The Guardians have hired T.J. Rivera for a coaching role, according to agent Phil Terrano of Agency 1 Sports. This brings an end to Rivera’s playing career after 11 seasons, and the veteran infielder took to Instagram to thank his family, friends, and many supporters who helped him along the way.
Rivera was an undrafted player, beginning his pro career when he signed a free agent deal with the Mets in 2011. All of his big league experience came in a New York uniform, as Rivera (a Bronx native) hit a very solid .304/.335/.445 over 344 career plate appearances with the Mets in 2016-17. Unfortunately for Rivera, he was a somewhat rare case of a position player whose career was sidetracked by Tommy John surgery, as he missed all of 2018 recovering from both his TJ procedure and more elbow problems that lingered into 2018 and 2019.
Since being let go by the Mets in 2019, Rivera caught on with the Nationals, Pirates, and (twice) with the Phillies, and he also played in Puerto Rico and in independent baseball. Another call to the bigs never came, and Rivera certainly wasn’t helped by the cancellation of the 2020 minor league season. Rivera had more good numbers at the minor league level, hitting .316/.363/.431 over 3044 PA across various affiliated teams.
At age 33, Rivera has now decided to hang up his glove, and is moving onto a new phase of his baseball career with the Guardians. We at MLBTR congratulate Rivera on a fine career and we wish him all the best in his coaching endeavors.
*SPIDERS
Brooklyn Dodgers
*IOWA CITY IDIOTS
I was hoping to see him make it back to the big leagues. Congrats on the next chapter of your life TJ!
Bryce Harper, take note.
What?
He’s referring to the fact that Tommy John kind of ended his career
There’s a lot of daylight bt tj and Bryce in terms of talent and ability and it’s arguable that his success was just small sample size and that tj or even the elbow in general wasn’t really responsible for any actual skill decline
But yeah Bryce is probably going to eventually to get it done — 4-6 weeks of not playing the field and taking violent swings isn’t gonna magically repair the ucl so he can go back to throwing bullets from rf
Good thing they also have the DH in the NL now.
The Mets did him dirty. Hes a great hitter and I think he can still play for a big league team. Daniel Murphy is probably better than 75% of the league right now but hes instead retired, sitting on his couch
How did the Mets do him dirty? And he was really bad in the minors last year.
@Cosmo2 A half-year ago when I said that Brandon Drury was better than Conforto, you called me an idiot. As of right now, one is sitting on their couch getting paid nothing while the other is raking as the best hitter on their team. The other day I also said Drew Smith wasn’t any good and you said “He has a 0 era of course hes good”, then the next say he proceeded to get clobbered. Its safe to assume that you can admit your wrong, correct?
If you think Brandon Drury is somehow better than Conforto because the latter is injured, well, you’re basically calling yourself an idiot
This is an odd take.
You’re lost, LFGMets. This is a bad take. Learn baseball better.
@StefanArkansas You don’t know what your talking about. Watch the games instead of going on baseball reference and telling me wether a guy is good or not
I think his assessment of you being an idiot was actually spot on. Drew Smith has pitched well this season and he has one bad outing and you’ve written yourself as Nostradamus.
Case and point: Aaron Loup
2012-2019: 12-20 with a 3.45 ERA, 121 ERA+, 1.267 WHIP, 8.4 SO/9, 2.8 BB/9
Since: 9-4 with a 1.48 ERA, 273 ERA+, 0.853 WHIP, 8.7 SO/9, 2.0 BB/9
How many people had Aaron Loup pegged as one of the best relievers in baseball based on his production prior to 2020? Pitchers can learn their craft and develop later on. Drew Smith (who really doesn’t even have much service time) could very easily have matured his game. Did you write off deGrom when he gave up 6 runs (IIRC) in one of the final two starts of the season while chasing the Cy Young against Scherzer? He had a bad outing. It happens.
@Birch Saying Drew Smith is doing well is like saying Miguel Castro is doing well. They both gives up hits and walks every time they go out there. Its not sustainable. They often get bailed out by the defense when they are pitching. The problem with your comment is that first of all, I said Drew Smith wasnt a good pitcher while he was doing welll, not what have you done for me lately. 2. I never mentioned anything about Aaron Loup. The only thing that I’ve ever been wrong about on this website was that I thought Corbin Burnes wasn’t any good but Iv changed my mind about him
It’s quite clear that LFG is a moron
LGFMets doesn’t like all those messy statistics and facts getting in the way of their hot takes
@Cosmo2 Show me the statistics that show that Conforto has been better than Brandon Drury this year, the fact is thar you were happy when the Mets Da’d Drury for Gsellman and Gsellman can barely pitch on the Cubs while Drury is raking. I vividly remember you saying that Gsellman is a good pitcher, i guess the rest of the league doesnt think hes good as well
I’m sorry but you are making a fool of yourself. By your logic, Brandon Drury is better than Babe Ruth. He’s putting up better stats right now isn’t he? I mean, you’re putting forward such a dumb take, there’s no way to sugarcoat it, it’s just dumb.
You’re legitimately the only person in the world of baseball that thinks Drury is a better ball player than Conforto.
Oh and 0.907 WHIP for Smith – “… give up hits and walks everytime they go out there.”
Sounds like he gives up tons of hits.
According to LGM’s twisted logic, every pitcher who has thrown a successful inning this year is better than deGrom. I’m not sure what we’re dealing with here… drunkenness? Extreme old-schoolism gone insane? A combo of the two?
@Cosmo @Birch Another 2 run homerun given up by your favorite relief pitcher Drew Smith, dudes getting clobbered. Want to admit your wrong now?
You’re nuts. You haven’t even made a coherent case for anything. You’ve been clear that you don’t care about statistics… you’re clueless. Try backing one of your hot takes up with facts. Just once. You honestly seem to think you can judge entire careers by one game. It’s positively infantile. Look, I’m sorry Conforto struck out on your birthday or whatever but at some point either land the spaceship or figure you’re just gonna get ridiculed around here for your absurdist, completely baseless opinions.
I’ve watched every met game so far this year LFGMets. Don’t tell me when people on here agree with me. Your baseball eye is cooked and we all know. Relax and embrace it.
Good luck.
Wish him the best , played with grit.
He was fun. They probably should’ve promoted him a year sooner. Shame that he got injured just as he was getting his chance.
Always enjoyed watching him play with the Mets. Good luck to him. He’ll be a fine coach.
T.J Rivera has tested positive for COVID-19.
Tj was a stud he could really hit. Always rooted for him when he was playing. Sad he’s hanging them up as with the DH now in the NL he probably still could’ve played but wishing him the best with CLE. Get ur experience up tj and come back to NY.
He was never really a good enough hitter to be a DH, let’s not exaggerate his abilities. He’d have been a very good second baseman in his prime, maybe.
63.87% of the posts here:
You’re stupid.
No, you’re stupid.
So what, now the school-marm has arrived?
TJ fit the versatility role, and hit for average much like Wade Boggs did thru the minors and then even into the majors. But he didn’t develop power, and wasn’t outstanding at any given spot in the field. Always felt sorry that he needed Tommy John surgery, for he could have developed into a valuable bench player year after year. Glad he gets to continue putting the uniform on. Nice guy.