<strong>Billy Butler </strong>is working. That much he assures you. He is working, seven days a week, with a personal trainer and with yoga and weights and cardio and anything else he can find to get himself into better shape.</p><p>It worked last offseason, and Butler figures it&rsquo;ll work again. He said he came to spring training 15 pounds or so lighter than the previous year, and he did it in a way that made him stronger and faster.</p><p>So the plan this offseason? Sweat, rinse, repeat.</p><p>&ldquo;If you&rsquo;re working out, you&rsquo;re getting better baseballwise,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If you get stronger, you hit the ball further, you hit the ball harder, you have quicker hands. Everything I do is trying to make me a better baseball player.&rdquo;</p><p>This came up Monday when the Royals announced Butler as their player of the year. No surprise there, as Butler led the team with a .301 average and 93 RBIs. The award is voted on by the Kansas City chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America.</p><p>Butler&rsquo;s 51 doubles ranked second in the American League, and he became just the fifth player in baseball history to hit at least 50 doubles and 20 homers in a season before turning 24. The others are <strong>Hank Greenberg</strong>, <strong>Alex Rodriguez</strong>, <strong>Albert Pujols </strong>and <strong>Miguel Cabrera</strong>. </p><p>The award put him in some more good company, as he becomes, at 23, the youngest winner since <strong>George Brett </strong>in 1976.</p><p>&ldquo;Obviously,&rdquo; Butler said, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s a no-brainer I&rsquo;m not in George Brett&rsquo;s category.&rdquo;</p><p>That&rsquo;s true, of course, but Butler did establish himself as one of the game&rsquo;s better young hitters last year. His .853 on-base-plus-slugging percentage ranked 28th in the American League, between <strong>Johnny Damon </strong>and <strong>Ichiro Suzuki</strong>, and ahead of <strong>Aaron Hill</strong>, <strong>Bobby Abreu</strong>, <strong>Carl Crawford</strong> and others.</p><p>&ldquo;Naturally, he&rsquo;ll continue to improve,&rdquo; said general manager <strong>Dayton Moore</strong>. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got a chance to hit in this league for a long, long time &hellip; I thought he did a tremendous job the second half of the season in slowing down at-bats, especially in RBI situations. I look for him to continue to do that.&rdquo;</p><p>Butler played 159 games last year, including 154 starts, his injury-free season being one of the things he&rsquo;s most proud of. He believes that&rsquo;s a direct product of being in better shape, and it&rsquo;s extra motivation to do it again.</p><p>&ldquo;The main thing for baseball players is to have the confidence,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Once you have the confidence, you know you belong there, you know you&rsquo;ve proved you can do it, it takes pressure off you. Then you just go out there and do what you&rsquo;ve done your whole life.&rdquo;