Richard Sidney Bleier was born on April 16, 1987, he is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Miami Marlins of Major League Baseball (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 MLB 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 was traded from Baltimore to the Miami Marlins on July 31, 2020, in a transaction that was completed seven weeks later when the Orioles received minor-league shortstop Isaac De León on September 18.
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 of pitches outside the strike zone of 42.1% (second-highest in the NL, again behind DeGrom).
Richard Bleier signed a 2 year / $6,000,000 contract with the Miami Marlins, including $6,000,000 guaranteed, and an annual average salary of $3,000,000. In 2022, Bleier will earn a base salary of $2,250,000, while carrying a total salary of $2,250,000.