I can pinpoint the moment I discovered it. It was April 24th, as the Mariners had just secured their fifth series in a row, part of a nine series-win streak that gave them the cushion to survive their August swoon. Leo Rivas had gone 2 for 3 with a walk, a stolen base, and a highlight-reel catch at second base. Brad Adam grabbed him for Rivas’s first on-field postgame interview. Watch this video, and watch it all the way to the very end.
The video cuts out two seconds too soon, but you can still get
a sense of the sincerity in his gratitude to Brad for giving him that moment. It’s such a genuine moment that you don’t often see in what are usually pretty bland interviews. But Brad was right of course. The infectiousness of Rivas’s joy, and the charm of watching him fight his nerves about being interviewed on live TV (in his second language no less) were perfection. And that was the moment I knew. I immediately double-checked with our experts, asking both Connor Donovan (our Senior Underdog Player Correspondent) and Isabelle Minasian (our Senior Cutie Pie Analyst), who both quickly confirmed my suspicions. Leo Rivas is a li’l cutie pie.
At this point, no one could help being smitten after Rivas ended last night’s 13-inning marathon on a walk-off home run. It was one of the most unexpected moments of the season. After all, Rivas isn’t known for his power. In 3,316 career PAs in the minors, Rivas only has 41. He may have found a little extra oomph this year, as 10 of them have come in 2025, but still. The surprise is surely behind the content and delivery of Aaron Goldsmith’s call (one of his best ever).
That smile as he rounds the bases. My goodness. Sometimes walk-off celebrations are perfunctory, but you can’t watch this Instagram video from the Mariners social team and tell me these players weren’t over the moon for Rivas as much as or even more than they were for securing their fifth win in a row.
That Brayn Woo twirl? He ain’t doing that for just anybody. Cal Raleigh hit Rivas with that shaving cream so hard that he had to apologize afterwards. Addressing the media after the game, Emerson Hancock gushed. “He does all the right things. He brings such a good attitude to the park,” he said. “I just couldn’t be happier for him.”
And then there’s his own celebration. Now on his third postgame on-field interview, he’s a little more used to that part of the experience, but watch what Rivas does when Jen Mueller talks about the moment he connected with the ball, about half way through this video.
My heart’s just not strong enough for moments like that. Reader, I cried.
The surprise of the power is of course part of it. But, I mean, it’s the magnitude of the denominator as much as the smallness of the numerator. 41 home runs in 3,316 minor-league PAs. 3,316 plate appearances in the minors! He’s been in professional baseball since 2015, but didn’t get to debut until last season when the Mariners called him up. (Fun fact: he hit a triple in his first time up.) Every player to debut has worked hard for it, but it’s hard not to be a little extra excited for a guy who’s put in that kind of time in the grind. And it takes a special person to go through it.
So it’s unsurprising that we have found ourselves endeared by his winning, and dare I say, Suárezesque personality. Take it from his manager: “Leo is such an exceptional person. You can’t help but root for him. He has that impact on people where he makes you a better person by being around him, and I think when you see something like that happen to a player like Leo, it lifts everybody up, and I think that’s a big part of what that celebration was about is just how excited they were for Leo too. What a great moment.”
Maybe that’s just what these Mariners needed. Rivas was a key cog in two of their hot stretches. He may have come into this season with FanGraphs pegging him for an 89 wRC+, but thanks to an exceptional eye, and a little of whatever’s behind that smile, he’s been almost twice as good. In May, John Trupin wrote up his approach at the plate, which Rivas was combining with rock star defense to make a contribution far outweighing his profile.
But despite his impressive performance, he was sent down to AAA at the end of May. The Mariners’ season stumbled shortly thereafter. In the age of the Etsy Witch, I can no longer call that a coincidence. Nor am I surprised that the Mariners have taken off again after recalling him earlier this month. Right away, Rivas let us know that he was the answer by launching his first MLB home run in his first PA back in the bigs, as a pinch-hitter in garbage time on September 1st. It was as if he called up Jerry Dipoto and said, “You know that new sound you’ve been looking for? Well listen to this!”
Including that game, Rivas is hitting .308/.438/.846 in his second time up this year. For the year, he’s up to a 143 wRC+ and 0.8 fWAR in just 89 PAs. Does it make sense? Not really. Do we care? We do not. Leo Rivas is lightning in a bottle. As Dan Wilson put it, “He’s feeling pretty frisky from the left side right now.” It’s the kind of out-of-nowhere performance that powers teams to titles. Wilson might have that feel too. After all, he let Rivas swing last night in a situation where even the most analytical managers probably would have bunted. But seeing the defense crashing as hard as they were, Wilson trusted Rivas to swing away: “Sometimes you’re right, and sometimes you’re wrong. But in this case, he got a pitch he could handle and he drove it.” My advice to the Mariners is to keep just going with it. Let it ride or die on Cutie Pie Power. At least we’ll get more of this face.
