Randall on Baseball

Rick Randall is a Stanwood resident whose passions include his wife and children... and baseball. Beginning with his first Little League baseball game, Randall has been immersed in the sport on all levels. He shares his thoughts with other fan-atics on his blog and in his column in North County Outlook.

The M's have made their choice for their next manager, and that man is Eric Wedge. So who is the new skipper? What does he bring to the table? What does his hiring mean for the future of the organization? Exactly the types of questions that I started this column to answer--so here goes.

Wedge enjoyed a brief Major League career as a catcher for Boston and Colorado, appearing in 39 games from 1991 to 1994. He played in the minors through 1997 before hanging up his playing spikes.

He then got right to cutting his teeth as a manager, working his way through the Indians minor league system from '98 to '02. Along the way he was named the top manager in the Carolina League, International League and top AAA manager by Baseball America, before being named the top man in Cleveland the following season when he replaced Joel Skinner. His career as a Major League Baseball manager has to this point been exclusively with the Cleveland Indians, as he manned the helm for them for seven full seasons, from 2003 to 2009. He was runner-up for AL Manager of the Year honors in 2005 and later won the award in 2007.

The situation that he inherited in Cleveland and the situation that he is stepping into here in Seattle are very similar. The Indians were in a no-doubt rebuild at the time that Wedge stepped in as manager. My hope is that the Mariners' front office realizes that the Mariners are also in full rebuild mode. Top dollar free agents should not be the focus this off season, and anyone making significant money not named Hernandez or Ichiro should be moved for young talent if possible. Making that move, and letting Eric Wedge mold these young players into winners is a move that makes the future--the key word that GM Jack Zdurienciek always pushes--something that is truly worth looking forward to.

Ichiro, Felix Hernandez, Franklin Gutierrez, Dustin Ackley, Michael Pineda, Adam Moore, Michael Saunders, Nick Franklin, Dan Cortes, Josh Fields, etc.: These players represent the in-house future for the M's. Eric Wedge is a great choice as manager to be at the helm of a rebuilding plan that centers around those players. He has already proven once that he can handle that task. I'm hoping that he - unlike the Mariners' last managerial hire - gets a fair shake to turn the Good Ship Mariner around.