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The Royals have announced their minor league coaching staff for 2026, and for the first time in 34 years, Mike Jirschele will not be in the organization.<\/p>\n
The longtime Royals coach and manager of the Omaha Storm Chasers for the past three years has retired after more than three decades with the organization. Taking over as the Royals’ head coach in Omaha is Patrick Osborn, who was the bench coach there last year. Osborn joined the Royals organization last year after serving six years as a manager in the Yankees organization, then three years as a captain in the independent Atlantic League. Dane Johnson returns as running backs coach and Dave Lundquist as assistant pitching coach. Bijan Rademacher returns as hitting coach, but last year’s assistant hitting coach Darin Everson left to join the Nationals organization. Tripp Keister leaves Columbia to coach Omaha.<\/p>\n
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Brooks Conrad will lead the Double-A Northwest Arkansas Naturals for a second year, with Chris Corbett also returning to the coaching staff. Andy LaRoche returns as hitting coach and Larry Carter as pitching coach. Anthony Silkwood joins the organization as an assistant pitching coach after serving as coach at Jacksonville State. Kevin Kuntz, Rusty’s son, has left the Naturals coaching staff to take a job with the Athletics.<\/p>\n
Jesus Azuaje will serve as manager at High-A Quad Cities for the second year. Derrick Lewis and Clayton Mortensen return as his playing coaches. Manny Burriss, a former Giants outfielder who spent the past two years as the Dodger’s Triple-A team’s hitting coach, is joining the River Bandits as a hitting coach. Luke Lowery also joins the organization as coach of the River Bandits, after serving as Director of Player Development at the PDG Academy.<\/p>\n
David Noworyta returns for a second year as captain of the Low-A Columbia Fireflies after leading them to a postseason berth last year. Baseball coaches Taylor Bloye and Julio Pimentel, as well as hitting coach Ram\u00f3n Castro return, with Chris Nelson also joining the team as an assistant hitting coach after spending last year with the Arizona Summer League team.<\/p>\n
Larry Sutton returns to lead the Arizona Summer League team, with Jes\u00fas Delgado, Christopher Marte, and Ken Knutson all returning as pitching coaches. Former MLB catcher Alan Zinter joins a staff with experience working for the Diamondbacks, Astros, Padres, Giants, and Reds. Wilson Betemit Sr. and Rosell Herrera will also work with Zinter as hitting coaches. Jes\u00fas Atencio also returns to the coaching staff.<\/p>\n
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Ram\u00f3n Mart\u00ednez and Sergio De Luna will lead the teams in the Dominican Summer League with hitting coaches Irving Falu and Fernando Martinez returning, as well as hitting coach Leonel Santiago, and coaches Quilvio Veras Sr. and Onil Joseph. Mario Santiago joins the organization as pitching coach and Ariel Venegas joins as assistant hitting coach.<\/p>\n
Mitch Maier returns as Director of Player Development with Nick Leto serving as Director of Minor League Operations and Kevin Howard as Assistant Director of Player Development. Paul Gibson serves as the Senior Director of Pitching Performance with Nate Adock and Justin Freidman serving as Assistant Direcotrs, Sam Eades as PItching and Performance Integration Specialist, and Paul Menhart as Pitching Coordinator. Abraham N\u00fa\u00f1ez, and Nic Jackson will serve as hitting coordinators with Joe Raccuia working on hitting operations and scouting. Scott Thorman and Omar Ramirez serve as field coordinators, JC Boscan as Catching Coordinator, and Tony Pe\u00f1a, Jr. as the Infield Coordinator. Matt Duffy joins the front office as a Player Development Assistant, and Chino Cadahia, and Royals coach Rusty Kuntz will all act as special assistants to the GM.<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Royals have announced their minor league coaching staff for 2026, and for the first time in 34 years, Mike Jirschele will not be in the organization. The longtime Royals coach and manager of the Omaha Storm Chasers for the past three years has retired after more than three decades with the organization. Taking over …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2326,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2324\/revisions\/2326"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}