BIOGRAPHY
Austin Hedges was born August 18, 1992, in San Juan Capistrano, California. He is a catcher in the MLB.
Prior to the 2012 season, Baseball America ranked Hedges as the Padres fifth-best prospect. Playing for the Fort Wayne TinCaps of the Midwest League, Hedges hit .279/.334/.451 with 10 home runs in 96 games. Scouts considered Hedges to be a stand-out defender who had surprised them with his batting at Class-A.
Hedges moved into a role as the Padres regular catcher in 2017, catching 115 games and backed up by Luis Torrens and Héctor Sánchez. Hedges finished the season with a .214/.262/.398 batting line with 18 home runs in 387 at-bats. Behind the plate, he had a 37% caught stealing rate. His fielding runs above average (26.7) led all catchers, according to Baseball Prospectus, and he ranked second in framing runs.
Hedges entered the 2019 season as the Padres primary catcher. Hedges' defense remained strong, as he threw out 33% of base stealers and was worth 28.2 fielding runs above average according to Baseball Prospectus. Hedges was also an elite pitch framer in 2019, ranking at the top of the MLB Statcast leaderboard for the year with 20 runs created with extra strike calls.
On August 31, 2020, the Padres traded Hedges, along with Josh Naylor, Cal Quantrill, and minor league players Gabriel Arias, Owen Miller, and Joey Cantillo, to the Cleveland Indians in exchange for Mike Clevinger, Greg Allen, and Matt Waldron. Overall with Cleveland in 2020, Hedges batted .083 with no home runs and 0 RBIs in 6 games.
On August 1, 2023, Hedges was traded to the Texas Rangers in exchange for international bonus pool money.
Hedges signed with Cleveland on a one year deal for the 2024 season.
