Family…

Growing up, I relied on my brothers after the age of 13, because that is, as I’ve mentioned in the past, when my father died. He left a hole that two of my older brothers filled.

As we got older though, we drifted apart. Part of that was natural, but another part was the fact that we chose entirely different fields. They were engineers of one type or another, I was an English major who ended up as a high school teacher.

I’ve often wondered what would’ve happened if I had become an engineer. Part of that is thinking about whether I’d have more in common with my brothers. We’d have more to talk about, possibly keeping us closer. If I was an engineer, we could talk about engineering stuff. If they were teachers, we could commiserate about misbehaving students and talk about our star students.

Now, I realize that baseball is a business, and roster spots in themselves are precious items, so what I’m about to suggest may prove unpopular, or even thought of as stupid.

I think the Cards should sign Jose Molina, or at the least offer him a job, maybe as an assistant bullpen coach, or a special consultant.

I remember last year, when the Cards played the Rays, the camaderie I saw between Jose and his brother, our catcher Yadier Molina. Yadi left some crackers on the plate as a joke, and they (and everybody else) had a good laugh.

Yadi is already signed to a good contract, and seems fairly loyal to the Cards, but so did Albert Pujols. As we all know, Albert took a larger contract than the Cards were willing to give and left town.

I don’t think Yadi will do that, but I didn’t think Albert would leave either, especially as he was coming off just winning a World Series with the Cards. Therefore I think any goodwill we can generate with Yadi, the better, as I’d really like to see him retire in a Cards uniform.

Now as I mentioned earlier, roster spots are valuable. Jose, if signed as a player and not a coach, would take up one of those spots and possibly give us three catchers, along with Yadi and Tony Cruz. Now, I won’t go into to detail on his stats, but lets’ just say they were ugly last year. Add that to the fact that he’s 39, and I think he could be had for relatively cheap and for a short contract, say one year. That would allow him to become familiar with the organization, and time for us to find a possible coaching position for him (or at the very least see if he would make a good coach or consultant.

Still, with his cost being negligible and short term contract possibility that brings us back to the roster spot itself. Could we afford to have three catchers on the roster? Isn’t team chemistry and an even happier franchise player worth it, especially as it may allow us to sign him for the rest of his career at a hometown discount down the road? I don’t want to lose Yadi, and anything we can do to keep him in the future is worth considering, even if the idea seems stupid at first.

Just some food for thought.

As always, thanks for reading.