

Bobby Valentine’s disastrous one-year tenure as manager of the Boston Red Sox helped at least one player: Andrew Miller.

Miller, who signed a four-year, $36 million contract with the New York Yankees over the offseason, looked like a first-round bust until Valentine converted the left-hander from a starter into a full-time reliever in 2012. That fact isn’t lost on Miller, who faced his former team Wednesday in a spring training game at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Fla.

“As all over the place as that year was, Bobby V was good for me,” Miller said Wednesday, according to the Boston Herald. “When I pitched for him, I came in a good situation. It was a rough year, there was a lot going on. But I felt like (reliever Scott Atchison) and I worked together and were kind of like the tandem seventh-inning kind of thing.

“I felt like I really got established with some confidence in the big leagues (in 2012), (telling myself) I can do this. I can get better at this. A lot of things happened, but they all seemed to work in my favor.”

Miller, the sixth overall pick in 2006, entered 2012 with a 5.79 ERA, a 1.75 WHIP and a 1.34 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 96 career games (66 starts). He since has posted a 2.57 ERA, a 1.05 WHIP and a 3.74 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 163 relief appearances.

Clearly, something clicked in 2012, when the Red Sox finished 69-93. And even if it wasn’t entirely Valentine’s tutelage, the former Sox skipper still handed Miller the keys to become more confident, and thus more successful, by carving out a consistent role for the up-and-down southpaw.

“It was huge,” Miller said. “Honestly, I don’t know what would’ve happened if I continued starting. Who knows where that would’ve gone? I felt like I really threw the ball well in ’12, and I think my improvements, number-wise, wasn’t so much me throwing better as it was me handling being a reliever better, understanding situations.”

Miller, now 29, is a rich World Series champion who’s regarded as one of the best late-inning lefties in Major League Baseball — just how Bobby V drew it up.

Thumbnail photo via Kim Klement/USA TODAY Sports Images