The KC Royals coaching staff: Who are these guys?

The KC Royals have eight major league coaches. But just who are these gentlemen who assist manager Mike Matheny?

Eight important members of the KC Royals work mostly in obscurity, far from the daily attention cast on the players and manager Mike Matheny. Paid not to play or make the ultimate in-game decisions, these men are the players’ teachers and mentors and Matheny’s advisors and confidantes.

Since the Royals replaced the Athletics as Kansas City’s major league franchise over a half-century ago, the club’s coaches include little-known professionals who never saw a day in the majors until becoming big league coaches, middle-of-the-road and star players, and Hall of Fame members. Franchise icon and first-ballot Hall of Famer George Brett served briefly as hitting coach in 2013; Bob Lemon, another Hall of Famer, Cleveland pitching great and manager of the Royals, White Sox and Yankees, was a Royals coach. Longtime big league manager Gene Mauch coached in KC.

Hitting savant Charlie Lau successfully remade Brett’s mechanics early in his career. Rocky Colavito, a fan favorite during his lone season with the KC A’s in 1964, later coached Royal hitters for Dick Howser. Kevin Seitzer also took a turn as KC’s hitting coach, joining John Mayberry, Jamie Quirk and Frank White as former Royals who worked in the dugout after retiring as players.

And two former Royals–John Wathan and Hal McRae–became KC coaches and later managed the team.

But major league coaches famous for stellar playing accomplishments are generally the rule, not the exception. That’s the case with the KC Royals’ current coaches, a group of talented baseball men who’ll never have plaques in Cooperstown or be the subjects of books or movies.

So just who are these Kansas City coaches? Who are Rusty Kuntz, Pedro Grifol, Cal Eldred, John Mabry, Terry Bradshaw, Vance Wilson, Larry Carter and Ryan Eigsti? Let’s find out.

Rusty Kuntz is set to return this season to his familiar spot in the first base coaching box. He’s a favorite of players and fans alike.

Whenever baseball returns to Kauffman Stadium, a Kansas City coaching icon will return to the field for the first time since retiring as the club’s first base coach after the 2017 season. Rusty Kuntz agreed to leave his role of mentoring minor league players to join new manager Mike Matheny’s staff.

Kuntz’s encore in the first base box, which could mark the beginning of his last major league go-round, will also revive his legendary relationship with fans (many of them his fans) who delight in his friendly in-game banter and the occasional balls he tosses their way.

More importantly, Kuntz’s return brings back to the players the man Matheny describes as maybe as good a coach as he’s been around, a beloved teacher known for his work ethic and invaluable, exhaustive study of pitchers’ pickoff moves. He’s also mentored the Royals’ outfielders and helped Alex Gordon make the difficult switch from third base to left field and is the club’s baserunning coach.

Kuntz has the third-longest tenure (seven seasons) as a big-league player of any KC coach (Cal Eldred spent 14 years in the majors and Vance Wilson played for eight). Although he hit just .236 combined with the White Sox, Twins and Tigers, his appearance in Game Five of the 1984 World Series was pivotal: he pinch hit for Detroit in the fifth inning and hit a first-pitch pop fly to score Kirk Gibson with what proved to be the game-winning RBI, the last run the Tigers needed in the Series clincher.

No one knows how long Kuntz will coach for Matheny; his love of mentoring minor leaguers is well-known and this third time in the first base box (2008-09, 2012-2017 were his previous stints) may be enough and leave him yearning to return to a roving instructional role. But the Royals and their fans will benefit from any time Kuntz spends with the club.

Pedro Grifol coached for retired KC Royals manager Ned Yost. He’s now the bench coach for new manager Mike Matheny.

Many people probably didn’t know who Pedro Grifol was until May of 2013. Before then, he played for almost a decade in the minors without making it to the big leagues and worked several more years in various capacities for the Giants, Mariners and Royals. But May 2013 was when the Royals replaced hitting coaches Jack Maloof and Andre David with George Brett, who they introduced as interim hitting coach and Grifol, who they named special assignment coach. Brett and Grifol worked together; Grifol’s initial fame came from sharing the spotlight with Brett.

Grifol took over as hitting coach when Brett returned to his club vice presidency a couple of months later, then was reassigned to catching coach in May of 2014; quality control coach duties were later added to his Royal portfolio. New manager Mike Matheny promoted him to bench coach shortly after taking over for the retired Ned Yost.

That Grifol will help Matheny with in-game strategy and decision-making is no surprise–the former catcher who hit .226 in nine minor league seasons (he never made it to the majors) makes no secret of his long-held desire to manage and has been a candidate in recent years for a handful of big league managing jobs. When interviews this past offseason with the Royals and San Francisco didn’t bear fruit, he elected to remain in Kansas City.

Grifol will likely continue, at least to some extent, his work with All-Star catcher Salvador Perez, who he’s mentored as catching coach for five of Perez’s six Gold Glove-winning seasons.

Grifol managed twice in Seattle’s minor league system; now that he’s receiving overtures from other clubs, a big league managing job may not be far away. Until then, he should be a valuable dugout asset for Matheny.

Mike Matheny brings a friend on board, the hitting coach returns and last season’s bullpen coach gets a new assignment for the KC Royals.

Three coaches–one new to the club and two holdovers from Ned Yost’s staff–round out the 2020 coaching staff.

New manager Mike Matheny got to know most of his coaches while serving the franchise in an advisory role last season, but none had worked for him before. He also knew pitching coach Cal Eldred from St. Louis–Eldred, working in a similar advisory role for St. Louis, was helping minor league pitchers when Matheny skippered the Cardinals. But John Mabry, one of Matheny’s old Cardinal colleagues, will join Matheny in Kansas City.

Although he hasn’t detailed the specific scope of Matheny’s work (at least not to the public), expect Matheny to rely heavily on Mabry. They played together with the Cardinals, Mabry was named assistant to St. Louis hitting coach Mark McGwire when Matheny took over the Cardinals, then replaced McGwire after one year as his assistant.

The Cardinals became disillusioned with Matheny and fired him in July 2018. Mabry got the axe the same day. The former Cardinals are close; it will be interesting to see how Mabry’s role with the Royals develops.

This may be a pivotal season for third-year hitting coach Terry Bradshaw, who succeeded Dale Sveum when Sveum became Ned Yost’s bench coach in 2018. Offensive production declined in Bradshaw’s inaugural campaign but improved slightly in 2019; the presence of Mabry, however, Matheny’s hitting coach with the Cardinals, may mean Bradshaw’s job security depends on even more improvement.

Bradshaw played only 34 major league games for the Cardinals after being drafted in the 17th round by the Mets in 1987. He stroked a pinch-hit single in his first big league at-bat, hit another single in his only at-bat the next day, then slapped another pinch-hit single the very next game. His brief major league stay yielded a .262 average, but he hit .303 for the Cardinals’ Triple-A Louisville club in 1996 and stole 65 bases in 132 games for Savannah in ’91.

Bullpen coach Vance Wilson was an internal candidate to succeed Yost as Royals’ manager; when he didn’t get the job, Matheny made him his third base coach, replacing Mike Jirschele, who was to be reassigned within the organization.

Wilson managed at three different levels in the Royals’ minor league system before joining the major league club as bullpen coach in 2018. He played for the Mets and Tigers, was Mike Piazza‘s backup for a time in New York and batted .250 in eight big league seasons.

New KC Royals manager Mike Matheny has a revamped coaching staff. We’ll see how he and his coaches do when baseball returns.