The Royals are planning to replace hitting coach Alec Zumwalt, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. He’s being reassigned within the organization and not fired, however. Zumwalt will continue on in his role as the team’s senior director of hitting performance but apparently won’t be in uniform and working with the big league staff on a daily basis.
Zumwalt has spent more than a decade working with the Royals. The former Braves fourth-rounder (1999) joined the Royals as a scout in 2013 after his minor league playing days ended. Then-Royals GM Dayton Moore was plenty familiar with Zumwalt, having worked in the Braves’ scouting department and front office at the time Atlanta selected him in the draft.
Zumwalt climbed the organizational ladder in Kansas City, moving from advance scout to director of baseball operations and director of player development. The Royals named him the organization’s director of hitting performance following the 2021 season, and by May of 2022 he’d been shifted into the dugout in place of hitting coach Terry Bradshaw, who was let go after the team started the season mired in a dreadful offensive funk.
Scoring runs has been an issue for the Royals throughout Zumwalt’s tenure on the big league staff. Dating back to 2022, Kansas City ranks 23rd in the majors in runs scored (3392), 26th in home runs (800), 29th in walk rate (7.5%) and 26th in on-base percentage (.308). To their credit, Royals hitters have the game’s fifth-lowest strikeout rate in that time (20.7%) and have been more of a middle-of-the-pack group in terms of batting average (.246, tied for 15th) and slugging percentage (.396, tied for 19th).
On a rate basis, this year’s group was actually better than at any point during Zumwalt’s tenure. Royals hitters batted .247/.316/.402. By measure of wRC+, that’s two percent worse than league-average production. They still ranked in the bottom third of the league in homers, runs scored, walk rate and wRC+. Jac Caglianone and Carter Jensen had breakout seasons. Bobby Witt Jr. and Vinnie Pasquantino both delivered quality numbers relative to the league as a whole, but their results were down relative to their own prior standards. Maikel Garcia’s bat regressed to about league-average as he dealt with injuries.
Salvador Perez, meanwhile, struggled through the worst season of his career. Given that he’s 36 and was long one of the game’s iron men behind the plate, catching immense workloads on a yearly basis, a mid-30s downturn in production isn’t a huge shock. Jonathan India’s 2025 struggles bled into 2026 before an injury ended his season in April. Offseason acquisition Isaac Collins didn’t come anywhere close to replicating his 2025 breakout in Milwaukee. Center fielder Kyle Isbel has always been a glove-first player, but this year’s offensive output was the worst of his career by a wide margin.
It’s not clear if there are any other coaching changes on the horizon on the heels of a thoroughly disappointing year in Kansas City. Manager Matt Quatraro isn’t likely to be replaced, though. He signed a three-year extension this past February. That deal hasn’t even kicked in yet; it covered the 2027-29 seasons and included a club option for the 2030 campaign.
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