Atlanta Braves Scouting Report on RHP Armando Rivero

Scouting Report

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Size/Delivery

Rivero is listed at 6’4 and 190 pounds. He’s certainly every bit of the 6’4 and 190 might even be generous in size.

Rivero’s long arms and long legs lead to a delivery that has a lot of parts moving in the batter’s eye, but it is a fluid, athletic delivery, and it is notable that in the times I saw him off the mound, Rivero is extremely athletic in his ability to cover first and play defense.

Rivero starts from the stretch. He holds the ball in his open hand and has his glove hand dangling as he takes the sign.

From there, he works quickly, bringing his knee up to waist height before pushing forward hard with his lead leg. His long limbs allow him a big reach toward the plate, appearing even closer for the hitter.

His arm action is what would be incredibly difficult for hitters to pick up. He throws from a low 3/4 slot that he disguises by holding his hips tight until his lead foot hits the dirt, when he explodes toward the plate.

Rivero can short step going toward the plate, and when he does, he doesn’t get full rotation of his hips and therefore, leaves his arm back, hanging pitches or leaving them arm side.

Pitches

Rivero’s primary calling card pitch has always been his fastball. He works low in the zone with the pitch, sitting at 94-97, touching triple digits multiple times in his career.

Rivero’s primary fastball has very little movement, especially from waist up, but the reach he gets toward the plate along with the deception in his delivery makes the pitch difficult to square low in the zone.

Rivero added a cut to his fastball in 2016, taking off a hair of velocity when he would throw the cut pitch, working more 90-92 with his cut fastball.

The cut fastball blends into his breaking pitch, a slider that is quite inconsistent for Rivero. In games that he was on with the pitch, hitters simply had no chance on the pitch, as it had a hard, sharp break late in the pitch’s life.

One notable thing in watching his games from 2015 to 2016 was that Rivero had nearly every pitch at his max velocity in 2015. It seemed every fastball was 96-97 and every slider was 84-85.

The games I saw in 2016, he did not sacrifice pitch movement by altering his velocity in games, especially in his slider, which I did see with the same hard break at 78 and 85 in the same game.

The cut fastball also gives him multiple looks in his fastball velocity, but he also took a hair off his fastball at times, going with a 92 MPH offering and then coming back in the same spot at 96, really making it hard on the hitter.

Next: Future outlook