Muller becomes first Yellowjacket in professional baseball

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Evan O’Kelly Director of Communications O: (406) 657-2130 E: evan.okelly@msubillings.edu Sunday, June 18, 2017 Muller becomes first Yellowjacket in professional baseball

Brady Muller, who pitched in four seasons at MSUB, is signed to a professional contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks and will make his debut in his home state with the Missoula Osprey.

BILLINGS, Mont. – Ron Biga walked with care towards the mound at Standard Bank Stadium in Chicago on Saturday night, getting ready to make the most important pitching change of his managerial career.

Brady Muller had worked into the eighth inning with his team leading 3-0, but Biga’s intentional stroll to the hill had less to do with the runner on first and Muller’s pitch count than it did with the priceless piece of information he possessed.

“You don’t play for me anymore,” Biga said to the 6-foot-1 left-hander. “Your contract has been picked up by the Arizona Diamondbacks. Congratulations.”

Unlike any coaching visit he’d received in his nearly 20 years of baseball, Muller was stunned by the news. When he received an email later that night with a flight itinerary for 7 a.m. Sunday morning, it began to sink in that Muller would make his professional debut in his home state of Montana.

“I didn’t know what to think and I was kind of in shock,” said the Billings native and 2015 graduate of Montana State University Billings. “It’s definitely going to be cool to play in front of my family and the hometown crowd.”

Assigned to the Missoula Osprey of the Pioneer League, Muller will be stationed just five hours west of his former home as a Yellowjacket, and Billings Scarlet during his American Legion days. Fittingly, the Osprey open their 2017 campaign Monday night against the Billings Mustangs, at Dehler Park where Muller etched his name at the top of the MSUB record books. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m., and when Muller eventually makes his debut he will become the first Yellowjacket to play professionally with a Major League Baseball affiliate club.

Biga will undoubtedly follow the pitcher who came to him in late August of 2015, and who has been determined to improve to the point of signing a professional contract ever since. “I’ve just been working on understanding myself and figuring out how to pitch properly,” Muller commented on the last two summers after his final pitch for the ‘Jackets in the spring of 2015. “I have been messing around with my slider grip, and I want to be able to work off that and throw it in counts where I need it.”

Muller has spent time coaching with Triple Play Academy in Billings in the meantime, giving back to a baseball community that fostered one of the best to ever pitch for the ‘Jackets. Muller holds the career records for wins (20), innings pitched (269.2), games started (41), and batters faced (1,258), and his four-year strikeout total of 232 is second most at MSUB and fourth-most in the history of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.

In his senior season in 2015, Muller went 6-2 with a team-best 79 strikeouts in 79 innings pitched. He helped the ‘Jackets to their firstever GNAC championship title, and threw his final career collegiate pitch at Dehler Park in the conference tournament on May 7, 2015.

Though he was in talks with professional scouts directly after college, namely with the Atlanta Braves organization, Muller was never selected in the Major League Baseball Amateur Draft. “They just told me that I had to find another way to get to professional ball,” Muller commented on the Braves passing him up in the draft.

Muller pitched for the Liberal Bee Jays in Kansas in his first summer after college, before joining the Windy City ThunderBolts for the full 2016 season. “He was raw when he first came to me,” said Biga. “Last year he got better, but had to battle an injury. He worked really hard during the off-season, and that was starting to show early on this year.”

Muller pitching at Dehler Park during his senior season with the Yellowjackets in 2015.

On Saturday afternoon, Biga received a call from the Diamondbacks’ front office informing him of the purchase of Muller’s contract. Already having lost pitchers to the Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals earlier in the week, Biga lobbied for Muller to make his scheduled start that evening before cutting him loose.

Though he never planned on the dramatic mound visit, the stage was set for a once-in-a-lifetime meeting at the center of the diamond. “It never quite works out the way it did last night; they either don’t need the guy that day, or he’s not starting,” Biga said referring to player contracts being selected by professional clubs. “I told my G.M. that if it worked out that he had a good outing and we were winning, that when I went out to get him I was going to tell him the news.

We had it set up to be pretty special if it all lined up, and it did.”

A standing ovation and video-board congratulatory message as Muller exited strayed far from the normal protocol of relaying the best news of a young ballplayer’s life. “I didn’t know anything about it,” Muller said. “Before the eighth, (my manager) asked me if I had one more batter, and when the batter got on base he came out to get me. He said I had thrown my last pitch for him and that the Diamondbacks had picked up my contract.”

Muller has known no bounds in his pursuit of pitching professionally, relentlessly attacking pitching workouts often times without being a member of a team or not knowing when his next in-game start would come. For never giving up, Muller is being rewarded with much more than just a professional contract.

“It hasn’t set in yet that I’ll be pitching at home, but it’s definitely going to be an experience,” Muller said. “Until I step out there, it’s not going to set in.”

Follow Muller throughout the 2017 season through the Missoula Osprey website here.

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