BIOGRAPHY
Richard Bleier was born April 16, 1987, in Davie, Florida. He is a pitcher in the MLB.
In high school, he was a State of Florida All Star in 2005. In his junior year of college at Florida Gulf Coast University, he was selected unanimously as the Atlantic Sun Conference Pitcher of the Year and First Team All Sun Conference. The Texas Rangers selected Bleier in the sixth round of the 2008 Major League Baseball draft. In 2009, his 125 strikeouts were the second-most in the Rangers' minor league system, and he gave up the fewest walks-per-9 innings in the California League. Bleier signed with the Washington Nationals organization before the 2015 season, pitched for the Harrisburg Senators that year, and had the most wins (14) and the lowest ERA (2.57) of all minor league pitchers in the Nationals minor league system. He was a 2015 post-season Class AA Eastern League All Star, and was voted a Washington organization All Star by MiLB.com.
Bleier was called up to the majors for the first time on May 26, 2016, by the New York Yankees. He debuted in the majors on May 30, becoming the 27th Yankee to wear uniform number 50. His debut followed nine minor league seasons in which he pitched 956 innings. Bleier was one of 12 Yankees pitchers since 1919 to make his debut after turning 29 years old and the first since Amauri Sanit in 2011. He became the third former FGCU player to play in the majors, joining pitchers Chris Sale and Casey Coleman.
Yankee manager Joe Girardi said: "I can use him either way – for distance or I could use him if I wanted (to pitch to) a couple lefties. He’s a ground ball guy. He gets a ton of ground balls.... He was a starter down there, so he’s built up." In 23 relief appearances in 2016, he had two holds and a 1.96 ERA, and left-handed batters hit .150 against him.
In 2021, Bleier was 3–2 with 20 holds (10th in the NL), a 2.95 ERA, and an 0.98 WHIP. In a career-high 68 games he pitched 58 innings, and averaged 0.93 walks per 9 innings (the lowest rate in the NL); of the six walks that he gave up, three were intentional walks. He also had a ground ball percentage of 65.5% (tops in the NL), a fly ball percentage of 14.9% (lowest in the NL), a first-ball-strike percentage of 71.1% (highest in the NL), a strikeout/walk ratio of 7.33 (second-best in the league behind Jacob DeGrom), and induced a swing percentage at pitches outside the strike zone of 42.1% (second-highest in the NL, again behind DeGrom). Batters only hit barrels against him 4.1% of the time (in the lowest 5% of major league pitchers), and swung with a 36.7% chase rate (in the top 2% of major league pitchers).
On July 20, 2021, he was ejected for the first time in his career, as a result of flipping off the umpires. Bleier had disagreed with a HBP call on Alcides Escobar, believing that Escobar had swung at the pitch.
Of major league pitchers who had pitched 240 or more innings from 2016 to 2021, Bleier was 2nd in fewest walks per 9 innings (1.41), 3rd in fewest home runs per 9 innings (0.58), fewest strikeouts per 9 innings (5.02), and lowest fly ball percentage (18.7%), and 4th in ground ball percentage (63.5%).
For the 2022 season, Bleier was 2–2 with one save, seven holds, and a 3.55 ERA in 50 games (one start) covering 50.2 innings in which he gave up 10 walks (3 intentional). He induced a 52.5% ground ball rate, and 0.53 home runs/9 innings. In 2022, he relied primarily on his heavy sinker (90 mph; 49% of the time) and cutter (87 mph), mixing in a slider (78 mph) and changeup (83 mph), with a rare heavy-sinking four-seam fastball (91 mph).
Since 1990, Bleier had the third-lowest career walk rate (4%) among relievers with at least 250 innings pitched. In his career through 2022, with two outs and runners in scoring position, he had held batters to a .231 batting average and .286 slugging percentage, not allowing any home runs when facing 168 batters.
