The Angels signed catcher Sebastián Rivero to a minor league contract last month, as reflected on the MLB.com transaction log. It’s unclear if he’ll be invited to major league Spring Training.
Rivero, 26, has two seasons of major league experience. He played in 34 games for the Royals between 2021-22, hitting .167 without a home run over 73 trips to the plate. Kansas City released him after the ’22 campaign. The Venezuelan-born catcher has spent the past two seasons in the upper minors, dividing his time between the White Sox and Braves organizations. He hit .186/.239/.249 in 75 games between Double-A and Triple-A in the Atlanta system a year ago. Rivero has been playing winter ball, where he’s hitting .182 in 21 games.
While there’s clearly not a ton of offensive upside, Rivero adds catching depth to the upper levels of the minors. He has started nearly 400 games and caught almost 3500 innings in his minor league career. Rivero has cut down around a quarter of attempted basestealers in each of the last two seasons.
Logan O’Hoppe and Travis d’Arnaud will divide the catching duties at Angel Stadium. Recent trade pickup Chuckie Robinson projects as the top depth option as the only other catcher on the 40-man roster. They hadn’t had any non-roster catchers with major league experience before signing Rivero, who could back Robinson up at Triple-A Salt Lake.
what are the Angels doing? This makes no sense.
It is a minor league deal relax. The angels have had a solid offseason.
Rebuilding is what they need to be doing. What is it now? 9 straight losing seasons?
This makes sense if you closely follow baseball.
@coll. They signed a 4th catcher for triple a. Did you even read the article.
Minor league depth. Angels have no catching prospects thanks to trading Quero so we have to bring in other teams cast offs.
Dario Laverde (C) is one of their top 10 prospects.
Good call. Forgot.
Ya but Laverde is 19yo and probably not ready for AAA. This guy will probably back up the other catcher they picked up this off season, Chuckie Robinson, for the Bees.
For sure. We had nobody at the upper levels until these two moves.
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Angel owner needs to put up or sell. He’s ruined a beloved local team.
No, he has two “star” players making over 70 mill a year to sit on the IL every year. And remember when it was Trout, Rendon and Pujols? That was fun. The Angels will be good again when Trout and Rendon are off the books.
The farm system is starting to look a little better, and they have the 2nd pick in the draft this year. They’ve had a few guys that have been fast tracked to the majors that seem to want to stay. Arte will never say they are rebuilding, but it started last year.
I’m a Dodgers fan in OC, grew up with the Angels and still love the team. I don’t have the emotions of Angels fans and can stand another losing season with the big picture in mind. If they can get another early draft pick in ‘26, I think when ‘27 rolls around, Rendon is gone, and who knows, maybe Trout too. Arte has his flaws, my biggest complaint is that he has ignored his farm system and player development. I think that is starting to change. I didn’t like the fact that he kept throwing money at the holes on his roster instead of drafting and developing his own. That has also changed. He hasn’t stopped spending money, but he has been spending it wiser. That’s a welcome change as well. Just think of all the bad luck free agency decisions that team has made in the last decade. Now how many have been in the last 5 years? None since Anthony “Hollywood Lifestyle” Rendon.
The Angels will be fine. I can definitely see a Royals or even D-Backs type of ascension from them in another season or two.
One could argue that he has 34 games of major league experience, not two seasons of experience.
I guess they won’t be bringing back Chad Wallach.
@orange2001. Looking like that, but who knows chuckie might be the double a catcher since he’s good at calling games. They need someone to help the kids.
Depth for any position is great but we need pitching at the major league level. We won’t win with the pitching staff we have now.
Relax. This move does not prevent them from adding pitching. Those prospects in the minors will not progress if every pitch goes to the backstop for lack of a catcher. Umpires have no patience for that sort of thing.
Trade Arte for an owner who knows what they are doing. Its the only way the Angels will ever have a winning season again. Next year, he’ll fire Perry and Ron and then we get to start all over again.
The Angels are just the AAAA team for the Braves.