Sebastián Rivero

Sebastian Rivero Aguilar

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 1", Weight 210 lb.

• Debut May 8, 2021

• Born November 16, 1998 in Maracay, Aragua Venezuela

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Biographical Information

Catcher Sebastián Rivero was signed by the Kansas City Royals as an international amateur free agent from Venezuela on July 10, 2015. He started his professional career with the DSL Royals in 2016, and made it to AAA for the first time in 2019. He spent the 2020 season at the Royals' alternate training site while the minor leagues were shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic, then made his major league debut with Kansas City in May of 2021 after starting that season with the AAA Omaha Storm Chasers. He hit .175 in 17 major league games that season, and played another 17 big league games in 2022, hitting .154. He spent the remainder of the 2022 season in AA with the Northwest Arkansas Naturals, where he hit .218 in 42 games.

The Royals had franchise icon Salvador Pérez as their starting catcher at the time, with young MJ Melendez and Freddy Fermin also on the team, so there was not much room for Rivero, who although strong defensively had not shown that he would ever hit more that a bare minimum. He was let go following the 2022 season and signed with the Chicago White Sox, then after the 2023 season moved again, this time to the Atlanta Braves. In both 2023 and 2024, he simply provided organizational catching depth for his team, playing in both AA and AAA bot years, and again struggling with the bat, with batting averages of .219 and .186 respectively. His big career break came in December of 2024 when he signed with the Los Angeles Angels. At first, though, it was more of the same as he started 2025 in AAA with the Salt Lake Bees, where he was not the starter. However, he had his best year with the bat in recent memory, as he finished at .264 with 9 homers and 45 RBIs in 68 games, and he ended up playing more than the three other catchers who split the work for the Bees, including Chad Wallach and Chuckie Robinson, who were both also major league veterans. He earned a call-up to the big league club in September and hit .182 in 11 games.

In 2026, he once again started the year at Salt Lake, with Logan O'Hoppe and Travis d'Arnaud sharing catching duties at the big league level, but when O'Hoppe went down with an injury at the end of April, he was called up to Anaheim. O'Hoppe was only out a couple of weeks, but by the time he returned in mid-May, d'Arnaud was injured, so Sebastián stayed in the bigs. By early June he had already topped his previous mark for most at-bats in one big league season and on June 7th, he had a career game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, going 5 for 5 with a double and 6 RBIs in a 13-5 win in which the last four batters in the order combined to go 13 for 15.

Related Sites

• Sebastián Rivero on mlb.com