Much has been made on Royals Twitter about the Royals' parting ways with assistant hitting coaches Keoni DeRenne and Joe Dillon this week. While Kansas City retained Alec Zumwalt as lead hitting coach, the changes with DeRenne and Dillon demonstrate that Royals GM JJ Picollo is committed to making changes in the hitting department, as promised in his end-of-the-year press conference.

One of the first signs of the offseason for any hardcore baseball fan is when MLB Trade Rumors publishes its projected salary amounts for arbitration-eligible players this offseason. That benchmark…

The Division Series round has begun, with the Brewers and Blue Jays absolutely crushing the Cubs and Yankees, respectively (which I'm all for). The Phillies were up early on the Dodgers, but a three-run home run from Teoscar Hernandez off former Royals pitcher Matt Strahm (of course) has Los Angeles up in the late innings. (Update: The Dodgers ended up winning game one against the Phillies 5-3.)

With it being an off day from playoff baseball and no news breaking on the Royals' end, I decided to create an edition of "Jottings" focusing on two pieces of content from Just Baseball and one piece from Pitcher List. That includes my latest post on Jac Caglianone and his rookie year, an MLB Division Series Preview, and Pitcher List's "relief pitcher"-focused podcast, which handed out their end-of-the-season reliever awards.

Royals GM JJ Picollo and manager Matt Quatraro held their end-of-the-year press conference on Tuesday, September 30th, at Kauffman Stadium. The full press conference can be found on YouTube in the embedded video below. With the Wild Card games beginning on Tuesday afternoon, it was disappointing to see Picollo and Quatraro in the press room at the K rather than on the field prepping for a potential Wild Card game, as was the case last season (when they played in Baltimore and swept the Orioles in two games).