The Royals announced a pair of moves Tuesday in their baseball operations department, promoting former pro scout Alec Zumwalt to director of baseball operations while bringing back Albert Gonzalez as assistant general manager of international operations.
Zumwalt had served as the Royals' advance scout for the past five seasons, doing the prep work that helped the team during its postseason runs in 2014 and '15. He had been a pro scout before that, joining Kansas City's front office in 2011.
"Alec has earned the universal respect of everybody in the organization, not only because of his baseball knowledge, but his ability to work with others," Royals general manager Dayton Moore said in a statement. "In this new role, Alec will be working closely with the entire baseball operations department."
After years of a scout's life on the road, Zumwalt will be based out of Kansas City in his new role.
Gonzalez spent the past 12 years running the Marlins' academy in the Dominican Republic and that team's scouting and player development efforts internationally, but he got his start in baseball in the Royals' organization as an associate scout in 1994. He became a full-time scout soon after that, then served eight years as the Royals' Latin American scouting coordinator.
"I'm thrilled that Albert has accepted our invitation to return to his original organization, serving our international operation," Moore said. "I look forward to his contributions in what is already a strong and productive area of the organization."