The Indians have signed veteran catcher Rene Rivera to a minor league contract and assigned him to their alternate training site, per a club announcement. He’s represented by MDR Sports Management.
Rivera, 37, has spent the past two seasons with the Mets organization — a return to the organization with which he has spent the most time in the Major Leagues. He tallied just four plate appearances last summer and only 20 the previous year, however. He hasn’t reached 100 plate appearances in the big leagues since the 2017 season, which he split between the Mets and the Cubs.
Rivera doesn’t hit much and never really has. He’s the consummate glove-first, grizzled veteran backstop who draws praise for framing, throwing, calling a sound game and offering plenty of veteran insight to young pitchers and catchers alike. He’s a career .221/.272/.353 hitter in 1551 plate appearances at the MLB level.
Cleveland has Roberto Perez and Austin Hedges currently atop its depth chart for catchers, while fellow veteran Ryan Lavarnway is at the team’s alternate site as well. Perez is out to a fast start this season, while Hedges is 1-for-8 with a solo homer (and just 2-for-20 dating back to last season’s acquisition). Of course, Hedges himself is a defense-first catcher with enough power to occasionally run into a big fly, so the lack of offense in that tiny sample isn’t a huge shock. Hedges, however, is regarded as one of the best, if not the best defensive catcher in baseball, so he’s unlikely to be displaced by Rivera anytime soon (barring injury).
Nice move… hopefully this will soon spell the end of Austin Hedges. Even as a backup, the obsession with his defense has finally worn off. Maybe he could learn to hit left-handed? He couldn’t be much worse than he is now. Nobody cares much about Spring Training statistics, but Hedges spring line was about as good as Garth Brooks when he messed around with baseball.
I like Rivera but Hegdes is better. It would be strange to give up on Hedges and replace him with someone older and not as good.
Thank you. I don’t see the need for a team so strapped for salary money to put so much into a backup catcher that might play every 5th or 6th night.
Hedges will be the next Jeff Mathis. Stick around for like 15 years even though he has like a 50-60 OPS+ most of the time.
Great another catcher who can’t hit. Meanwhile , they paid Austin Hedges $3.2 million as a backup and could have signed Wilson Ramos(6homers all ready) for $2 million (Tigers)
Hedges sucks, I’ll give you that (see my above post), but nobody wanted Wilson Ramos. It’s early in the season, and he’s just one of those hot April bats.
He reminds me of another former Tiger — Chris Shelton. Back in 2006, Shelton hit 9 home runs in the first 13 games of the season, the fastest player in the AL to reach that point so fast. Obviously his power dropped off after April and he was back in the minor leagues in July.
Ramos has a better track record than Shelton obviously, but nobody would have seen that coming, and it’s early.
Hedges still sucks though.
But Ramos has been good before. For whatever reason, teams always overlook him, but he’s been solid more often than not.
Wilson Ramos
LIFETIME MLB batting average .274
Chris Antonetti too busy trying to cover his steps regarding Mickey Calloway.
In 2006, Chris Sheldon carried the Tigers that first month. Then for some reason, lost all confidence in himself both offensively and defensively. Jim Leyland did not deal with young players very well.
The Mets pitching staff did not care to pitch to Wilson Ramos. He can hit but, He’s not ideal for a pitching-first organization the Tigers want to become. Worse, Grayson Greiner calls a terrible game too and can neither hit, catch nor throw.
The Indians are fine at Catcher for this year. I heard that the brass liked what they saw fr Bo Naylor at the alternate camp last year & he could (should) be ready next year.
Ramos is awful. Basically is so bad at defense he’s really not a catcher at this point. And he’s not keeping up this homer pace.
The Indian organization values defense first at the catcher position which is why they employ the two time AL Gold Glove catcher in Roberto Perez with Hedges as the backup. Perez is one reason that the young pitchers shine in Cleveland. One only has to listen to the post game interview with Shane Bieber last night to know how valuable Perez and a defensive catcher is to the Indians. There is more to the game of baseball than home runs.
I agree, but that doesn’t justify severely overpaying on his backup seeing the field once a week.
I wonder if a hedges severino swap with Baltimore would make sense and what it would cost. Hedges could help with their young arms and bridge to their top prospect, even help him improve defensively when he comes up.
I don’t see him on the Indians roster at all this year. probably just a depth move.
I think Naylor makes it to the bigs this year. hedges has value as trade bate.
He’s going to be a great coach one day
Lavernway, feels like he has played forever yet 415 Abs over a 9 year career in the majors. Hope he remembers that day at practice when he first put catchers gear. Get em kid! Rene at 37 still getting a job. How the heck those knees hold up after being repaired. Good for him as well.. Goo Angels!
If you don’t have a catcher to catch what the pitcher throws, baseball games will be very very long and the umpires will be blue and black.
With a first name of “Rene”,
I would guess that
the catcher could be called,
THE
“French Rivera” .
Tim Federowicz was unavailable?
I really don’t understand why he isn’t with the Mets in this role…
Because so many in the Mets organization as well as many fans have weird blinders on when it comes to how bad Nido is.
Amazing how many Tribe fans don’t understand what the Indians have been doing for years. They don’t care one whit how the catchers hit. It’s all about developing pitching. That means that your AAA club is even more focused on having veteran defensive catchers to develop the young pitchers.
Dont sleep on this guy, he is a great team player and a little underrated. He’s not gonna hit 300 or anything but he’s also not a dead out,a d his defense is good.