My Lil' Rangers birdies this morning are chirpin' about Trey Hillman being a legit candidate to follow Buck Showalter as Texas Rangers manager. Not surprisingly, you won't find mention of Hillman, or anything else relevant, here.
Hillman is the team's former minor league farm director and is currently managing Japan's Nippon-Ham Fighters. Haven't the foggiest why a baseball team would have a beef with ham, but, according to this, Hillman may not be an ideal "players' coach" either. (In short, Fighters' pitcher Satoru Kanemura was suspended and fined for saying of Hillman, "I don't even want to see his face.") Nonethless, Hillman joins bench coach Don Wakamatsu and hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo on general manager Jon Daniels' short list. --Richie Whitt