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.