Royals to hire Zach Bove as asst. pitching coach (source)
KANSAS CITY -- The Royals are expected to hire Zach Bove as their assistant pitching coach for 2023, a source told MLB.com.
Bove was the Twins' assistant pitching coordinator in 2022 and was up for the Mets’ bullpen coach vacancy this offseason. But Kansas City will be able to bring him onto manager Matt Quatraro’s staff under pitching coach Brian Sweeney, who was hired this past week. The team has not announced the hire. Sports Illustrated was first to report that Bove had accepted the Royals’ job.
A Florida native, Bove has a master’s degree from Missouri and was the pitching coach for the College of Central Florida for seven years. He has been with the Twins for the last four seasons, beginning as a pitching coach in the Florida Complex League. He was the special projects pitching coordinator in 2020 before moving to the assistant pitching coordinator position.
With the Twins, Bove has developed a strong reputation for his use of analytics when helping pitchers improve, especially when it comes to developing new pitches.
In Sweeney’s introductory Zoom call with reporters on Thursday, the new pitching coach talked extensively about building a pitching “team” to help Royals pitchers at the Major League level. In the assistant pitching coach role, Bove will work alongside Sweeney with Royals pitchers but also help with game planning strategy.
“That person will largely be a strategist, working alongside Brian,” Royals general manager J.J. Picollo said about hiring an assistant pitching coach on Thursday. “We will still have some support staff like we did last year that have worked behind the scenes producing reports.”
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The Royals set out this offseason to bring in new voices to help with the development of their young pitchers, putting a big emphasis on the use of analytics. In hiring both Sweeney and Bove, Kansas City has backed those words with actions.
The club will now turn its attention to hiring a bullpen coach as Quatraro fills out his coaching staff for 2023.