C · 2021

René Rivera

Cleveland Indians American League CentralC

Age: 38
B/T: R/R
Height: 5' 10"
Weight: 215 lb
Number: #30

Born: July 31, 1983 in Bayamon, Puerto Rico
MLB debut: September 22, 2004

dbWAR: 1.0
PA: 78
AVG: .232
OBP: .293
SLG: .362
wRC+: 83

René Rivera is a catcher for the Cleveland Indians. In 2021 he hit 2 home runs and knocked in 9 RBIs, notching 16 hits across 78 plate appearances in 24 games. His batting average was .232, 4.9% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .293 clip and slugged .362, for an OPS of .656, 9.9% lower than the league mark of .728. He averaged 84.9 mph off the bat, hit 39.5% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 7.0% of them and made contact on 61.1% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 83 wRC+ puts his offence 17% below average. That comes to 0.2 dbWAR — -1.8 runs with the bat, -0.1 on the bases, +1.6 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2021.

wRC+83

wOBA.290

ISO.130

BB%5.1%

WAR.2

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2021. These four terms sum to +2.4 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.


2021	24	78	16	2	9	4	29	.232	.293	.362	.130	.368	5.1%	37.2%	.290	-1.8	83	0.2
2020	2	4	1	0	0	0	3	.250	.250	.250	.000	1.000	0.0%	75.0%	.221	-0.3	32	-0.0
2019	8	20	4	1	3	3	4	.235	.350	.412	.176	.250	15.0%	20.0%	.335	+0.2	112	0.1
2018	29	91	20	4	11	4	35	.233	.275	.419	.186	.340	4.4%	38.5%	.301	-1.3	89	0.3
2017	70	237	55	10	35	14	70	.252	.305	.431	.179	.324	5.9%	29.5%	.313	-2.3	96	0.9
2016	61	207	41	6	26	16	54	.222	.291	.341	.119	.276	7.7%	26.1%	.276	-7.6	69	0.3
2015	101	319	53	5	26	11	86	.178	.213	.275	.097	.230	3.4%	27.0%	.217	-25.1	30	-0.9

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Season

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2021. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHP	32	28	8	1	3	11	.286	.375	.464	.369	34.4%
vs RHP	46	41	8	1	1	18	.195	.233	.293	.232	39.1%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2021.

Loading 43 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 43 tracked batted balls in 2021. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 7.0%
Exit velocity: 84.9
Max exit velo: 106.5
Hard hit: 39.5%
Sweet spot: 30.2%
Launch angle: 8.6°

Barrel rate7.0%

Exit velocity84.9 mph

Hard hit rate39.5%

Contact rate61.1%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2021.

Below averageLeague averageAbove average

Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .243.

Situational hitting

How René Rivera hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by

By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
Situation	PA	AB	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
All situations	78	—	—	—	—	—	—	.232	.293	.362	.290
Bases empty	44	38	7	2	2	4	16	.184	.295	.368	.299
Runner on first · thin	14	12	5	0	1	0	4	.417	.417	.500	.396
Runners on	34	31	9	0	7	0	13	.290	.290	.355	.279
RISP · thin	20	19	4	0	6	0	9	.211	.211	.263	.204

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Rows under 25 plate appearances are marked thin — at that size a rate moves several dozen points on one hit. Counted from play-by-play, 2021.

Head to head

Put René Rivera beside up to three others.

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René Rivera

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.