For 19 years, Manny Ramirez terrorized pitchers as one of the greatest right-handed hitters of all-time. Now, he’s reportedly looking for a job as a hitting coach in Major League Baseball. 

“Manny Ramirez is seeking a hitting coach job in MLB, agent Hector Zepeda said,” tweeted Jon Heyman of the New York Post on Monday afternoon. “He's so determined to get back in the game he’s willing to go to the minors,” he continued. 

Ramirez spent 19 seasons in the big leagues, hitting .312/.411/.585/.996 with 555 career home runs. He spent eight years with the Boston Red Sox, where he hit .312/.411/.588/.999 with 274 home runs. He won World Series titles with the team in 2004 and 2007 and was named World Series MVP in ‘04. 

If Ramirez, now 54, lands a job as a hitting coach, it would be his first foray into coaching in the big leagues. He spent the 2014 season with the Chicago Cubs Triple-A affiliate, the Iowa Cubs, as a player-coach, where he worked with Red Sox All-Star first baseman Willson Contreras. After the 2014 season, he joined the Cubs front office as a hitting consultant through 2016. 

Ramirez was also set to serve as a player-coach for the Sydney Blue Sox of the Australian Baseball League in 2020-21, but uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic meant he never appeared in a game. 

The Red Sox did little to answer any questions about the state of their coaching staff, many of whom were working under interim tags, in Monday’s end-of-season press conference. However, given his reputation as a clubhouse annoyance and his repeated suspensions for PED use, it seems unlikely any team would take a chance on bringing Ramirez in. It feels especially unlikely that Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow, who did not play with Ramirez, would bring in the should-be Hall of Famer as the team increasingly shifts its hitting philosophy to a more analytically based approach. 

That said, after third baseman Caleb Durbin turned his season around with an outside hitting instructor and with key pieces like Contreras openly questioning the team’s reliance on analytics, what’s the risk? 

Throughout the season, plenty of questions arose about Breslow and the coaching staff's ability to communicate and connect with the players. At the bare minimum, Ramirez represents a guy who knows what it takes to succeed at the highest level. At best, he’s a voice INSIDE the organization to help players who don’t feel like they’re getting the most out of the analytical approach, like Durbin. 

That’s not to say they should hand him the keys to the hitting department, but bringing him in as a hitting consultant seems like one of the lowest-risk moves you can make. If it doesn’t work out, you simply move on.