More thoughts on Eric Wedge

[Griffin’s Note: I’d like to welcome SoDo Mojo’s newest contributor, Keith Myers aboard. We believe bringing him on staff will help to insure more consistent content,  while adding a different voice to the blog.]

With the news today that the M’s are expected to hire Eric Wedge as their next manager, I decided to do a little research into his teams in Cleveland to see if it might give us any indication about him as a manager.

• When he took over in 2003, the Indians had an average age of just 27.1 years.
• The team stayed young for the next few years with an average age of 28.7, 27.4, 27.7, 28.3, 28.1 and 27.4
• Wedge was manager as the team groomed some very talented young players, like Travis Hafner, Victor Martinez, Grady Sizemore, CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee.
• Wedge was fired at the end of the 2009 season. By then, all of the above players has been traded away except Haffner.

To me what this shows is Wedge has experience dealing with young players, and helping those players reach their potential. Accounts of Wedge that I’ve read say that he’s good at getting his players to play smart, fundamental baseball, which is something the Mariners need.

The problem is, before Wedge can work on getting the most out of the talent that’s on the team, the M’s need to find a way to get some real talent added to the roster. Unless that happens it won’t matter who the manager is.