INDIANAPOLIS | It’s a fairly slow Wednesday at the winter meetings. The Royals show little measurable progress in their efforts to find a catcher, a center fielder or left-handed help for their rotation or bullpen.</p><p> So pull up a chair alongside manager Trey Hillman in a corner at the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown hotel and warm yourself with some hot-stove talk while counting down the days until spring training.</p><p> There are still holes — as mentioned above — in the roster, but Hillman has some early ideas on fitting his known pieces together for the coming season: </p><p> <b>Q:</b> Three guys in your rotation — Gil Meche, Kyle Davies and Brian Bannister — ended last season with injury problems. How are they doing?</p><p> <b>Hillman:</b> “All very healthy, very strong and in great condition. They think Gil Meche is in the best shape of any year, and Gil is always in pretty good shape. So that perked my ears up about his condition.”</p><p> <b>Q:</b> So come February, they should be full go?</p><p> <b>Hillman:</b> “That’s my understanding with absolutely no reservations.” <b>Q:</b> Shortstop Mike Aviles underwent Tommy John surgery in July. Usually, that’s a year-long recovery process, but he keeps saying he’s going to be ready for spring training. That possible?</p><p> <b>Hillman:</b> “I asked that specific question to (to new trainer) Nick Kenney. If there are no setbacks, (Aviles) has a chance to be ready.”</p><p> <b>Q:</b> If he’s ready, where does he fit?</p><p> <b>Hillman:</b> “He would fit somewhere if he’s healthy and ready to go. Based on what he was able to do when healthy as a rookie in 2008, I would want to make a fit somewhere. I would be comfortable (in using Aviles) if we had a need at second, short, or third. I’m just not sure how all those pieces are going to come together.”</p><p> <b>Q:</b> Aviles was the shortstop in 2008. If he’s healthy, what does that mean for Yuniesky Betancourt?</p><p> <b>Hillman:</b> “I still like Yuniesky as our shortstop. I don’t have any reservations moving forward with Yuniesky being our starting shortstop.</p><p> “Yuniesky is in the Miami area. He’s already started hitting, and he’s on his off-season agility program and very committed and dedicated to the program. He’s doing everything we have asked him to do with his off-season prescription.”</p><p> <b>Q:</b> Last year, you often stretched out closer Joakim Soria because of problems elsewhere in the bullpen. Would you like to pull back from that?</p><p> <b>Hillman:</b> “I would love to turn him into a four-out- or three-out-only guy. I really don’t want to be in a position to do what we did this last year.” </p><p> <b>Q:</b> If you had to start the season right now, who is in center field?</p><p> <b>Hillman:</b> “Right now, it would be a combination of what we went ended last season with, Mitch Maier and Josh Anderson.” </p><p> <b>Q:</b> No thoughts of moving David DeJesus from left field back to center?</p><p> <b>Hillman:</b> “Not back to center. I’d like to leave him in left. The only thought of moving him, if there was a need, would be to right. We might do that if we felt like José (Guillen) was not going to be able to play right and that we had a better fit in left field than in right.”</p><p> <b>Q:</b> Is Alex Gordon the third baseman?</p><p> <b>Hillman:</b> “At the moment, for me, he’s our third baseman. We are all hopeful that he's going to be fully recovered and have a healthy season.”</p><p> <b>Q:</b> From the sound of things, newcomer Chris Getz appears to project as the starting second baseman. True?</p><p> <b>Hillman:</b> “Depends on what we do with (Alberto) Callaspo. It’s difficult to put a .300 hitter with his run production (on the bench). Getz fits best at (defensively) second, but I’m not sure that we are going to come out and say that’s exactly what we are going to do until with he get a clearer picture of how we are going to utilize Callaspo.”