Royals Primacy A Kansas City Royals blog

The Hillman Debate – Brett Voices His Support

Posted by: Casey on May 20, 2009.

Trey Hillman has received quite a bit of negative feedback from the way he has managed the team this year, but that isn’t uncommon. Every one of the 30 MLB managers face criticism for the way they handle their team. That’s the way it is. Now that the Royals are “contending” for the AL central so far this year, the critics have been out in full force.
In case you didn’t see it, George Brett had some pretty classic comments about the situation (hopefully this video stays on youtube): 
Casual Golfer

While I plan on going much more in-depth about how I feel about Trey Hillman, I will give throw out some basic points in this initial post.
First of all, Trey Hillman had a solid first season last year as manager. His team went 75-87, which was an improvement of 7 games from the previous year. His team finished 13.5 games behind first place, which was the closest the Royals finished since 1994 (aside from the “we believe” 83-79 season in 2003, which finished 7 games back). I think everyone can agree that his first season was a good one.
Secondly, Trey Hillman had to deal with the mentality that this team and franchise has had for most of the last 24 years. The players on the team that he inherited were not known as winners. They were all losers. They were use to losing, and it is a very difficult task to change the shape of a team like that. I think a lot of the credit has to go to Dayton Moore, who hired Hillman. The duo has turned around the complexion of the team, and you have to give Trey some of the credit.
Thirdly, Trey Hillman is a winner. He isn’t the energetic manager that you see in people like Tony Pena and Ozzie Guillen. He’s a quiet, methodical, diligent manager. The rare times that you see emotion out of the man is when he flashes a quick smile with the fellow coaches after a close victory. Say what you will about that type of manager, but what I see is that he is a winner. That is his desire, is to win. He won when he was in Japan. He won when he managed at the minor league level for the Yankees. It seems that he’s implementing that type of mentality into this team. I can appreciate a manager who is as humble as Hillman is, who also demands excellence.
The rest of this season will be a big test for Hillman. The team sits at 20-18, one game behind the Tigers. Hopefully the Royals can continue to play well and perhaps even make the playoffs. Hopefully.