New Rangers broadcaster Brad Miller reflects on his two stints with Phillies: ‘Philly will always be a special place’
PHILADELPHIA — The most popular guy at Citizens Bank Park during the opening series has to be “Bamboo Brad.”
Brad Miller, the two-time Phillie who hit 32 home runs combined with the club in 2019 and 2021, is back in town as a member of the Texas Rangers broadcast team. Many Phillies coaches, staff and players stopped behind the batting cages pregame this weekend to catch up with Miller. It’s been five years since his last appearance with the Phillies, but he has connections up-and-down the current roster.
“Philly will always be a special place,” Miller said on Saturday. “The last two places I ended up getting to play in Philly and Texas, you know, that part of my life and career were amazing. And I love this place. Wasn’t always good. There were some ups and downs, but I think overall, I played well and I contributed. And that was fun. I had some great memories.”
Miller was once teammates with 12 of the 26 players on the 2026 Phillies Opening Day roster, including eight of the 13 position players. He played with 17-year-old Taijuan Walker in the minor leagues with Seattle. He remembers being in major league spring training with Bryson Stott, who was still a year away from debuting. Miller called Alec Bohm, then a second-year player when the two were teammates in 2021, a “grown up.”
“And (Rafael) Marchan. I was talking to Marchan and I was like, ‘How old are you now?’ He’s like, ‘I’m 27,’ which is crazy because he was 21 or 22 when I played with him,” Miller said.
Miller began his broadcasting career with the Rangers last year, calling about four series in 2025 for Bally Sports Southwest. He last appeared in the majors with Texas in 2023, the year the Rangers won the World Series. He signed a minor league deal with the San Diego Padres in 2024, but didn’t make the team. He officially retired from the game after the 2025 season.
He expects to double his workload this year as the Rangers transition to their own broadcast network. He’s an analyst on the club’s pre-and postgame shows.
He’s well-equipped to talk about the Rangers’ first opponent of the regular season.
“Just lucky to be able to be here for Opening Day, honestly,” Miller said. “When I saw (the Phillies) on the schedule, I was definitely hoping I was able to work this.”
Miller was originally acquired by the Matt Klentak-led front office in June 2019 in a cash deal with the New York Yankees. A streaky power bat from the left-hand side, Miller played five different positions that year for a Phillies lineup that was shorthanded after Andrew McCutchen tore his ACL. He also introduced a lucky bamboo plant into the clubhouse at the end of June that turned a seven-game losing streak into a four-game winning streak. The bamboo plant, which Miller found at a local shop in Chinatown, is long dead and in the trash, but Miller’s impact is still felt.
Rob Thomson has a newer bamboo plant in his office. “He’s a great guy,” Thomson, who was the Phillies bench coach when Miller was around, said.
Miller was re-signed by Dave Dombrowski in 2021 after spending the 2020 season with the St. Louis Cardinals.
Miller went on an all-time heater at the very end of the 2019 season. In the last nine games of that year, Miller had three multi-home run games, raising his season OPS by nearly 100 points in that short span.
Another veteran bat the Phillies picked up that year in June, Jay Bruce, was the mastermind behind the streak, according to Miller.
“I remember specifically, we’re in Cleveland and I felt really bad,” Miller said. “This is how baseball works. And Jay Bruce had helped me with some sort of swing thought. We’re taking batting practice, I’m trying to figure it out. And Jay Bruce gave me a little thing that he feels and that made sense. Next thing you know, I have a two homer game in Cleveland. And then I had another one in Washington. It was just, then you gain confidence and then it just keeps going. But it was wild. That last day of the season, you know, I know we didn’t make the playoffs, so it was a little bittersweet, but hitting two homers. I kind of wish the season would have kept going a little bit, but I just remember Jay telling me something that kind of clicked and got me in a good spot and had a cool end to the season.”
For someone with only 507 total plate appearances with the Phillies, Miller has plenty of signature moments. The multi-home run games and the grand slam walk-off home run in extra innings of a seven-inning doubleheader in July of 2021 come to mind.
Miller, however, loved having the best view of another walk-off grand slam: the Bryce Harper one against the Chicago Cubs in 2019 and the events leading up to it. He was on third as Harper blasted the ball into the second deck of right field.
“That was a crazy inning,” Miller said. “César Hernandez with a little seeing-eye single, me with a seeing-eye single. We’re fighting back, and then Bryce takes the pitch and obviously hits it over the moon. And I was, you know, like 60 feet from him. That was amazing.”
It may have been the closest Miller had to the “Red October” experience that eluded him. The Phillies were one win away from meeting his Rangers in the World Series in 2023. Miller missed the entire postseason that year with a hamstring strain, but he said seeing his team take on the Phillies, with all the connections he had to the other side, would have been tough.
“I was very worried about that,” Miller said.
The 2026 version of the Phillies has a chance to get back to the World Series. The Phillies are “running it back” with many of the same players Miller shared the field with five years ago.
As an outsider, Miller has a more broad perspective on how the Phillies stack up compared to other teams.
“I love running it back when you got all these great players,” Miller said. “I mean, they are loaded and I think they have done a really good job over the years of bringing their guys back. They’ve had a lot of really, I mean, superstar level players and they’ve done a great job of committing to them and bringing them back, and it’s a great crew.
“But the team with that type of roster, of course there are high expectations. But yeah, I mean, obviously, their division is very tough, but I love it. They are loaded all over the place and they’re going to be OK. Cris Sánchez was ridiculous. Hopefully they get Wheeler back soon. Yeah, they’re going to be all right.”