He has previously played in MLB for the San Diego Padres, Pittsburgh Pirates and Texas Rangers, with whom he won the World Series in 2023.

[2] As an only child whose parents worked after he came home from school, Hedges spent large parts of his childhood throwing a lacrosse ball at a wall and catching it with his bare hand.

In addition to Hedges, Matt Chapman, Zach Davies, David Fletcher, Joe Musgrove, Michael Lorenzen, and Bryce Harper all played for the Aztecs.

[14] He spent the season with San Antonio, where he hit .225 with 6 home runs over 113 games while throwing out 38% of opposing base runners.

[15] The Padres promoted Hedges to the major leagues on May 4, bringing him up as a back-up to Derek Norris after designating Wil Nieves for assignment.

[17] On May 6, Hedges notched his first Major League hit, an RBI single in the third inning of a game against the San Francisco Giants.

[25] Hedges moved into a role as the Padres regular catcher in 2017, catching 115 games and backed up by Luis Torrens and Héctor Sánchez.

[29] He returned to action with the Padres on June 24 and remained as the primary catcher for the rest of the season, splitting time in September with call-up Francisco Mejía.

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,[33] ranking at the top of the MLB Statcast leaderboard for the year with 20 runs created with extra strike calls.

[34] 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.