Carlos Rivero: Was Picking Him Up The Right Move?

It’s official guys: The Mariners are chock full off infielders after the acquisition of Carlos Rivero from the Boston Red Sox.

Rivero is a fairly young player at 26. He has played under various minor league organizations as a third baseman, shortstop, and outfielder. He showed up in four games for the Red Sox in 2014, hit one home run and two doubles in seven at-bats.

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I don’t understand why the Mariners picked him up. His minor league career has been less than stellar, despite playing for four seasons in a Triple-A organization. He has a Triple-A batting average of .280. While that’s good for third on the M’s roster (behind Robinson Cano and Chris Taylor), I certainly hope that the M’s don’t expect that average to carry over to the major leagues.

Sidebar: Really? We only had two players bat over .280 last year? Really?

Now, while the general trend in the MLB seems to be toward a decreasing batting average (the world champion San Francisco Giants only had five players hit for more than .280 last season), a Triple-A batting average of .280 won’t translate well to the MLB.

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If we take a look at my XBR stat, Rivero rolls in at a measly .266, which by no means shows any kind of power. This move seems to go completely contrary to the M’s needs today of a power right-handed hitter.

I can’t even justify picking up Rivero because of his defense, either. Rivero’s fielding percentage at his best position, shortstop, is only .951. Both Miller and Taylor’s fielding percentage is in the .970’s. To put this in perspective, one out of every 20 balls hit Rivero’s way would result in an error, whereas for both Miller and Taylor this number is one out of every 33. That is a huge difference.

He’s not particularly fast, either. He’s only stolen 16 bases in 1,000 games in the minors, and has been caught stealing 21 times.

Yes, Rivero showed some promise of power in a sample size of seven at-bats in the MLB, unless this move was made because the Mariners think that they can develop Rivero as a utility Willie Bloomquist-type player, this move was a huge Mariners mistake.