Rangers Could Be Contemplating Changing Hitting Coaches

From the outside of a baseball team, it is very difficult to assess the impact of a hitting coach on the players he's coaching.

Is Josh Hamilton raking because Scott Coolbaugh has firmed up his technique or is it something Hamilton has done on his own? Can a hitting coach snap a player out of a slump or are these things a little bit more complicated than that?

We'll find out what the Rangers think at some point. The team hasn't made any announcement about the status of their coaching staff for next season, something that Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News speculates has to do with a lack of determination on Coolbaugh's status. Grant also suggests the Rangers could add an assistant hitting coach and throws out some possible names for the job.

The possibility of Coolbaugh's departure makes very little sense based on the numbers. The Rangers offense was the best in the American League last season, even with their unimpressive finish, and there's not much reason to believe the team left a lot of runs on the field.

That means that the decision is going to be made about something other than sheer offensive productivity. It also means that it is almost impossible to assess a possible change because the reasons for making it have to do with things that go on outside the prying eyes of the public.

Having said that, it seems odd that Ron Washington and others in the organization would make such a big deal about riding players too hard one week and then make Coolbaugh a scapegoat the next. It might be time for a bit more message discipline because firing Coolbaugh after saying the players were tired would do nothing other than make it look like the Rangers have no explanation for why they didn't have a better season.

None of that means its the wrong choice, but it's hard to imagine that things would have ben incredibly different with a different hitting coach on the bench in September.