Richard Bleier

A lefty member of the Orioles' back-end committee in 2019, Bleier was flipped to the Marlins for a PTBNL a week into the 2020 season. He missed time with a triceps strain, but his performance on the field impressed the Marlins enough for the team to tender him a contract for 2021.

For the third straight season, Bleier posted a sub-2.00 ERA, despite most ERA estimators portending about twice that. Granted, two of the three years were partial campaigns. Before season-ending surgery in June on his left shoulder, Bleier tossed 32 frames with a 1.93 ERA, essentially half of a 3.81 SIERA and 4.02 xFIP. Usually, it's a high strikeout rate driving this, but Bleier matched his career mark of just 11%, instead entrusting his ability to locate, a 59% groundball rate and a 21% hard-hit rate, third lowest among pitchers tossing at least 30 innings. The southpaw relies on an 89-mph sinker and cutter, mixing in a fastball, curve and slider. Even though Bleier is supposed to be fully recovered from surgery, his low strikeout rate precludes him from fantasy relevance, even in the off chance he continues to defy the ERA estimators.

Bleier came over to the Orioles from the Yankees during spring training in a rare intra-divisional trade between the two clubs. He flirted with danger a fair bit in 2017, but his 88 percent strand rate allowed him to escape with strong ratios. His FIP checked in at 4.42 and his BABIP was well below league-average at .268. Outpitching his peripherals to that extent in a second consecutive year would be an astounding feat. History suggests extreme regression is likely. Look for Bleier to be a heavily-used middle reliever that doesn't provide the strikeout (3.7 K/9 in 2017) or ratio upside to be useful in the vast majority of formats.

At age 29, Bleier made his major league debut and served primarily as a lower-leverage, left-handed specialist. Though he ended up shuttling back and forth between the majors and minors, the Bleier was more effective with the Yankees and worked to a 1.96 ERA over 23 appearances. His stuff isn't overpowering -- his average fastball velocity in the majors was just a tick over 89 mph -- so the 29-year-old has always relied more on inducing groundballs than racking up strikeouts. That held true in his rookie season with just 13 strikeouts in 23 innings, but he's been able to make it work without swing-and-miss stuff for the most part. Bleier was also especially effective against lefties, as he limited them to just a .150/.209/.200 slash line. It's unlikely he'll turn into much of a contributor in fantasy formats, but he should get a shot to make the Opening Day roster.