KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – An Olathe North graduate is joining the Kansas City Royals coaching staff next season with hopes on improving one of the league’s worst offenses in 2025.
After a season that saw the Royals rank 26th in Major League Baseball in runs scored, Kansas City announced it’s hiring 32-year-old Connor Dawson to serve as one of the team’s hitting coaches.
Dawson, a 2012 graduate of Olathe North High School, spent the last four seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers. While with the Brewers, Milwaukee ranked 7th in MLB with an average of 4.69 runs per game.
Last season, the Brewers were second in MLB in batting average and on-base percentage and were third in runs per game.
Dawson will join Alec Zumwalt, who will remain with the team in 2026 and serve as the Senior Director of Hitting Performance.
The Kansas City Royals have rearranged the organization’s leadership on the non-baseball side of things.
Dawson’s coaching career began in 2015 after he played collegiately at Neosho County Community College in Chanute, Kansas. Dawson began coaching the Kansas City Bullets college prep team before becoming the hitting and strength coach at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Overland Park.
In 2019, he joined the Seattle Mariners’ organization as a hitting coach for their Arizona Rookie League team and in 2021 became their Minor League Hitting Coordinator.
Kansas City said Friday the organization expected to add another coach to the hitting department soon.
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