Matt Hague joins Bisons coaching staff, Blue Jays announce appointments

The Toronto Blue Jays today announced the Buffalo Bisons coaching staff that will join manager Casey Candaele for the 2023 season, including the return of former Bisons MVP player, Matt Hague, as the club’s new hitting coach.

Tim Norton will make his Bisons debut in 2023 as the team’s new pitching coach while Justin Echevarria takes over as the Herd’s new position coach. Jake McGuiggan returns for a third season on the Buffalo bench as development coach while Carson Phillips has been named the team’s bullpen coach.

Hague, who has served as the hitting coach for the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats in each of the last two seasons, will put on a Bisons uniform for the first time since being named the 2015 International League Most Valuable Player. That season, Hague produced one of the top offensive seasons in club history, winning the IL Batting Title with a .338 average while producing 33 doubles, 11 home runs, 92 RBI, 70 runs scored and a then-club record .416 on-base percentage. His .342 batting average in 149 total games in Buffalo (he appeared in 13 games with the Bisons in 2024) is best mark in the team’s modern era.

Hague joined the Blue Jays organization in a coach in 2020, when he was scheduled to be the hitting coach at Single-A Dunedin before the season was canceled. He was a career .298 hitter in 797 minor league games and also led the International League in hits in 2011 and 2013. Hague played 43 career major league games with Pittsburgh and Toronto.

Norton joins the Blue Jays after one season in the Marlins minor league system, serving as the pitching coach for the Double-A Pensacola Blue Wahoos in 2021 and working as an assistant pitching coach at Georgia Tech last year. He coached in the Yankees system from 2013-2019, including two seasons as pitching coach for the Double-A Trenton Thunder, 2018-2019. Norton pitched six seasons in the minors, 2006-2011, with a 2.41 ERA in 85 career appearances. He struck out 238 batters to only 153 hits allowed in 197.2 career innings.

Echevarria served as the hitting coach for the Florida Coast League Blue Jays last season. McGuiggan has served as the Bisons development coach each of the previous two seasons and was slated for the same position before the cancellation of the 2020 season. He previously served as an analyst coach with the Dunedin Blue Jays (A-Adv) in 2019.

The Blue Jays also announced that trainer Caleb Daniel and strength and conditioning coach Justin Batcher will return to the Bisons for the third straight season. They will be joined by assistant strength and conditioning coach Roswell Del Rosario, physical therapist Joe Hallock, dietitian Kara Terry, mental performance coach Rob DiBernardo, and technology assistant, Ryan Moretti.