Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated reported earlier this month that the Padres were looking into signing catcher Bengie Molina to serve as a backup to Nick Hundley but found the veteran free agent to be in “retirement mode.”
He remains in that “mode.”
Molina told Kevin Davidoff of Newsday this weekend that he has not yet filed retirement papers and is open to returning if the right situation were to present itself, but also that playing baseball is not something he is thinking about right now.
Molina has a wife and three daughters who have seen him only sparingly over the past 13-plus years.
Molina, 37 in July, batted just .249 with a .297 on-base percentage and five home runs across 118 games last season. He did, however, slug 20 home runs in 2009 for San Francisco.
