Lesser Brewers: Jeff Bianchi

In 2014, six players across the MLB had a .388 OBP or better. Another 95 had a slugging percentage of at least .388. Given the headline of the article, you can probably see where I'm going here. Jeff Bianchi, Brewers utility player extraordinaire, had an OPS -- a combined OBP and SLG -- of just .388.

Bianchi is one of the very best baseball players in the whole world. Anyone playing in the MLB is, of course. Relative to his peers, though, the guy pretty flat-out stinks at the plate. He's played three years in the majors and has a career line of ,216/.251/.283 over 162 games.

What he is good at, though, is defense. Bianchi can play all over the infield and even dabbled in left field a bit, and he does it all with a pretty slick glove. Unfortunately, defense can only get you so far. Even Gold Glovers need to hit a little bit to stay in a lineup. In 2013, he hit fir a 564 OPS and still appeared in 100 games. The Brewers bench was pretty poor in 2014, but BIanchi still couldn't manage to stay on the team.

Bianchi spent most of the first two months of the season in the majors before being outrighted to Triple-A. He came back up briefly mid-season, but was gone again in two weeks after an elbow strain. That was severe enough to see him eventually put on the 60-day DL, taking him back off the 40-man roster.

After the end of the season, the Brewers outrighted Bianchi again to remove him from the 40-man roster. Rather than accept an assignment in the minors, Bianchi has chosen to become a free agent.

Best Game

He had two hits and two RBI in a 5-3 win over the Cubs in April. So, I guess that.

Contract Status

Bianchi chose to become a free agent this off-season rather than take a minor league assignment.