The Toronto Blue Jays announced on Saturday they have hired Eric Wedge as the team's new player development adviser.
Wedge spent 10 seasons as a big league manager with the Cleveland Indians from 2003-2009 and the Seattle Mariners from 2011-2013.
He posted a career record of 774-846 in that span, where he won the 2007 American League Manager of the Year Award after leading the Indians to a 96-66 season.
However, it was only one of two winning seasons that he ever posted.
Wedge hasn't been in the league since his falling out with the Mariners after three years with the team. Posting a 213-273 record with them, Wedge went after the front office in an article by Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times.
Instead of finding a new job in the dugout, Wedge headed to the studio where he worked with ESPN's Baseball Tonight. Over that span, he's impressed TSN's Gareth Wheeler:
While he'll be working closely with the Blue Jays roster, there are some, like TSN's Steve Simmons, who believe that there will be an expanded role for him at some point:
Current Toronto manager John Gibbons should not be going anywhere soon, though. The Blue Jays are coming off of their best season since 1993, in which they won 93 games and pushed the eventual World Series champion Kansas City Royals to six games in the ALCS.
But if the Blue Jays aren't putting up good results in 2016 and are looking to make a change, there is always a managerial option in Wedge. Though a power-laden roster with improved pitching doesn't suggest that will happen any time soon.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com
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