Rene won’t be D’man when Travis returns
Rene Rivera saw an opportunity. After having been cut by the Rays and going through a few offers with his agent, the veteran defensive catcher saw a quick route back to the major leagues by signing a minor-league deal with the Mets.
“A team with so much pitching, they would need a catcher and I just felt like this would be the right place for me,” Rivera said. “It’s worked out as well as I expected.”
Actually, it’s worked out better than anyone could have imagined.
Rivera has been the veteran backstop the Mets had been looking for to help guide a young rotation. Defensively he settled down a young Noah Syndergaard and became his personal catcher last season. This season, however, Rivera has challenged his own reputation with a hot start at the plate as well. Rivera, a .219-hitter heading into Tuesday night’s series opener against the Padres, is batting .308 with two home runs and 14 RBI.
That has led to talk — from none other than Terry Collins — that Rivera should continue to share the starting job with Travis d’Arnaud when the catcher comes off the disabled list as soon as this week.
“Rene Rivera has earned a spot, has earned a job catching. We’re going to play him as much as possible,” the Mets manager said Saturday. “By no means are we going to sit Rene Rivera down and not have him play much anymore.”
A Mets source, however, scoffed at the idea that d’Arnaud would not be the starter coming back, pointing out that GM Sandy Alderson has always given players he has traded for every opportunity to succeed.
“Travis d’Arnaud is not losing his job because of injury. If he comes back and hits, he’s still the starting catcher,” the source said. “He will be given every opportunity. He is one of the players that Sandy (Alderson) made a deal for, his success is something Sandy sees as important. “He sees it as winning trades.” Rivera’s success with the pitching staff and his contributions at the plate this season, however, highlights Alderson’s gamble this winter. Many baseball insiders thought that the Mets’ reluctance to spend on a solid veteran free agent catcher who could hit this past offseason was a mistake. So far, re-sign Rivera has been anything but.
The 33-year-old’s success with the bat while d’Arnaud deals with a bruised wrist has been one of the few reasons the Mets have not crashed and burned during a plague of injuries and pitching struggles.
That change started with a challenge this spring from hitting coach Kevin Long and assistant hitting coach Pat Roessler to Rivera. “Everybody knows he can hit a fastball,” Long said. “We told him he’d never get a fastball to hit if he didn’t get better at hitting breaking balls.”
So Rivera started doing extra work in the cages, facing the pitching machine that was only throwing breaking pitches.
“And I started being able to see them better,” Rivera said. “I feel like I can recognize a pitch better, quicker now. That has made a big difference.”