With Quatraro hired as manager, KC Royals must find a ‘manager’ of the pitching staff
Matt Quatraro’s hire as manager of the Kansas City Royals put one of the key pieces in place for the franchise, but attention has quickly turned to filling out Quatraro’s coaching staff and another huge hire.
The Royals must now bring in a new pitching coach to help get the most out of their staff, particularly a starting rotation with intriguing potential. In some ways, the next hire may be almost as important as the choice of Quatraro as the club’s new skipper.
Former pitching coach Cal Eldred was fired at season’s end along with manager Mike Matheny.
Quatraro will have input with the club’s front office in the process of hiring a new pitching coach. Several of the Royals’ top pitching prospects in recent years have had impressive showings in the minors and shown flashes of their potential but have struggled to find consistency during their transition to the majors.
Executive vice president and general manager J.J. Picollo said from the day he announced the managerial search that he intended to hire a manager first, and then have that manager be part of the search process for hiring Eldred’s successor.
He reiterated that intention last week.
“We want and need him to be a part of that,” Picollo said after Quatraro’s introductory news conference.
This season, the Royals’ pitching staff finished the season ranked at or near the bottom of the majors in ERA (4.70, 27th of 30), walks (590, 29th), walks plus hits per innings pitched (1.47, 30th), opponent’s batting average (.271, 29th), strikeouts per nine innings (7.57, 28th), walks per 9 (3.74, 29th) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (2.02, 30th).
“We don’t know who all the guys are; we have a list,” Picollo said of potential candidates. “There were names that overlapped on his list and our list, which is a good indication. But also we needed his thoughts on building out the pitching department. Where does it coincide with our thoughts?”
Organizational changes
Even before being promoted to executive vice president of baseball operations, Picollo had indicated a desire to revamp elements of the Royals’ pitching development system.
During a September interview as part of The Star’s SportsBeat KC livestream on Facebook, Picollo lauded the work of senior director of pitching performance Paul Gibson for having done “an outstanding job.” Picollo touted Gibson’s understanding of people, pitching deliveries and data and technology, and how to implement it.
Picollo said at the end of the season that Gibson would remain in that role. The organization did not renew the contract of minor-league pitching coordinator Jason Simontacchi.
In regard to the organization’s minor-league pitching development, Picollo pointed to recent results — such as not throwing strikes on a consistent basis, walks and being behind in counts — as glaring deficiencies needing attention.
He also acknowledged the need for a new approach to how the club has been coaching pitchers in the minors.
“We have some reason to believe that some of our processes that we implemented and got a bit heavy-handed with — mainly the game-planning perspective that we emphasized more than we probably should at the lower levels — probably has hindered us,” Picollo said at that time.
Picollo also praised the work that manager of pitching performance Mitch Stetter and Brandon Nelson from the research and development department have done in that regard — breaking down particular pitches, pitch usage and pitch design and pitch tunneling with the help of technology and data.
Picollo pointed to that as an area where the Royals needed to “continue to expand those efforts.”
Maximizing pitchers’ potential
The pitching coach for the major-league staff will be another crucial cog in the pitching machinery the Royals are in the process of constructing.
When a reporter asked Quatraro about the commonalities between the recent success of his previous two organizations, the Cleveland Guardians and Tampa Bay Rays, Quatraro immediately replied, “Pitching. You put good pitching on the field, you’ve got a really good chance of winning.”
Quatraro said the new pitching coach will be the “manager” of the pitching staff along with the bullpen coach. He indicated that he does not intend to micromanage his staff.
In Tampa, the major-league coaching staff includes a pitching coach, an assistant pitching and rehab coach and a bullpen coach. The assistant pitching coach/rehab coach, Rick Knapp, is a former Royals minor-league pitching coordinator.
Last season, the Royals added lead strategist to the title of bullpen catcher Parker Morin. Allan de San Miguel also joined the staff as a strategist/bullpen catcher.
This past season, 134 starts (out of 162) for the Royals were made by pitchers who were 26 or younger on Opening Day.
That group includes Daniel Lynch (27 starts), Kris Bubic (27 starts), Brady Singer (24 starts), Brad Keller (22 starts), Jonathan Heasley (21 starts), Carlos Hernández (seven starts), Max Castillo (four starts) and Angel Zerpa (two starts).
Lynch, Bubic and Singer are all former first-round draft picks. Baseball America has ranked both Singer (2019) and Lynch (2020 and 2021) among the top 100 prospects in the minors during their careers. Bubic was the organization’s minor-league Pitcher of the Year in 2019. Keller has twice been chosen as the club’s Opening Day starting pitcher.
“There’s a tremendous amount of talent on the pitching staff here right now,” Quatraro said. “I’ve talked to a handful of the guys already, and they are super-anxious and eager already to reach their potential.
“I can’t tell you exactly what the process has been, how their careers have gone, up to this date. But what I’m looking for is maximizing their potential through some tweaks in approach or pitch usage — those types of things. Because the talent is clearly there.”
