Kuntz moves into baseball ops role with KC

KANSAS CITY -- The front office restructuring that the Royals began in September with the promotions of president of baseball operations Dayton Moore and general manager J.J. Picollo continued with more title and role changes on Wednesday.

The biggest change is another role shift for a longtime coach going back to the baseball operations department.

The Royals announced that Rusty Kuntz will not return as the first-base and outfield coach next season, instead taking on the title of special assistant to the president and GM/quality control. This allows Kuntz, 66, to cut back on travel and hours spent at the ballpark.

• Royals offseason FAQ: What to watch for

“Probably with about one month left in the season, I just hit a wall,” Kuntz said. “And it was like, ‘OK, I don’t know if I can keep this pace for another year.’ So once I figured it out, I asked Dayton and J.J. if I could do something different next year rather than what I was doing this year. … That enabled me to have an opportunity to go back, slow it down a little bit.”

Kansas City has not finalized its Major League coaching staff for 2022, but except for Kuntz, there are not expected to be any major changes to manager Mike Matheny’s staff. The Royals are looking into adding a few positions, as well as filling Kuntz’s role, and expect to finalize the staff within the next two weeks.

Damon Hollins -- the Royals’ Minor League coordinator of outfield, baserunning and bunting -- served as Kuntz’s replacement during the 2020 season, when Kuntz opted out because of COVID-19 concerns. Hollins also spent the final month of this season with the Major League staff and regularly coached first base, with Kuntz in the dugout.

Kuntz has held a variety of roles with Kansas City for more than a decade. He had three stints as the first-base coach (2008-10, 2012-17, 2020-21), and his previous titles included Minor League outfield, bunting and baserunning coordinator (2010-12), and special assistant to the general manager (2018-20).

Kuntz imagines this new role will be like his previous special assistant roles, helping where he’s needed. When the Royals are at home, Kuntz can work with the outfielders and baserunners, and when they go on the road, Kuntz can visit the Royals’ Minor League affiliates to work with those players.

“That’s the goal, get them on track with what we’re doing in the big leagues,” Kuntz said. “And by the time they get there, they’ll be ready to help us win games instead of learning how to do what we need them to do. Being young, they have all kinds of energy, so you can run them all day long without any hesitation.”

Kuntz will be at Spring Training and around the big league staff and players, so his wisdom from his 34-year coaching career will still be imparted on Royals players throughout the organization.

“You want to go through the grind with them,” Kuntz said. “But it’s like everything else -- there’s an expiration date to all of this. And I think I tapped out on it. It’s time for me to do something a little bit different, still be able to do what I do, but not that grueling, grinding pace.”

The other front office promotions Wednesday included the following:

• Rene Francisco to senior vice president, assistant GM/Major League & international operations
• Scott Sharp to senior vice president, assistant general manager
• Jin Wong to vice president, assistant GM/baseball administration
• Daniel Mack to vice president, assistant GM/research and development
• Jeff Davenport to vice president/Major League team operations

In September, the Royals promoted Lonnie Goldberg to vice president/player personnel and Danny Ontiveros to scouting director.

Let the kids play
This past season was a significant step forward in the Royals’ rebuild, as the club transitioned a slew of young pitchers to the Major Leagues. In 2022, the next wave will be the young position players. Shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. (ranked No. 1 in the organization by MLB Pipeline), first baseman Nick Pratto (No. 2) and catcher MJ Melendez (No. 4) are all expected to make their debuts at some point next year.

“We’re going to be very disciplined with continuing to give our young players opportunity and transition our young players to the Major Leagues,” Moore said on Wednesday.

With that in mind, it’s difficult to envision the Royals making a splash of a trade or signing this winter, not wanting to block one of the younger players for too long. But it’s likely they’ll look for more veteran starting pitching to help with the innings workload, as well as relievers to fill depth in the bullpen.

“What we’ll do is, when we’re building our team, we’ll look internally,” Moore said. “Then we’ll look to make trades. Then we will explore the free-agent market. … We’re excited about our group. Ownership continues to be extremely supportive and engaged with what we’re trying to accomplish, what we’re trying to do.”