Memories of Rene Rivera

[G-Fafif]

Yeah, he's gone, too, claimed on waivers by the Cubs, with the Mets being all, sure, go ahead. (Plawecki up in his stead; and Milone takes Granderson's spot and presumably Matz's next start.)

Held a lot of hands attached to talented arms. Nurtured a playoff run in 2016. Hit a nice home run in his final Met game, though not on his final Met swing. Finishes in a five-way tie for 20th on the Met Citi Field home run chart, deadlocked at 7 with Lagares, Recker, Byrd and Valdespin.

Slower than slow, but he was a catcher.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Not a bad backup catcher from whom ZERO was expected. At times his ability to run into one tricked people including Terry into thinking he was better than he actually was, but he was okay, which was okay with me.

Lots of Mets will in the postseason this year.

[G-Fafif]

Should a play at the plate between Neil Walker of the Brewers and Rene Rivera of the Cubs settle the NL Central, I won't know who to root for.

[Guest themetfairy]

A good backup catcher who handled the pitching staff well and had occasional pop in his bat. He'll be missed!

[ashie62]

One of our better backup catchers. He will be missed. Good luck big guy.

[Lefty Specialist]

Didn't see the point in just giving him away, quite frankly. Didn't save THAT much money, since you'll have to pay Plawecki anyway to replace him.

Liked Rene, and he was more useful than he had any right to be.

[Frayed Knot]

Basically was popped out of the mold for backup catchers: Squat, strong, slow, good arm, and well-traveled (Cubs will be his sixth ML team and ninth org in nine ML seasons across 14 years).
Our backup catcher models feature a low BA but w/occasional pop, is willing to spend time in the minors between gigs (Rivera came up in 2004 but then got only 104 ML ABs from 2007-2012) and
comes with a rep for handling pitchers (your mileage may vary as to whether that rep is accurate or not).

In that role the Rene Rivera model B.U.C. was, at worst, perfectly adequate and probably a shade better than most.
Enjoyed having him around.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Was a capable back up catcher, who ended up playing more than expected due to the injury prone nature of d"Arnaud. Good luck Rene, you were better than I expected.

[Zvon]

He was a very "heads up" player and the best catcher that we have had this season, backup or not, so I feel this is our loss. And we got squat?

Just that play the other night when he waved off d'Arnaud on the bunt to third spoke volumes about him.

[MFS62]

Very solid catcher. I hesitate to use the word "backup" because he was the primary catcher for extended periods of time. In fact, when I looked* at all of the players who have played the position for the Mets (thank you, UMD) , he just might be close to the top 10-15 Mets all-around catchers, considering offense, defense and game calling, of all time. Of course, there's a big gap from the very top few to the rest, but still ...

Later

* = a quick glance

[Ceetar]

He was bad. bad bad bad. Got some sorta rep as being better than others behind the plate and for 'helping' Thor. He strung his hits together into streaks that make him look appealing, because it often happened right as he got a little playing time off injuries.

But it's not even like he was lucky. I checked the win probability added as a batter while he was here, and he's 48th. Behind all the pitchers. behind everyone but Lagares and d'Arnaud. This stat is basically luck, but I was curious if he had just kept getting his hits in key moments and that's why people don't hate him, but I guess it's just because when you're a backup catcher you only need a hit a month for people to not hate you.

But like, the Mets should've legitimately been pitching hitting Syndergaard for him in key spots.