SURPRISE, Ariz. -- Over the past two-plus seasons, J.J. Picollo has remade the Royals’ roster, overhauled scouting, research and development and player development processes throughout the organization, extended one of the game’s superstars with the largest contract in franchise history and built a team that orchestrated a 30-win turnaround and reached the postseason for the first time since 2015.
So it only makes sense that the Royals would want to keep Picollo around for longer -- and keep building on his vision.
Royals CEO/chairman John Sherman announced Monday morning from the team’s Spring Training complex in Surprise, Ariz., that the Royals signed Picollo to a five-year contract extension that keeps the GM in Kansas City through the 2030 season with a club option for '31.
The Royals also picked up manager Matt Quatraro’s club option for 2026.
“This game is about a lot of things, but leadership is incredibly important,” Sherman said as the first day of full-squad workouts began. “I’ve got great confidence in those two guys. I love the way they work together. You got to have the right people, but stability in leadership is really important, too. I couldn’t be more excited about this.”
Picollo added: “I just want to thank John for his trust in our front office and the things we're doing together. I mean, we have an incredibly good relationship with a shared vision, and it comes from him, and understanding what's important to him is important to us. … Just happy we're going to get time to keep doing and building and ultimately, just have a consistent winner.”
Picollo said he is “certainly expecting” Quatraro to be here longer than 2026.
“I couldn’t be happier here,” Quatraro said. “Not just with baseball and the guys on the field, but the office, the community is great. My family loves it here. And I hope it’s just the start of many more years. But you have to take it one at a time.”
Picollo was named the seventh general manager in Royals history on Sept. 12, 2021, and a year later he took over as the top baseball operations executive after the organization let president of baseball operations Dayton Moore go in ‘22. Picollo came to Kansas City from Atlanta with Moore in ‘06 as the Royals’ director of player development and was part of Moore’s tight-knit baseball operations department ever since, helping win a World Series in '15.
And Picollo held a number of positions in that department over the last two decades. He was Royals’ assistant general manager of scouting and player development from 2008-15 and the AGM of player personnel from '15-21.
That led to a lot of questions about whether Picollo, who has interviewed for a number of other GM jobs around baseball, was the right guy for Sherman to hire following Moore’s departure.
Wouldn’t Picollo be the same?
Very quickly, Picollo showed -- not just said -- that the answer was no. He challenged his front-office staff to think and operate differently. Since Picollo took over, the Royals have hired more than 30 new staffers in baseball ops.
Picollo kept a lot of the Royals’ core values and foundations in place that Moore had built and Picollo believes. This organization will always rely on its scouting department and homegrown players. That’s an identity.
But it’s now a piece of the puzzle in a more complex and ever-changing industry. Picollo emphasizes the balance of what he knows and who he is with all he needs to learn and different voices he needs to hear.
“J.J. is a modern baseball executive,” Sherman said. “He’s a good listener. He’ll make decisions, he’ll get the input of his people, he’s got the courage of his convictions, and he has built a lot of trust and confidence. And so has [Quatraro]. The way that those two interact and challenge each other -- they ask hard questions that make us better.”
Picollo and Dr. Daniel Mack, VP of research and development, have beefed up the analytical department to keep pace with the sheer amount of requests they received from Quatraro and his coaching staff. The Royals now have a Major League analyst, Pete Berryman, who travels with the team and is there to help coaches with reports and other information needed to prepare for a game.
Picollo and Quatraro both have a similar mindset about open dialogue and learning from others. Quatraro’s hire in 2022 says more about how Picollo operates than anything, putting a manager in the dugout that thinks differently about the game than what the Royals have known.
“The goal is to just get everybody as good as they can be,” Quatraro said. “And that’s what raises the standard.”
In early 2024, Picollo, along with his assistant general manager Scott Sharp and others, negotiated the largest contract in franchise history when the Royals signed Witt to an 11-year, $288.7 million extension, securing one of the best players in the game long-term in a first-of-its-kind deal for Kansas City. That was the final piece to a historic offseason that saw the Royals remake their roster and spend a franchise-record $109.5 million in free agency.
Since then, Picollo’s staff has hardly slowed down. They’ve been aggressive in acquiring players and supplementing their roster, whether it’s big free-agent signings to waiver wire claims.
“It’s that kind of tone that we want to set: We never want to settle,” Picollo said. “We’re going to keep pushing. Because there’s an expectation to win ballgames and serve our fanbase as best we can.”