Raul Ibanez To Replace Curt Schilling On ESPN

Curt Schilling was fired by ESPN last week after sharing a controversial meme on Facebook. It didn’t take the network long to find his replacement.

Former big league outfielder Raul Ibanez will take Schilling’s place after agreeing to a multi-year deal with ESPN. A release by the company says the former All-Star will work in-studio on Baseball Tonight and SportsCenter while also sitting in as an analyst for certain games. Ibanez’s first appearance will come tonight as part of ESPN’s Wednesday Night Baseball broadcast of the Texas Rangers against the New York Yankees.

Ibanez spent 19 years in the big leagues with five different franchises. He retired after splitting the 2014 season with the Los Angeles Angels and Kansas City Royals. The 43-year-old broke into the big leagues in 1996 with the Seattle Mariners and went on to hit .272 with 2,034 hits, 305 home runs and 1,207 RBI.

On February 2, 2016, the Los Angeles Dodgers named Ibanez a special assistant to Andrew Friedman, the team’s president of baseball operations. ESPN snagged him from there and he’ll jump right in to the booth Wednesday night.

This could be a phenomenal move by ESPN. Ibanez has long had the reputation of being one of the nicest guys in sports. He’s personable and should be great on camera.