Dale Sveum named new Royals hitting coach

So there's the first shoe to drop.

Dale Sveum is expected to take over as Royals hitting coach today. He ran early batting practice this afternoon at Rogers Centre.

— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) May 29, 2014

Predictable. If you're counting at home, that now makes six hitting instructors in the last eighteen months. As if the last few changes helped any. Its still unclear if hitting instructor Pedro Grifol has been fired or re-assigned.

Dale Sveum served as hitting instructor in Milwaukee from 2009-2011 under Ken Macha. The Brewers were top five in runs scored every year, and top three in home runs hit. He had a young talented team that included Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, Ryan Braun, and Corey Hart.

Here's a taste of how Sveum likes to approach hitting instruction.

Q. You have a coach with Rudy Jaramillo, do you share the same kind of philosophies?

DALE SVEUM: I don't know if Rudy has a philosophy or I have a philosophy on hitting. I think when you deal with 12 individuals and you're trying to be consistent at this level, you've got to treat each guy individually. Everybody is different.

Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun and Rickie Weeks, each one of those guys is a completely different person, completely different body frame, completely different approach, lower half to hitting. So you can go on and on about the differences. But I think you have to be open minded when you're dealing with hitting in the big leagues because you're not teaching as much as putting a plan together to make sure they're not failing or the failing gets cut a little short. We want guys to be more like this (indicating), and not like this (indicating), so you've got to cut it off before they get in a two week slump or anything like that.

Sveum was hired by the sabertrically-innovative Cubs General Manager Theo Epstein, so you would think he would recognize the importance of plate discipline and power. Whether he can execute it in this club remains to be seen.