Dylan Coleman Yankees, KC praises scout, Carlos Beltrán switch-hit story

Between more major offseason free agent and trade targets coming off the board, to the Hall of Fame’s class of 2026 being announced, there’s been no shortage of news to appease the palates of the baseball world this week.

However, amidst all the fanfare, there’s plenty of other more niche headlines that can get lost in the shuffle, including several pertaining the Royals.

From old friends in new places, to major scouting wins being recognized, to some obscure feel good stories coming into the light because of recent bigger news, there’s several under-the-radar headlines Royals fans ought to be aware of as the end of the week nears.

Royals News: Yankees reportedly sign former KC reliever Dylan Coleman

Adding to the list of former Royals who’ve found their way onto new teams this winter, we have former reliever Dylan Coleman.

With a picture posted on his X account of the New York Yankees’ logo and a caption that read, “the next chapter”, the 29-year-old right hander appeared to announce his new home for the 2026 season.

Coleman last pitched in the majors briefly with the Houston Astros back in 2024 and spent the 2025 season in the Baltimore Orioles’ upper minor league ranks, throwing to a combined 4.91 ERA across 14.2 innings between Double-A Bowie and Triple-A Norfolk.

As a Royal, between 2021 and 2023, Coleman compiled a 3.88 ERA and 1.37 WHIP in 92.2 innings of work across 96 appearances.

Royals News: KC praises long-time scout responsible for signing Carlos Beltrán

In light of Carlos Beltrán getting the call to the Cooperstown on Tuesday, like any Hall of Famer in the past, people tend to reminisce and discuss the journey of how they got to where they were.

The Royals Player Development department offered the Royals faithful with a great tidbit of information regarding their newest Hall of Famer by shouting out the scout who signed him.

The crazy thing about it is, not only was Johnny Ramos the scout responsible for discovering Beltrán, but he’s still with the organization to this day.

“Congratulations to legendary Royals scout Johnny Ramos, who signed newly-elected Hall of Famer Carlos Beltrán,” they wrote on X.

“By the way, 2026 will mark Johnny’s 53rd season scouting for the Kansas City Royals,” they also wrote.

Royals News: Former KC coach shares incredible story of how Hall of Famer developed unique skill

Lastly, staying on the Beltrán hype train, another unique story was unearthed by his Hall of Fame induction announcement, one the pertains to one of the areas of his game that made him so dominant.

In an appearance on MLB Network Radio earlier this week, current Philadelphia Phillies hitting coach and former Royals coach Kevin Long took to the air the air to discuss the work he did with Beltrán in the early stages of his career, including making him into a switch hitter.

According to Long, after the Royals identified that this seemed like an avenue worth pursuing with their young outfielder they asked Long if he would be the guy to make it happen and teach him the art of hitting left-handed along with keeping his natural right. This was met with hesitancy from Long.

“This is during the middle of the season, he’s in High-A Wilmington, Delaware playing for the Blue Rocks,” Long said. “I said I’ll gladly go down there and give it a shot, but don’t you think this is a little far-fetched?”

According to Long, Beltrán was open to the idea if it was to be a way to eventually make him a major leaguer.

“We hit from like 10am to 11am, maybe 11:30am, we’d do all left-handed swings,” Long said. “We’d go to lunch, we’d come back, we’d attack his left-handed swing again.”

“We did that for a month, maybe a five week period,” he said.

Long shared that at points he had his doubts of whether or not this plan was going to work how the team wanted it to, but after hitting a homer from the left-side if the plate in his first game, Long knew there was something special with Beltrán.

“I was like ‘oh my god’,” Long said. “I could see it, I could see the talent, I could see what he had in there, but as they say the rest is history.”

He may be better known as a Hall of Famer for his time in New York, but with stories like this, there’s no denying that he built his foundation for his Cooperstown career in Kansas City.