Sam Blum of The Athletic published an article this morning alleging that Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Wade Miley was one of the people who supplied Tyler Skaggs with narcotics during his career. Skaggs died of an overdose on July 1, 2019, while still an active player with the Los Angeles Angels.
The Blum story is based on court records that were unintentionally made public in the Skaggs family’s ongoing civil dispute against the Angels. Within those records were depositions from CAA’s co-lead of the baseball division, Ryan Hamill, and a taped phone call from prison from Eric Kay (the Angels former director of communications who is in prison on two charges linked to Skaggs’ death).
Both of these implicated Wade Miley in giving Skaggs with Percocets. Hamill stated that Skaggs informed him that he was getting them from Miley in 2013. Skaggs and Miley were teammates for the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2012 and 2013, when Skaggs was 20 and 21, and Miley was 25 and 26. After the 2013 season, the Diamondbacks traded Skaggs to the Angels.
Wade Miley, through his agency, declined to comment on the matter. Because the Reds are off today, reporters haven’t been able to question him directly.
It’s quite unlikely that anyone will receive a remark, and if they do, it will most likely be something along the lines of “we can’t comment on something with a lawsuit still pending.” Again, this all came out in a civil action, and Miley has not been charged with any crimes, nor does it appear that he has been investigated for any.
Perhaps the more important question is how the Reds will respond. When the Aroldis Chapman problem erupted, the team sought to get rid of him. However, they are the same team who was comfortable with bringing in Alfredo Simon despite his ongoing criminal issue.
The difference between those two scenarios is that they happened at the same moment, but Miley’s incident appears to have occurred over a decade ago and we are only now learning about it.
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