Would hiring Yadier Molina as a full-time, St. Louis Cardinals coach be a good idea?

The Cardinals attempted to make a splashy, high-impact addition to their coaching staff last winter with the hiring of Matt Holliday as bench coach. Then, scarcely a month before the opening of spring training, Holliday abruptly resigned, leaving awkward questions to be answered as the year’s opening act.

The season did not improve from there, but the Cardinals appear willing to treat that situation as an aberration as they consider an even higher profile reunion.

Speaking to Gabriel Quiles of Puerto Rico’s El Vocero this week, retired catcher and future Hall of Famer Yadier Molina confirmed that he’s been in conversation with his former team about the possibility of joining the Major League coaching staff full time for the upcoming season.

“I had the opportunity, when I went a few weeks ago to Adam Wainwright’s (the farewell for his retirement), to sit with (the management) and several points were discussed,” Molina said in Spanish, translated by Google.

“We hope that if something happens, it will happen soon and if not, I would still be willing to continue helping them when they need me while I am here in Puerto Rico. They have the knowledge of my willingness (to assume a position in the management or coaching staff).”

What’s not clear is precisely what position on the staff Molina would take. Two sources described Molina’s interest in becoming the bench coach, as Holliday was hired to do, but that position is currently filled by Joe McEwing, who was added to the staff last January.

The team declined to comment on whether McEwing currently has an active contract for the 2024 season, but it’s believed that the organization does hold at minimum an option that would allow him to be retained.

No announcement on any personnel matters has come since the end of the season on October 1, though in September, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak did downplay the potential for significant changes.

“I think it’s going to be mostly more of natural churn,” he said on Sept. 15. “I think we all have to agree that this year happened. It’s behind us, it was not what we had hoped, it was not good. So to do nothing, regardless of how you think about the organizational structure, we should be looking at different ways to solve our problems and look at our situation.”

In looking at Molina, though, the club runs the risk of looking at more of the same. In his first year removed from the clubhouse, despite early season criticisms and challenges with the pitching staff, Willson Contreras was largely able to seize the mantle and develop as a leader in ways that injected a fresh viewpoint into the team’s surroundings even as they foundered.

To bring Molina back into the mix now, despite all of the benefits that would come from his leadership and knowledge, would run the risk of appearing as a tacit acknowledgment that the players who remained after his retirement were unable to fill whatever leadership vacuum was created by his departure.

It would also run the risk of creating an untenable situation for manager Oliver Marmol, who nonetheless has been an enthusiastic proponent of adding Molina to the coaching staff. He is currently entering the last year of the three-year contract he signed when hired in 2021, and coming off the team’s worst season in decades, it’s unclear whether the Cardinals intend to pursue an extension with him this winter.

If they did not, and Marmol entered the 2024 season with a franchise legend who has expressed a clear desire to manage on his staff and in uniform, it would be difficult to handle the inevitable calls for replacement which would come with any significant downturn in results. Such concerns are certainly not front of mind for the current manager, but would likely play out uncomfortably in public.

There’s also the reality of the Holliday situation and the lessons the team might have learned from having been left in the lurch. Many in the organization were displeased when Molina decamped in the midst of a division race in 2022 to watch the basketball team he owns play in their own postseason, but management’s hands were largely tied. To deny him a leave of absence was to risk him simply retiring on the spot in the midst of his most challenging season on the field.

Even if the team believes there’s a very low risk of repeating last winter’s embarrassment, the impact would be significantly magnified given Molina’s potential involvement.

Marmol spoke at the end of the season of his desire to expand the coaching staff in order to make the daily process of running a Major League team into a smoother operation. Dusty Blake’s promotion to pitching coach before last season left his former role technically unfilled, piling additional responsibilities onto game planning coach Packy Elkins. Assistant hitting coach Dan Nicolaisen resigned in the season’s last month for family reasons, taking a job at the University of Mississippi, and his position remains unfilled.

There’s no doubt there will be different coaches in uniform for the Cardinals next season than were present last season. Whether the familiar number 4 is worn by one of them might yet be the most shocking move of the winter.