A former New York Yankees reliever is ending his baseball career after an underrated eight years in The Show.
Southpaw relief pitcher Richard Bleier took to his Instagram account to announce his retirement. He made his MLB debut with the Yankees back in 2016 and has bounced around between a few clubs since then.
The 37-year-old will call it quits with a 3.27 career ERA and 1.217 WHIP. He was never a strikeout pitcher, just 5.1 K/9, but was a solid situational reliever who was more effective than most might remember.
His biggest attribute was always his control, showcased by a 1.5 BB/9 for his career.
Bleier played college baseball for the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles and is actually one of the best pitchers in school history. He had a 2.70 ERA for them and was named to their Hall of Fame a couple of years ago.
Even though he was so effective in college, his professional career took a while to get going. He was a sixth-round selection by the Texas Rangers back in 2008. That means it took him eight years and some change to get to the Majors.
It isn’t that he was awful or anything, it just took a while for him to show enough to get the chance. He sat with an ERA in the mid-to-low 3.00s for a while and was giving up hits at an alarming rate.
A pitcher with a double-digit hit rate and sub-5.00 strikeout-rate doesn’t scream Major League success.
He was stashed a few years with the Rangers before the Toronto Blue Jays nabbed him in the Triple-A section of the Rule 5 draft back in 2014. After stopping there and with the Washington Nationals system, New York finally gave him the minor-league deal that got him to MLB.
Bleier started the year at Triple-A, but was even better in the Majors after getting called up. He had a 1.96 ERA in 23 appearances and finally broke out.
The following season, he was traded to the Baltimore Orioles.
He moved around the league and put together a solid career. His last MLB season was in 2023 with the Boston Red Sox where he had a 5.28 ERA. He spent 2024 at Triple-A for the Washington Nationals.
