Trey Hillman's chat transcript is now posted on the official team site (link here) and while there were no stunning answers, it was nice to get a little more insight into the man. Numerous answers invite us all to be English majors trying to find the hidden or deeper meaning in the man's words.
For example, if so inclined, you could probably mine a lot of meaning from this exchange:
Hillman: I will continue to look for ways to diversify, simply because on any given night certain starting pitchers throughout the league, especially in the American League Central, can make it very challenging to sit back and wait for the three-run bomb. I love power as much as anyone, but you always have to try to have more in your arsenal just to combat quality starting pitching.
Hillman also spoke quite forcefully about the value of Japanese-style conditioning, strongly implying that the Royals will be implementing a new regime. There was also quite a lot about fundamentals, although its hard to know what exactly this means, or how relevant it will be, since every manager says that. Who ever lays out with, "I want us to be a fundamentally unsound team"?
Since "KCFaninSEA" so kindly mentioned this site, if you're visiting Royals Review for the first time, here's linkage to some earlier, massive discussions of the hiring, etc.
• Closing the Book on Buddy Bell (109 comments)
• Spreadsheet Baseball- One Last Article Where I Rip Buddy Bell
• Trey Hillman Will be the Next Manager of the Royals (115 comments)
• Hillman on His Offensive Philosophy
• Dayton Moore Has No Clue How to Build An Offense
• Do Good and Bad Managers Exist?
• Broaching the Topic: The Royals and Religion
Many of these issues and concerns come together in:
• Unpacking the Trey Hillman Hire (136 comments)
I'm not sure there's an element of this hiring that we haven't already jumped all over, although, as Parcells says in those beer commericals, "thats a good thing, not a bad thing."
Does anyone know anything about Japanese conditioning?