Andrew Miller shut down for 2007

According to this article by Tigers beat writer Danny Knobler, Andrew Miller is done starting games for 2007. Miller was optioned back to High-A Lakeland but was told not to report and take a few days off and when the Tigers return from their series in Oakland, Chuck Hernandez and Andrew Miller will work together.

How does this relate to Jim Leyland? Well, he has admitted he pushed extremely hard to bring Miller up and feels no regrets for potentially stunting the best pitching prospect we had in the Minors (he's lost rookie status and for most prospect lists, no rookie status = not a prospect). He said that he took full responsibility for this failure but does not feel sad that he did it. Going as far as to say:

"At the time, I thought he gave us a better chance to win. He isn't quite ready for this. I'm not sad that I did it. Sometimes you find out a guy's ready, and sometimes you find out that he's not.

"We took our shot. We're not going to be bull-headed and do something stupid.''

Well it's a good thing you sent him down after his meltdown of a performance in Kansas City a couple days ago before you "did something stupid" like, stunt his growth, perhaps.

I don't know what's worse, a manager that gets to push for kids to come up early and perhaps stunt the growth of a top pitching prospect or a General Manager that lets his manager talk him into calling up a top pitching prospect and, consequently, possibly stunt his growth.