Richard Bleier's Weird Season

In previous posts, I've discussed the low ERA and low strikeout rates of both Richard Bleier and Miguel Castro. Still, Bleier's season is even more peculiar that I thought.

Using Baseball-Reference's Play Index, I searched for seasons in the Expansion Era (since 1961) where pitchers have posted an ERA under 2 and a K/9 of 4 or below (minimum of 50 innings pitched). Here are the results (sorted by year):

Results

Rk	Player	SO	ERA	SO9	IP	Year ▼	Age	Tm	G	FIP	ERA+
1	Richard Bleier	26	1.99	3.69	63.1	2017	30	BAL	57	4.37	219
2	Shigetoshi Hasegawa	32	1.48	3.95	73.0	2003	34	SEA	63	3.78	292
3	Terry Leach	22	1.95	2.69	73.2	1992	38	CHW	51	3.52	199
4	Dan Quisenberry	48	1.94	3.11	139.0	1983	30	KCR	69	2.86	210
5	Dan Quisenberry	20	1.73	2.89	62.1	1981	28	KCR	40	2.94	209
6	Rick Camp	33	1.91	2.74	108.1	1980	27	ATL	77	3.42	195
7	Greg Minton	33	1.81	3.73	79.2	1979	27	SFG	46	3.00	196
8	Tom Murphy	47	1.90	3.44	123.0	1974	28	MIL	70	3.74	189
9	Dale Murray	31	1.03	4.00	69.2	1974	24	MON	32	2.87	374
10	Jerry Bell	20	1.66	2.55	70.2	1972	24	MIL	25	3.55	183
11	Mudcat Grant	58	1.86	3.86	135.1	1970	34	TOT	80	3.52	193
12	Ron Kline	48	1.68	3.83	112.2	1968	36	PIT	56	2.76	173
13	Frank Linzy	38	1.51	3.57	95.2	1967	26	SFG	57	3.35	223
14	Hal Woodeshick	30	1.92	3.84	70.1	1966	33	STL	59	3.65	189
15	Frank Linzy	35	1.43	3.86	81.2	1965	24	SFG	57	2.93	253
16	Terry Fox	23	1.71	3.57	58.0	1962	26	DET	44	3.15	241

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 11/27/2017.

No one accomplished what Bleier did for 14 seasons. Since 1983, it's only happened three times!

Unless you think Bleier is the next Dan Quisenberry, a large portion of Bleier's success was due to good fortune. That doesn't mean he pitched poorly, of course. It'll just be extremely difficult to repeat his effectiveness to that level.

Bleier can still be useful, and the Orioles acquired him for basically nothing last February. But he probably won't post another ERA under 2. Nothing about that should be surprising.