The Cubs have claimed catcher Rene Rivera off waivers from the Mets, the teams have announced. To clear space for Rivera on their roster, the Cubs have designated righty Aaron Brooks for assignment.
Rivera is the latest veteran to leave the Mets this month, following the trades of Jay Bruce, Neil Walker and Curtis Granderson. The 34-year-old Rivera has hit a modest .230/.278/.391 in 187 plate appearances this season and has never been an outstanding hitter, with a career .215/.266/.340 line in parts of nine big-league seasons with the Mariners, Twins, Padres and Rays in addition to the Mets. He has, however, long rated as a strong defender and framer, two skills the Cubs surely value. (The Cubs had, in fact, been connected to Rivera before they acquired Alex Avila last month.) With Willson Contreras on the DL with a hamstring strain, Rivera will presumably back up Avila. He is making $1.75MM this season and is eligible for free agency at season’s end.
The 27-year-old Brooks arrived from the Athletics organization prior to the 2016 season and initially looked like he would provide good starting pitching depth, but he missed most of that season with a hip issue and hasn’t been the same since, posting a 6.20 ERA, 6.8 K/9, 1.8 BB/9 and 27 home runs allowed in 138 innings this season with Triple-A Iowa. He pitched for the Royals and A’s in 2015 but has not appeared in the big leagues since.
Claim? No trade? What happened to a deal with Houston, that was so widely reported? What’s next? Matz to the Yankees for a mascot?
No Alderson wouldn’t do a trade with New York. He wouldn’t take better packages from the Yankees for Duda, Reed, and Bruce than what Tampa, Boston, and Cleveland offered because he doesn’t want to help the cross town rival even if it negatively effects his own organization.
That’s not entirely true. The problem is the owners who would rather save money on these players expiring contracts instead of eating half if not all of it for some decent prospects. Reed was a solid return I don’t understand why Many Mets fans knock that Reed deal. We received 3 young hard throwing relievers for Reed.
Why not? Matz has had a few flashes of brillance but currently has not performed very well. Can the Mascot pitch?
Cubs had waiver priority over the Astros, Cubs claimed and looks like the Mets were mostly interested in clearing salary, which is about all that Rivera was worth. Maybe a PTBNL or cash at best but this is August
Yankees don’t have mascots
necessary comment
Pretty sure it’s Ellsbury at this point….
No they just have Monument Park…
The Yankees did have a short lived mascot. Check it out: link to obitoftheday.com
Pretty sure like 30,000 mascots show up to every game.
What’s Susan Waldman?
He’s a backup catcher in August. He doesn’t have enough value for a real trade.
+1
So was David Ross a couple years ago
Well what’d you really expect to get for a guy like Rivera….
Salary dump.
27 home runs the guy has good power excellent move by the Mets.
What are you talking about?
The guy the Mets got in the deal has 27 home runs can you read?
Hope you are joking. For one, Cubs Designated said player and two, he has ALLOWED 27 HRs.
Read that again… the player the Cubs DFA has given up 27 HR’s… Rivera hasn’t hit 27
Why would the Mets trade for a man who has given up that many home runs at triple a. Are they imbecills or something?
they didn’t trade for him
Stop trolling, it’s obvious and annoying.
Pure salary dump. Now we have 2 below average defensive catchers on the active roster.
Bring up Nido in September.
Nido is a very good prospect!
Omg…….is the money situation that bad? This is embarrassing. He has more value to the pitchers than the money. Prepare yourselves for a less than spend worthy off-season
Why do my posts duplicate?
The Mets are giving away players left and right and getting ZERO top prospects for anything
All the guys they’re getting rid of are on expiring contracts. Would you trade a top prospect for 2 months of Bruce, Grandy, Rivera, etc? Because if so, you wouldn’t have a GM job for long.
Calm down. If the Mets really want Rivera back nothing says they can’t sign him come this offseason.
I personally want to see him and Andrew Cashner land on the same team. They worked really well together back in 2013-14.
There’s a garage sale going on at CitiField !
At least the Cubs made a move, I can dig it.
I like Caratini more than Rivera. Not sure what he brings to the table that Caratini does not, except experience.
It looks like you hit that in your last comment.
With Contreras injured, the Cubs will pretty much need another catcher. Teams carry three catchers in September. Rivera would make three.
