Comments on: Bengie Molina accepts offer to become Cardinals’ assistant hitting coach

By: Carl Hancock

Carl Hancock — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 03:17:49 +0000

Bengie had been the best hitter out of the Molina Brothers for most of their careers until Yadi came into his own the last few years. I still don’t understand how Bengie ended up out of the game the way he did. His career came to an abrupt end after being a solid hitter at a position where it’s not the norm.

By: hushbrother

hushbrother — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 02:15:35 +0000

Jeez, Bengie, why not keep playing? Some team would surely take you on as a backup catcher, and you’d make a hell of a lot more money than you would coaching.

By: albertmn

albertmn — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 01:31:33 +0000

I have to assume being a coach (hitting or otherwise) has more to do with observing and then being able to relate to players what you are seeing. Also, I would think you would need to have an open mind, as what works for one player isn’t what works for another player.

By: miketreedy

miketreedy — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 00:38:14 +0000

The fact that Molina was able to hit for the cycle as a Ranger while weighing about 300 lbs show’s he was a damn good hitter.

By: cur68

cur68 — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 00:12:29 +0000

He’s a Molina. That’s good enough.

By: ptfu

ptfu — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 23:59:48 +0000

To take that a step further, the hitting coaches should be evaluated as hitting coaches too. How did the players do without the coach, and how did they do with him?

Then see how well success as a hitting coach correlates with success as a hitter.

By: stex52

stex52 — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 23:04:35 +0000

I started to really snark. Something like “base stealing coach.” But I looked at BRef. He didn’t walk nearly enough, but he also didn’t strike out too much either. And in his best years he was average, which is good for a catcher. Add that to the argument above about observing hitters so much and maybe this makes sense.

I know catchers often make good pitching coaches.

By: missingdiz

missingdiz — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 21:37:07 +0000

I’m no expert. But catchers must spend a lot of time observing hitters and thinking about how to get them out. It doesn’t seem like such leap to use that experience to try to help them get on.

By: albertmn

albertmn — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 20:47:21 +0000

What makes someone a good hitting coach? Some of the hitting coaches were very good hitters, while some were decent, but not great hitters. I realize that coaching takes a different skill set than actually hitting. But, I’m curious how some make that transition and some don’t.

I think it would be an interesting bit, during the dark winter dead spots for baseball, for one of the bloggers to take a look at the hitting coaches in MLB and compare how well they actually hit when they played.

By: paperlions

paperlions — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 20:20:02 +0000

Damn, you beat me to it.

By: okwhitefalcon

okwhitefalcon — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 19:59:51 +0000

Maybe he can also be a righthanded bat off the bench!!

Oh, wait…