The Astros have installed Morgan Ensberg as their “mindset coach”

We missed this earlier this week, but the Astros announced Thursday that they have installed Morgan Ensberg as their “mindset coach.”

Ensberg, who played eight seasons in the majors, was the Class A Lancaster infield coach in 2013 and has served as a minor league special assignment coach over the past two seasons. We’ve learned that the Astros are no strangers to outside-the-box thinking, but what the heck does a “mindset coach” do exactly? According to the release from the team, Ensberg will “travel throughout the Astros system to help develop the mental skills of the Astros players while implementing organizational initiatives.”

Ensberg offered some tongue-in-cheek examples of advice on his Twitter account last night, but he went into more detail about the goals for the new position in this interview with Jose de Jesus Ortiz of the Houston Chronicle:

“I would say it’s much more an advocate for players, coaches, managers,” Ensberg said. “They can bounce ideas off me. They can tell me ideas they’d like to change. Basically a sounding board to give them confidence, support and say, ‘I know it’s scary, I empathize but continue this path because it will help you become a major league manager, coach, player.’”

There’s a lot more in that interview that is well worth checking out.

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