You could figure Elias for 170 innings, if you stuck him in the Seattle rotation and left him there. Probably more, actually...but let's make it 170. Miley gives you 200. Miley has a career .97 GB's to FB's. Elias has a .84. Miley walks 2,8 per 9, Elias 3.5. Over the last three years, Miley has allowed a OPS of .727, .746, 740. Elias has allowed .713 and .730 for us. He had no Home/Away split in '15 and a very small one in '14.
So in a typical start, Miley might walk half a batter less (also K'ing half a batter less) and get half a GB more.
Right now, that's it. I will admit, I like guys who throw 200 innings each and every. I will also admit that I struggling to see how Miley's 30 more innings are SO much better than Elias that you're willing to give up $27M (3 yrs) and Carson Smith to get them.
Aro? His AA/AAA numbers in '15 were right about what Smith racked up in the bigs. Does his game (FB/SL/Change....throwing the FB 70% of the time in Boston) translate as well as Smith's? Who knows.
I imagine the whole trade came down to Dipoto offering Elias for Miley and Boston, smelling the blood in the water and a GM needing a "reliable" starter, said the deal could be done if Smith was included. And we bit.
BTW, looks like Texas is peddling Moreland: Do they see our man Kivlehan at 1B on Opening Day?
OK...pointing out the obvious: For the Miley salary, we could have had Elias, 'Kuma and Smith.
There will be teams that roll out a lot worse rotations than we will. Felix, Walker, Karns, Miley, Paxton is potentially pretty dang good.
Go team. But I'm scratching my head on the value of those 30 extra innings and a GB here and there.
In Miley's 32 starts last season, he went 7 or more innings 11 times and less than 6 innings 9 times. By my count, he went 6+ innings with 3 or less ER's 17 times. He'll give you a quality start.
As Doc is pointing out, we're paying for reliablity.