Belleville’s Millas worked through growing pains for shot at Nationals’ big league roster
The overwhelming majority of baseball fans in the metro east who take a trip to Florida for spring training find themselves magnetized to Jupiter, home of the St. Louis Cardinals and the central location for the five teams nestled along the Atlantic coast.
That’s true to an extent even for Washington Nationals catcher Drew Millas’s family as they to visit their burgeoning big leaguer.
Ten miles south, in a complex the Nationals share with the Houston Astros, Millas is grinding through sets of morning meetings and workouts before seizing on his opportunities for playing time as often as he can.
“My grandma definitely sneaks off,” he said through a wry smile on Tuesday morning at his locker in the Nationals clubhouse. “She freakin’ bleeds that Cardinal red.”
Washington’s white and blue, at least, make for a natural pairing. That’s especially true for the family of the late, long-time Belleville East baseball coach Rev. Larry Patton, who is Millas’s grandfather and whose name, Millas pointed out, adorns a brick in the sidewalk of the Cardinals spring complex.
Now 27, Millas was originally drafted by the then-Oakland Athletics in the seventh round of the 2019 MLB Draft before being traded to Washington in 2021 in a deal which sent out big league veterans Yan Gomes and Josh Harrison. Those Nationals were nearing the bottom of the barrel just two years after their run to a world championship in 2019, and flipping established veterans for intriguing prospects became their first order of business.
As a result, Millas found himself in High-A Wilmington, starting near the bottom of the organizational chart for a team at the bottom of the standings. With nowhere to climb but up, Millas and his team have been growing in parallel, until now both find themselves on the cusp of making real noise in the big leagues.
“There’s a lot of growing pains, for sure,” Millas said of working through the minors with a franchise on the rebound. “You do see some mistakes throughout the game that probably shouldn’t happen at the big league level, but you also see stuff that’s like, wow. This guy’s gonna be really good.”
As a switch-hitting catcher who has handled seemingly all of the young pitchers who now will be relied on to form an important part of Washington’s core, Millas finds himself in the difficult position of having to be responsible in part for their own development as well as his own. Everyone playing in the minors wants to play in the majors, but the extra work which is heaped on catchers means there’s a required degree of selflessness which accompanies that position.
“He works as hard as anybody I’ve ever seen,” said Nationals pitcher Jackson Rutledge, himself a native of the St. Louis area who has risen in parallel with Millas through the Nationals’ system. “Just studying the game, kind of preparing for games is pretty good, even at Triple-A, which is kind of hard to do with a lot less scouting reports. He kind of finds stuff and takes notes after games, which is pretty unique.”
“He knows these guys,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said of Millas’s relationship with the pitchers. “A lot of the stuff that we do, we talked to him a lot because of what he’s done with them in the minor leagues. It’s really good.”
Millas credited his ability to execute that preparation to Washington’s coaching and video staff, who have provided him with expanded access to the team’s internal video system in order to allow him to work through the kinds of video study in the minors which are expected in the majors.
The Nationals, like many other big league teams, utilize a service called TruMedia, which integrates Statcast data and other relevant reports into the video footage to give a more complete view of the game as it’s unfolding.
“I kind of like to do my own thing,” Millas explained.
The Washington coaching staff – starting with pitching coach Jim Hickey and pitching strategist Sean Doolittle – has been supportive in that effort, he added.
Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo, upon being approached by a reporter who mentioned he was asking about Millas, exclaimed, “we love Drew!” before enthusiastically confirming all that his teammates had to say about his skills and work ethic.
“He does a good job,” Rizzo said. “He’s a professional. He does a good job with our young pitching staff, and him being a young catcher, it’s a good mix.”
As spring approaches its halfway point, Millas’s assignment to open the season remains up in the air. Keibert Ruiz is Washington’s starting catcher and carries a significant contractual commitment, though his struggles in 2024 have opened up the possibility of challenges from lower on the depth chart.
Former Cardinals catcher Andrew Knizner is in camp with the Nationals on a minor league contract, and incumbent backup Riley Adams remains on the roster as well. Still, Millas has posted superior numbers to all the others in that group at advanced levels over the last two seasons, and the competition for roster spots is real.
His growth along with that of his team can only help his standing as well as his team’s confidence in him.
“You see the growing pains happening real time,” he said. “The key is just not getting discouraged and understanding that there’s a big vision and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I think as a group, we’re kind of learning that and taking a good step forward.”
That will be a valuable lesson in St. Louis in the coming years, as the Cardinals prepare themselves for the stiff headwinds which are sure to come along with their reset-come-transition period. There are valuable lessons to be learned in watching a team struggle as the Nationals have, not the least among them that there’s no guarantee of returning to success.
The Nationals lead the major leagues in losses since 2020, the year in which they were defending their World Series title. To go from the top to the bottom with intent requires inordinate amounts of patience, though it does make it a little easier to convince your family and friends to come visit.
“I’ve gotta be careful with where they step foot out there during practice,” a beaming Millas said of his enthusiastic supporters at home. “If you let him, my dad will just come in the cages right with us.”
Given the reception the younger Millas receives from his teammates and those in the front office, that might be more appreciated than he realizes.