Also, Rivera makes quite a bit of sense for CHC as a third catcher in 2018. Particularly if he is willing to sign for <$2 million for the season.
Rivera will make 4 catchers in September. Also Avila Contreras & Caratini
Contreras may not be back until late in the month, just prior to the postseason.
Rick Hahn and Theo proved good baseball trades can be made by teams in the same city without fans getting upset. GMs should pass on a good trade with another team in the same city.
Yeah but they’re good GMs that’s the only real difference here
Your first sentence contradicts your second one, no? Perhaps you would like to clarify it?
I think he.meant to say teams should “not” pass…
The Mets are a joke of an organization they play in the biggest city in baseball and they act like they play in Rhode Island. I hope they suck forever.
Anticipated move by the Cubs to acquire another veteran catcher before the August 31st waiver deadline to complement Alex Avila until Willson Contreras returns from the disabled list late next month.
The Cubs may now turn their attention to fortifying their starting rotation in the wake of Jon Lester’s “shoulder fatigue” issue that landed him on the disabled list. Those Justin Verlander rumors refuse to die…
What’s a “waiver deadline”? There’s no such thing.
Waiver deals accomplished after August 31st leave players ineligible for post-season play. I’d call that a deadline.
August 31st revocable waiver deadline as opposed to the July 31st non-waiver deadline. See tim815 comment reply also.
I wouldn’t call it a deadline at all. You can still trade anyone to the end of the year. Any third-string catcher that the Cubs would acquire wouldn’t be on the postseason roster anyway unless Willson Contreras remained out through the postseason for some reason.
There’s no “revocable waiver deadline”, it just means anyone you acquire after the 31st can’t make the postseason roster.
I didn’t make the term up. There’s always been two summer trade deadlines in existence, the July 31st non-waiver deadline and the August 31st (revocable) waiver deadline.
Not arguing that you can’t make waiver trades after September 1st, only that the August 31st deadline is in place for post-season roster eligibility. A silly debate over semantics?
Any player on a team’s 25-man active or 40-man reserve roster by August 31st would also be eligible for postseason play if an injury occurred to another player on those lists after the August 31st/September 1st deadline(s).
August has different rules than the other 11 months.
I didn’t create the rules. Or the terms.
Its a deadline just like any other deadline. Take the tax deadline every year. Yes you can pay your taxes after it but there are consequences for doing it.
For taxes you would have to pay a fee and run the risk of being auditted / arrested.
In the case for the waiver deadline, players are not eligible for post season roster which can run the risk of having less experienced quality catcher assuming Contreras cant make it which is not guaranteed as right now he is set to come back at the very end of the season if you are lucky and there are no setbacks. Also look at Alex Avilas stats in the playoffs, not very good. Rivera is more of a wild card obviously since he only has 3 at bats there but would you prefer a known ..150 ba catcher in the playoffs with a rather large sample size or someone that could be much better and offer the same defensive prowess. .
Yes the tax deadline is more of an extreme example but shows that deadlines are important.
Call it the “postseason eligibility deadline “
That I would agree with. “Revocable Waiver Trade Deadline” makes it sound like you can’t trade anymore even if they clear revocable waivers.
This would also be inaccurate as well unless you are talking specifically about the date as it does not describe the transaction.
A player can go through waivers after that date or a player can be signed after that date. In both these cases they are past the “post season eligibility deadline” but one has to do with waivers and the other does not. At best it should be “post season eligibility waiver deadline” Since August 31st is understood as the post season eligibility deadline what was originally said was correct. August 31st waiver deadline.
So what’s the difference in the waiver rules between Aug 31 & Sep 1 ?
Is Rene Rivera any good? Never seen him play
Very good defensively. Hits like a backup catcher.
So he’s another Miguel Montero without the complaining. He knows his place and won’t blame the pitcher for sucking at holding on runners
Really? Another Miguel Montero?
Montero wasn’t much of a defender as a member of the Cubs and generally hit way better than a typical “backup” catcher. His clutch hitting also helped saved manager Joe Maddon’s a$$ in the postseason last year and the skipper repaid the act by not communicating with him throughout the playoffs.
Montero was wrong for calling out Jake Arrieta earlier this season but he’s not the only Cub with some communication problems, just the one who lost his job because of it.
Monteros was hardly the only “tool” among the players either. John Lackey is a gem when he’s on the mound whenever another player makes a mistake behind him or Maddon tries to lift him for a reliever.