Is Juan Rivera Struggling Because He's Primarily Playing DH?

[Wally West]

Who would've thought that Juan Rivera would be this bad since his good pre-season. Could the reason why he's struggling is because he's playing the DH position which he didn't play in the pre-season ? Ever since Encarnacion went back from 3B to DH, he's been hitting the ball well and the DH spot was the position in the pre-season that he succeeded in. Now if Rivera was moved back to the position he was playing in the pre-season, would he back back into a rhythm or is Jose Bautista too valuable for us in the outfield as a team that's trying to compete ?

[dagger]

Or maybe he's just found his proper level, i.e somewhere below mediocrity and barely above outright suckitude.

[jrsmith]

Or maybe he's just found his proper level, i.e somewhere below mediocrity and barely above outright suckitude.

I read this and was a little shocked that you arent infatuated with a player on a bad contract, thats literally non existent on D, and is quite mediocre. Then I proceeded to look @ his name, what board we are on and had a chuckle.

[Randle McMurphy]

Or maybe he's just found his proper level, i.e somewhere below mediocrity and barely above outright suckitude.

Or maybe it's just 12 games.

[ItsDanger]

Trade him right **** now.

[Schad]

"Notoriously slow starter gets off to slow start" isn't exactly page one material. His peripherals don't actually suck that badly...he isn't striking out much, he's walking quite a bit, and his line drive percentage is actually above his career average. The issue is that he's popping up balls he'd normally drive, and chopping grounders into the dirt that he'd normally put through the hole. And most of all, he's making poor contact with fastballs, which are his bread and butter.

He'll turn it around, though. Wells, who was off to a worse start has rebounded (he's 11 for 38 with 4 XBH over his last nine games); his opposite number will as well.

[spykelee]

I think Rivera's issue is that he knows he's really just an extra body on this team and if/when were fully healthy he's relegated to spot duty. Too me he just doesn't seem even mildly invested in Toronto, and knows that when where fully healthy, he's likely shipped off elsewhere.

[tiger7]

He doesn't even look like he cares to be out there. He has a Bargs attitude and he better pick it up for the type of coin he's being paid no excuses. Can we replace him with Scott Podsednik? lol

[rarefind]

i rather have thames swinging in that dh spot at this point. he can platoon with snider and patterson a bit and get some playing time in the outifield. i understand he is a slow starter, but this is absolutely ridiculous at this point. he isn't a part of our future, if we think we can trade him for anything more than a career minor leaguer we are crazy.

get him outta' here and give thames a shot, rivera has cost us wins at this point with all the one run games we have been in.

[Graham's Cracker]

This might be a dumb question, but has he always been this fat? I always thought he was a more athletic player and a decent defender. It's bad when you're getting a pinch-runer over someone with those famous Molina base-running genes.

I wonder how he'd actually fare in the outfield.

[Schad]

i rather have thames swinging in that dh spot at this point. he can platoon with snider and patterson a bit and get some playing time in the outifield.

Doesn't make any sense...Snider, Patterson and Thames are all left-handed. Plus, Thames can't play center competently.

[rarefind]

i rather have thames swinging in that dh spot at this point. he can platoon with snider and patterson a bit and get some playing time in the outifield.

Doesn't make any sense...Snider, Patterson and Thames are all left-handed. Plus, Thames can't play center competently.

makes a little more sense than having a guy who can't get anything done while dh'ing. thames can play the two corner outfield spots just fine and patterson is moot when davis gets back anyway. snider himself may very well be in las vegas himself unless he stops chasing pitches. anyway, rivera's bat made good contact tonight hopefully he'll make some progress.

[Schad]

makes a little more sense than having a guy who can't get anything done while dh'ing.

No, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The knock on Thames is that he can't hit lefties. The knock on Snider is that he can't hit lefties. The knock on Patterson is that he can't hit lefties (and that he sucks overall). You can't make a platoon out of that.

[rarefind]

well quite frankly, snider and patterson aren't hitting period at this point. lefties OR righties, rivera has been dreadful. patterson really doesn't belong in the conversation as he is a glorified dewayne wise at this point.

not sure if your suggesting that it'd be impossible for thames and snider to play on this team at the same time due to their well documented struggles against left handed pitching.

[Schad]

not sure if your suggesting that it'd be impossible for thames and snider to play on this team at the same time due to their well documented struggles against left handed pitching.

They can play at the same time...just not in a platoon. I'm starting to suspect that you don't understand what a platoon is: it's when one guy plays X position against lefties, and another plays X position against righties. That doesn't work when both hit righties, but not lefties.

[victor page]

Rivera's numbers suck but I suppose it's an aberration for a veteran guy to be so far below his career norms. What I don't like is that he's mailing it in - not running down that pop up at Fenway, not running hard to break up that double play in the first week, acquiring some serious love handles, etc...

They might benefit from some addition by subtraction by just releasing him. I think they should give his DH at-bats to JPA when Molina is acting as soemone's personal catcher. I know, I know, if Molina gets hurt, then the pitcher has to hit when JPA has to put his shin guards on.

But wouldn't the benefits of having JPA get 7-8 more plate appearances per week outweigh the harm of having a pitcher hit on the rare instance that Molina gets hurt? Since Rivera is hitting like a pitcher anyway, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

[ItsDanger]

Agree with the above here. Id like to see JPA at the DH spot more. Rivera is playing like he doesnt want to be here.

[evilRyu]

Being the "asset collector" that AA is, I think he's willing to allow Rivera to break out of this funk, raise his value, and then flip him to another team (wishful thinking)