felt the Diamondbacks were fleeced in a trade with the Braves, giving up a king’s ransom to acquire a pitcher who had lost 17 games the previous season.

His subsequent failures only compounded the problem. He posted a 3-12 record and an ugly ERA of 6.15. He endured a season that featured a bizarre mechanical flaw that led him to bang his pitching hand off the mound in San Diego; cryptic comments from Tony La Russa, who said that Miller did something in his preparation “that worked against him;” a minor-league demotion that lasted six weeks; and late-season trade rumors that spoke of an organization looking to rid themselves of a public-relations debacle.

Majority owner Ken Kendrick and President/CEO Derrick Hall intervened, vetoing the trade proposal from General Manager Dave Stewart. And judging by the early returns, retaining Miller could be the best trade the Diamondbacks never made.

“I love this team,” Miller said. “I love where we’re at. I love this vibe, and I’m glad I’m here. I love the city of Phoenix and Arizona. Personally, I’m glad that trade didn’t go down.”

During Miller’s disastrous first impression in Arizona, there was a prevailing belief that the newly acquired starter was weak between the ears. That he was consumed with validating a controversial trade. That he was focused on the wrong things. That he was somehow mentally deficient, overly concerned with outside voices.

The perception was enforced by the organization’s coddling of Miller after every rough outing, where explanations seemed more like kid-glove alibis.

So far, Miller has strongly rebuffed that notion. He was so physically impressive when he reported for spring training that Diamondbacks executives noted Miller could barely fit through the door. The velocity on his fastball was staggering. He didn’t buckle when the games began to count in the standings. He worked into the eighth inning of his last performance, scattering four hits. His next victory will match his win total from 2016.

For a guy that lost 29 games in the past two seasons, along with the faith of a new audience in Arizona, his tenacity and resilience is admirable.

“It wasn’t who I got traded for, or the amount of talent I got traded for,” Miller said. “I don’t think that affected my performance at all. I just knew how bad I was performing. And it was hard to deal with, man. I’ve never experienced that in my entire life, in any year of baseball.

“I really wasn’t thinking about the perception, what everyone thought about me or if I was mentally weak. I was having to deal with it myself, and it was eating me up on the inside. And maybe I was pressing a little bit too hard, changing too many things, and I couldn’t get in a good state.”

Miller ended the season on a positive note, posting a rain-shortened, five-inning shutout in his final start. And when he departed for the offseason, he was determined to keep the momentum going, to never be a disappointment again.

“I wouldn’t say that mentally I was messed up,” Miller said. “Just more frustrated with myself and how I was performing. I knew I was better than that. It just sucked. Not only for myself, having to go through that, but for the fans and everyone else involved seeing me struggle like that. It wasn’t what you expected. My goal was to rebound off of that, do the best I could, and help the team win in 2017.”

Part of Miller’s success has been attributed to his consumption of “bulletproof coffee,” which has become the rage of Silicon Valley and touted by latenight host Jimmy Fallon. The concoction is coffee mixed with unsalted butter from grass-fed cows, along with a medium-chain triglyceride like coconut oil.

He first learned about the beverage from pitcher Matt Buschmann, a teammate in 2016 who was “like 33 years old and totally chiseled.”

“It has a ton of healthy fats,” Miller said. “People tend to shy away from eating butter and all these fats in the morning. But it’s what your body runs on. It gives you energy and it makes you feel really good. But there’s a recipe of a lot of things for why I’m having success now.”

They include a healthy diet, a commitment to physical fitness and a burning desire to prove that 2016 was an anomaly. That Shelby Miller isn’t a bust or a terrible trade, but an excellent starting pitcher who is part of solution and not part of the problem.

“We’re changing it from not trying to lose last year to what we can to do win every single day this year,” Miller said. “We think we have the team to win. Not only win games and just have a good year. But we think we have a team that can make the playoffs and make a deep run and hopefully win the World Series one day.”

That would be a stunning plot twist for the Diamondbacks, and a storybook ending for a pitcher who is rewriting his career in Arizona.