(610 Sports) – The Kansas City Royals have introduced their new manager, Matt Quatraro, a widely known and respected figure around MLB.
On Monday, Quatraro spoke to the media for the first time as team manager.
"Big day for the Royals, big day for Kansas City," Royals Owner John Sherman said to open Thursday's news conference at Kauffman Stadium.
Following his introduction to media and fans, Quatraro proceeded to lay out a vision for turning around a Royals team that won the World Series a mere seven years ago but quickly returned to irrelevance.
“I've been really fortunate to be around good coaches and people that mentored me,” said Quatraro, who also worked alongside Terry Francona in Cleveland. “As excited as I am to be named the manager, I'm even more excited to jump into the process. I'm extremely process-oriented, and the process we all envision here is building a championship environment that brings the Royals back to the top tier of baseball, and be that way year after year.”
Quatraro's first order of business was to call Royals' catcher Salvador Perez and up-and-coming star third baseman Bobby Witt Jr., two players pivotal to their new manager's success in Kansas City.
Quatraro noted the similarities between the Royals and the team he had spent the last five seasons with, the Tampa Bay Rays. “There were some real similarities this year — certain points in the year — they were running out seven rookies in the lineup, and we had a similar stretch in Tampa this year,” Quatraro said. “That's challenging to grow in that environment.”
Despite these challenges, Tampa was able to make the playoffs in each of the past four years with a trip to the World Series in 2020.
That track record is one of the reasons Picollo chose Quatraro over Royals bench coach Pedro Grifol, who was hired to manage the White Sox, and internal candidates Vance Wilson and Scott Thorman.
When asked Thursday what the biggest common denominator in the success of Cleveland and Tampa Bay has been over the years, his one-word reply was: “Pitching.”
“There's a tremendous amount of talent on this pitching staff now. I've talked to a handful of guys already,” Quatraro said. “I can't tell you exactly what the process has been, but what I'm looking for now moving forward is maximizing their potential through tweaks in approach pitch usage. The talent is clearly there.”
Quatraro is right, the talent is there and in abundance but the Royals have little to show for it in terms of pitching success. They've used a bevy of picks in recent years on top pitching prospects, just to see many of them fall flat once they reach the majors.
In order to help the organization's young pitching staff reach their potential, Quatraro — along with Picollo — will look to build out an entire pitching program that spans the organization and can develop pitchers capable of keeping the Royals contenders year-in-and-year-out.