It's hard to get excited about middle relief prospects. I know that I certainly poked my share of fun at the Rivero signing when it was made. He got $3.1 million, and Brett had this to say:
While he may prove a valuable piece of the bullpen in future years, this is simply about accumulating talented pitching, and paying handsomely to do it (because the routes are limited these days). Even if he merely contributes as a decent middle reliever for a few years, it was probably worth the investment.
I said something along the lines of "if you have an opportunity to pay a 25-year old who hasn't played in America $3.1 million to be a middle reliever, you have to take it." Nice snark.
Performance
Rivero was as elite as you'd expect a 25 year old player to be. In 18.1 innings at Kane County, he struck out 33.7% of his batters (though he walked 10.8%). This is a small sample size (it all is, he pitched 30.1 innings this season), but gives you an idea of his skillset. He also allowed 4 HR in his limited time at the KC. That was the primary driver of his 4.62 FIP at that level; I'm not a fan of xFIP (and you can't really get it for minor league teams), but I'm positive that Rivero's true HR/9 isn't 1.96, so that FIP doesn't mean much to me. He saw 10 outs of Daytona and 26 at Tennessee, and was very dominant at each stop. All told, he recorded 91 outs, 45 of them by strikeout. He also walked 8.8% of his batters.
Scouting
When Armando signed, Ben Badler had this to say about him:
Rivero's best pitch is his fastball, which sits in the low-90s and peaks at 96 mph. He doesn't have a plus secondary pitch but he has a solid splitter with late tumble. He'll drop to a low three-quarters arm slot, which may be why he has trouble throwing a reliable breaking ball. Some scouts have said Rivero throws a curveball and a slider, while others think he's just manipulating the same pitch. His low slow makes it difficult for him to stay on top of the ball, giving his breaking ball more side to side action. He also has a slight hook in his arm action that affects his command.
That sounds like the prototypical middle reliever to me. He's 6'3", 180 pounds, so he's probably wiry. It's really hard to find any actual video on him, so the scouting is pretty light. All I can go on is his spurious sample size at his 3 stops this year.
Outlook
Rivero turns 26 on Februrary 1st, so he's going to be old for any level except the majors. He's not on the 40-man, but he's going to get every chance to make the big-league club out of spring training, and it'd be a disappointment if he started anywhere lower than Iowa.
Comments
Suburban kid wrote:
How am I supposed to take a decent selfie when I’m humping a dog?
Omar LittleQuote Reply
Comic aside: http://obstructedview.net/comics/revelation.html
joshQuote Reply
Ryno, thoughts on the Chip Kelly offense last night?
MuckerQuote Reply
@ Mucker:
I think a Fake Bo Pelini tweet summed it up best:
Of all the arrogant coaching fraternities in sports, I think the NFL might be the worst.
“The read option can’t possibly work, or it would have been done before. We’ll just hit the QB!”
Fine. We’ll have our QB step back after the give so the ref will tack 15 yards onto the end of the run you just got burned on. Although it is tempting to go with a traditional passer. Those guys never get hit.
Before that it was the spread. NE, IND/DEN and NO have been running spread-based attacks for several years. If only they had any offensive success.
“The Wildcat (dying laughing)o(dying laughing)ol. See?! We snuffed that out!” Yeah, except it’s just called the read option now.
Everyone talks about the read option, but what SF and WAS did that made them successful was running out of the pistol. And THAT is the trend you’re seeing around the NFL this year. I only saw 8 teams play, but 6 of them used the pistol formation at least once.
Rant over.
Now, Chip Kelly’s offensive philosophy is another that will be copied around the league. What he did last night was EXACTLY what he did at Oregon, and he WORKED a decent WAS defense.
It’s based on a few things:
Tempo: PHI was on pace to break the record for plays in a game at halftime. 53 plays in one half. CHI ran 61 the entire game. WAS defenders were absolutely GASSED.
Space: Unbalanced and spread lines create lanes and space for players like Vick and McCoy will chew up yards on the ground. Look at this gif…
[img]http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/3190483/mccoytd.gif[/img]
McCoy had two lanes that would have netted him 10 yards at least.
The rest works off that.
Omar LittleQuote Reply
Two teams with the type of defense to stop PHI:
(I’ll let you guess first…)
Omar LittleQuote Reply
That’s just it…..how do you stop that offense? Are they 3-4 defenses?
MuckerQuote Reply
I agree with all of that except “decent WAS defense.” I think they’re bottom 10.
GBTSQuote Reply
@ GBTS:
Skins have a decent front 7 but that secondary is terrible. That poor guy Rambo got abused last night.
MuckerQuote Reply
Mucker wrote:
Exactly. And Chip Kelly’s offense is based on attacking the front 7.
Omar LittleQuote Reply
Mucker wrote:
Two NFL defenses are ideally suited to stop Chip Kelly. I don’t know if it’s coincidence, but Pete Carroll’s and Jim Harbaugh’s defenses will slow PHI enough.
The teams that stopped Oregon had physical, disciplined defenses that did NOT miss tackles.
Omar LittleQuote Reply
Mucker wrote:
Stanford had success stopping Oregon because they schemed well and the players executed perfectly.
I think the first (most important) step is scheming. Kelly didn’t do anything last night he didn’t do several times per game at Oregon. Look at his tendencies .
Second, the players HAVE to play assignment football. That’s the key to executing the scheme…especially against option football. Guys freelancing = big plays every time.
Third, I think you have to get inside pressure. In the gif above, the WAS front 3 eats the interior blocking and the LBs abandon their gaps. They overpursue, and it leaves McCoy against the WAS safeties Curly and Shemp.
Omar LittleQuote Reply
Omar Little wrote:
But at least #26 got some extra exercise
SVBQuote Reply
SVB wrote:
(dying laughing) He blitzed, ran over to Vick to say “Whattup?” and then retraced McCoy’s steps.
Omar LittleQuote Reply
I bet Armando Rivero is somewhere sobbing because the OV thread he waited all year for has turned into football talk.
Omar LittleQuote Reply
Omar Little wrote:
(dying laughing). If he’s sobbing in Spanish and we don’t understand it, does it mean that he’s sad?
SVBQuote Reply
@ Omar Little:
He may also be confused by the shape and color of the football.
SVBQuote Reply
I was going to guess coaches from college. And considering both of those coaches were from the same conference as Kelly, that makes a ton of sense.
MuckerQuote Reply
@ SVB:
If he’s sobbing in Spanish, it means he doesn’t matter.
Omar LittleQuote Reply
@ Mucker:
SF already had a good defense when Harbaugh arrived, but their tackling has improved immensely. It’s just interesting to me that two former Pac-12 coaches were prepared for the Chip Kelly offense a year before he made the jump.
Omar LittleQuote Reply
@ Omar Little:
I would have liked to see the Bears from their (recent) Super Bowl appearance have a shot at the Chip Kelly offense. Those guys were FAST and disciplined and they had depth on the D-line to fight fatigue from the pace.
The current Bears team is going to get shredded as an early Christmas present.
Aisle424Quote Reply
New Shit
http://obstructedview.net/commentary-and-analysis/2013-cubs-prospects-in-review-cj-edwards.html
MylesQuote Reply