Mark Kotsay is the Padres’ new hitting coach, replacing Phil Plantier who was fired last month after three seasons on the job.
Kotsay played 17 years in the majors, five of them with the Padres, and retired following the 2013 season. He was a career .276 hitter with 127 homers and a .737 OPS in 1,914 games who frequently had some of the best strikeout-to-walk ratios in the league.
Much like pitching coach for the Rockies, hitting coach for the Padres is a tough and perhaps borderline impossible job because of pitcher-friendly Petco Park. Since moving to there in 2004 the Padres have never scored an above-average number of runs and have ranked 12th or worse among NL teams in eight of 11 seasons.
