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The Royals have hired Fred Kendall to be the bullpen coach and Brian Poldberg to coach first base. Kendall worked under Bell at Detroit and Colorado. My personal vote was for Guy Hansen to be the bullpen coach, considering how well the young, erratic hardthrowers pitched this year. Billy Doran, who was the Royals' first base coach last year, will likely become the bench coach.

The search for a pitching coach continues. The top candidates appear to be Mark Wiley and Bob McClure. Wiley was the Royals' pitching coach in 1999. McClure has been a pitching coach in the Rockies organization, most recently for their Triple-A team. I really could care less about these candidates. The pitching coach isn't the problem and if it is, hiring old ones isn't going to help. There's obviously a much bigger organizational defunct that has resulted in the Royals' awful pitching.

In Arizona Fall League news, Justin Huber has been removed because of a sprained achillies tendon. Huber, as well as many other Royals' players, seem to play through their injuries and not tell anyone about them:

"He has a sprained Achilles tendon," Baird said. "It's apparently been bothering him for two months and he tried to battle through it. You know, the tough Australian."

I suspect that had something to do with his Blanco-like .212/.274/.242 line. Meanwhile, Butler is tearing up the Arizona Fall League. He's hitting .333 with 2 HRs and 9 RBIs. Hopefully, we'll get to see Gordon in the near future.