Trey Hillman

Trey Hillman is the current manager of the Kansas City Royals.

Hillman attended the University of Texas at Arlington, where he was a standout baseball player and was named to the UTA Athletic Hall of Honor in 1992.

Signed by the Cleveland Indians as a free agent on June 22, 1985. In 1985, Hillman hit .113/~.286/.161 as a middle infielder for the Batavia Trojans. He hit .107/~.375/.143 for the Waterloo Indians in 28 AB and .222/~.349/.250 in 108 AB for the Waterbury Indians in 1986. With the Kinston Indians in 1987 he hit .172/~.280/.201 in 174 AB while continuing to show an excellent eye.

After his playing career ended, Hillman spent the latter part of 1987 and all of 1988 scouting for the Indians in the Oklahoma/Texas area. Starting in 1989, Hillman spent 13 years in the New York Yankees organization primarily as a manager at every level and won three Manager of the Year awards and guided his teams to three first-place finishes. In 2002, Hillman was named Director of Player Development for the Texas Rangers. The following year, Trey signed a two-year contract to be the manager of the Nippon Ham Fighters of the Japanese professional baseball's Pacific League. He guided the club to its first Japan Series title ever in 2006. He was interviewed for the position as 2007 manager of the Oakland Athletics but remained with Nippon Ham and guided them to the best record in the PL. Hillman said he would not return to Japan for 2008 and there was speculation he was being considered for the New York Yankees job. On October 19th, 2007, Hillman accepted a multi-year managerial offer from the the Kansas City Royals.

Hillman's final games managing in Japan were a disappointment as the Fighters dropped four in a row in the 2007 Japan Series after winning game one. They only mustered four runs in those four games, including suffering the first perfect game in Series history in Game Five. The Fighters tied a Series record by scoring only 7 runs.