Veteran reliever opts out of minors deal with Nationals

Left-hander Richard Bleier has opted out of his minor league deal with the Nationals, reports Andrew Golden of The Washington Post. He’ll head to the open market and will be free to pursue opportunities with all 30 clubs.

Bleier, 37, signed a minor league deal with the Nationals in February. He joined them in spring training as a non-roster invitee and posted 1.69 earned run average over 10 2/3 innings. He didn’t get a roster spot out of camp and reported to Triple-A Rochester.

He threw 16 2/3 innings for that club with a 4.32 ERA. He only struck out 14.7% of batters faced, but Bleier has always been a low-strikeout guy who succeeds by keeping the ball on the ground and avoiding free passes. He walked just 2.9% of batters faced for the Red Wings and got grounders on 51.8% of balls in play.

Those numbers are all roughly in line with his career work in the majors as a journeyman grounder specialist. He has 330 1/3 innings of big league experience with the Yankees, Orioles, Marlins and Red Sox. Over that time, he has a 3.27 ERA, 13.6% strikeout rate, 3.9% walk rate and 60.9% ground ball rate.

The Nationals have selected the contracts of other veterans to their bullpen this year, such as Derek Law, Jacob Barnes and Matt Barnes. It seems that Bleier didn’t expect to be next in line, so he will look for opportunities elsewhere. Left-handed relief tends to always be in demand and many clubs around the league are dealing with mounting injuries, which could open opportunities for Bleier.