One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, right? The Red Sox may be fixing to find out if that’s the case with my 2024 A’s pick Eduardo Rivera. The A’s abandoned this 2021 11th round developmental project who shined in some pre-draft workouts after a couple walk-filled tries at high A in 2024. Who knows the whole story there, but the Red Sox took on the big 6′7″ lefty Puerto Rican and gave him 22.2 A‑ball IP at the end of the year. Rivera is still quite young at 21-years-old, with some seemingly developmental meat left on the bone. Rivera truly dominated a high‑A lineup last night. He threw 34 of hos 51 pitches for strikes (67%), 12 whiffs, and 2 strike-3-lookings. Granted a lineup littered with some swing and miss questions. But he’s been dominating over his first short outings, seemingly building up for more volume. Here’s what he’s done since draft:
It’s a three-pitch mix; mid 90s fastball, slider and occasional changeup. Our angle here is awful, but I just wanted a peek. Getting a good look at the stuff was moot. We’ll have chances later. There is some velo shared in the broadcast graphic, but I didn’t bother labeling everything. The fastball was used to set up a slider these bats all struggled with. The outing started off with a tough defensive play that wasn’t a lack of effort, but Rivera falls off to third more than some and just wasn’t fast enough to first. You’ll see a guy mowing with the slider. You’ll see a few whiffs on changeups too, which was nice to see and not something old iterations contained. Striking out 8 of 12 batters-faced will play. On the year he’s struck out 53.3% of hitters. Long story short, the Red Sox find themsleves with a Rivera executing pitches better than he ever has and it might be something:
Tons of caveats applied…consistency, vs better hitters, blah blah blah. Rivera’s got something going on with the slider and angle he presents to put up gaudy K numbers, which may certainly draw dynasty attention. The season is young, but I’ve got my eye on this potential development. I mean, I did last year too and that seemed futile, but Rivera is back on the muddy map with authority.