Royals' President J.J. Picollo Quotes From GM Meetings: Coaching Staff Changes, Confidence In Bounce Backs

[Steve Drumwright]

As with any team coming off a disappointing season, the Kansas City Royals have conducted some self-examination and made structural changes. Now they aim to complement those moves by adding personnel who will work well with the new staff members, in hopes of fixing what ailed the Royals in 2026.

President of baseball operations J.J. Picollo addressed a number of these issues at the General Manager Meetings. DiamondCentric's Matt Trueblood is in Las Vegas for the meetings, and here's what Picollo said and what it means for the Royals in this offseason and in 2027.

Coaching Staff

It is no secret that the Royals didn’t perform as expected offensively, although it wasn’t as bad as some might think. Various injuries and underperformance led to mixed results, culminating in a 69-93 record and last place in the AL Central. The Royals finished with the 16th-best OPS in MLB, which included the eighth-highest batting average, but were 22nd in runs.

The Royals made a change in the hitting coaching group by reassigning Alec Zumwalt, who had been the hitting coach, to senior director of hitting performance, where he will have a systemwide impact. Hunter Mense was hired away from the San Francisco Giants to replace Zumwalt as hitting coach. Mense spent just one year with the Giants under Tony Vitello after being the assistant hitting coach for the Toronto Blue Jays since 2022.

That also led to Connor Dawson being promoted to the new position of offensive coordinator after spending his first season with the Royals as a hitting coach alongside Zumwalt.

“Hunter is one of the more well-respected hitting coaches in the game,” Picollo said. “We pursued him a little bit last year, and obviously, he got the job in San Francisco, but with our decision to have Alec return back to his position in the minor leagues, we just opened up a wide search. We asked the Giants for permission to speak to Hunter. He’s a Kansas City native. That’s not the reason why we went and hired him, but we hired him because he’s a good hitting coach, he’s got a great reputation. His interview was outstanding; his body of work was really good. So you put all those things together and it made a lot of sense to have him and Connor and Marcus (Thames, also a hitting coach) all working together.”

Dawson, a Kansas product, came over from the Milwaukee Brewers last offseason.

“Connor has a really unique way of talking about offense, as opposed to just hitting,” Picollo said. “It came through in his interview last year, where he was talking about the baserunning, the small ball, understanding how to score runs.

We’ve had a hard time scoring runs over a lot of years. So while we talk about being a good baserunning team, being a good situational team, we haven’t performed to that level. So just the way Connor has talked about offense really appealed to us.”

While right fielder Jac Caglianone made significant strides from 2025 to 2026 with a .289/.340/.494 (team-best .834 OPS), there were offensive disappointments for various reasons. Those included first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino (.249/.333/.428), third baseman Maikel Garcia (.268/.334/.381) and left fielder Isaac Collins (.213/.320/.321).

Maximizing Bobby Witt Jr.

Bobby Witt Jr. will receive down-ballot AL MVP votes Thursday, but had things gone differently for the Royals this year, the shortstop would have been in the conversation to join George Brett as the club’s second MVP. Witt slashed .281/.359/.441 with 18 homers, 54 RBIs and 45 stolen bases. Witt finished seventh, second and fourth in MVP voting the last three years.

Still, the ignitor of the offense didn’t get the support he needed to be a bigger disruptor offensively. Picollo knows the value of Witt and the need to make sure the offense takes advantage of his presence. Hence the coaching changes above.

“We’re really fortunate as an organization, as a city, to have Bobby Witt Jr. in the Royals’ uniform and to have him for a lot of years,” Picollo said. “When you have a player like that who’s in his prime years, you want to do everything you can to capitalize on those years and put a good core around him, and win baseball games.

“I mean, ultimately, that’s what you want to do when you have a star player. We thought we took some good steps in ’24, regressed a little bit over ’25 and certainly this year. But we think we still have some pieces in place, but it’s not to downplay the impact of any of the other players.
They’re all important, but when you have a star like that, you know, you feel the need to compete every year, regardless of what you may have gone through the year before.”

Banking On Maikel Garcia

Garcia’s struggles were mainly due to a muscle injury to his left hand and wrist after he was hit by a line drive while playing third base. He also had a hamstring injury in mid-August after returning from a two-month absence with his hand ailment That limited the switch-hitter to just 82 games, a season after a .286/.351/.449 slash line with 16 homers, 74 RBIs and 23 steals and getting a five-year, $57.5 million contract extension.

“He’s a dynamic player: great defense, he has the ability to get on base and impact the game with his legs,” Picollo said. “I think he continues to get better. (This) year was an injury bug, you know, a lot of it was his hand and, as a hitter, when your hand’s not functioning well, it’s a tough thing to do. We fully expect a big bounce back from him.”

Fixing The Pitching

The Royals had the fourth-worst team ERA at 4.77, with the rotation at 4.58 (sixth-worst) and the bullpen checking in with a 5.07 ERA, second-worst. It doesn’t help when you lose your ace midway through the season. Left-hander Cole Ragans had surgery on his left elbow in July and will be out until midseason 2027.

Right-handers Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo return, while Tony Gonsolin will be ready to take on a bigger role after making a return for a final-week relief appearance. But Gonsolin has appeared in just eight games since having Tommy John surgery in 2023, then an internal brace procedure in August 2025.

In addition to the rotation needing some work, the bullpen needs a serious upgrade. With two relievers getting the $23.15 million qualifying offer in right-hander David Bednar and left-hander Adrian Morejon. Would the Royals dip into those waters as a means to addressing their bullpen needs?

“I couldn’t answer specifically that, but there’s plenty of depth on the reliever market right now and, really, we’re trying to approach it (as), ‘How do we put a bullpen together?’ You clearly want to get the most talented pitching that you could possibly get. But how does it blend with what you have right now? So we’re gonna try to acquire in different ways, but there’s no shortage of talent on that free-agent market.”

Picollo is also confident that Gonsolin will be able to be a significant contributor in 2027.

“I think for his own sake, it was good to compete at the major-league level and feel good going into the offseason,” Picollo said. “We saw signs of swing-and-miss, which was great. He’s kind of got, like, a split-change that really works well. His slider looked good, his velocity was good. It was encouraging.”

Hitting The Market

With the lockout looming in three weeks, Picollo knows the window is short to get deals done before whatever mad rush there is once the labor discord is resolved. Things around the league are already percolating and Picollo is ready for a busy period before Dec. 1 comes around,

“I think we’re probably gonna see it speed up here in the next couple weeks,” Picollo said. “Who knows what’ll happen, but I think we can anticipate that. Just going back and looking historically, half of the free agents typically sign by Jan. 1 and half sign afterwards. You know, we’re potentially working with a shorter window. So we’re hopeful that things do start moving this month. ...

“In some ways, it’s good to know that there is some sort of date that we gotta sort of operate a little bit quicker. So you want to be a little more aggressive in the month of November, and I think we’ve seen that with all clubs, from my understanding. But you’re not going to prep any different. We have to assume that Opening Day is going to be played on scheduled Opening Day because, if we don’t prepare that way, if there is no shortage of season or anything like that, you’re not ready to start the season. So we’re going to operate business as usual, just a little more urgency in November.”

Scouting Adds

Picollo made two significant adds to the scouting department. Dana LeVangie and Johnny Almaraz were added to the pro personnel department. LeVangie left the Boston Red Sox after three decades and has a wealth of experience as an advance scout, while Almaraz has been in the majors with the Cincinnati Reds, Atlanta, Philadelphia Phillies and, most recently, the Miami Marlins, where he heavily scouted the Royals.

Image courtesy of Peter Aiken-Imagn Images

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