His managerial hopes on hold, Pedro Grifol happy to be back with Royals
Kansas City Royals bench coach Pedro Grifol didn’t get a highly coveted major-league managerial job this offseason, but it may be a matter of time before someone plucks him off the coaching staff and puts him in the manager’s office.
The San Francisco Giants considered hiring Grifol as the heir to Bruce Bochy. Grifol made two visits to the West Coast to interview, and he had an hour-long sit-down with Bochy as part of the process.
Ultimately, the Giants hired former Philadelphia Phillies manager Gabe Kapler, who had previous ties to the front office from his time working as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ farm director. But Grifol certainly left an impression on Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, who led the managerial search.
“He was a great candidate,” Zaidi told The Star during the MLB Winter Meetings. “Just you get into these processes and there’s a lot of really good candidates and there’s really tough decisions. He was a guy that was involved in our process for multiple rounds, which I think speaks to how highly we thought of him.”
Grifol impressed the front office with his preparation, understanding of the club’s current players and their statistical profiles, prompting Zaidi to describe him as “really proficient in that regard.”
Despite not having managed in the majors, Grifol’s background also attracted the Giants.
“The major-league manager in the clubhouse and his coaching staff, they operate way less in isolation than they did 20 years ago,” Zaidi said. “There’s so much cooperation between that staff, the front office, player development, analysts that the team may have. It’s important to not just wear different hats, but be able to relate to different people and have different types of conversations. You have a lot of constituents when you’re a manager and even a coach.”
Grifol worked as an area scout and then as a minor-league manager with the Mariners from 2000-05, then minor-league field coordinator from 2006-08 and minor-league director of operations from 2008-11.
He had a brief stint on the major-league coaching staff when it was short-handed at the end of the 2010 season, even as he served as farm director.
The Mariners also allowed Grifol to manage three seasons of winter ball in Venezuela while he was farm director. George Brett’s nephew, Casey Brett, served as an assistant for minor-league operations under Grifol and helped run the farm system.
Grifol managed the Mariners’ Single-A affiliate High Desert in 2012 before he joined the Royals in 2013.
He went from a Royals hitting coach at the rookie ball level to a special-assignment coach for the major-league staff in late May of his first year with the club, and then he became hitting coach in late July.
He became catching coach in 2014 and added quality-control coach to his title in 2018.
So was there one area of weakness that would have put Grifol over the top?
“Honestly, no,” Zaidi said. “... It’s a natural question if somebody didn’t get the job, what could they do better. Sometimes it’s just having a lot of really good options and having to make a tough decision.
“I think when you’re in one of these processes, you realize there’s only 30 of these jobs and there’s so many guys that are qualified and capable. Just from having met him and spent time with him, I really hope he gets the opportunity because I think he would be terrific.”
Chasing a dream job
The thought of managing sprouted in Grifol’s mind in the middle of his career in the minors.
“You know, every player at some point in time hits a crossroad where you’re like, is this going to work out for me or am I going to do something else?” Grifol said. “That came to me earlier, in like ‘94 or ‘95.”
Roughly about four years into his professional career as a catcher, coming off shoulder surgery for a torn rotator cuff and doubting his ability to bounce back and perform at a high level, Grifol was at the Double-A ballpark in Nashville, Tennessee, going through rehab when he bumped into a longtime Twins scout named Larry Corrigan.
The two had become friends over the years. Corrigan scouted Grifol coming out of college at Florida State where he was an All-American. Grifol, sensing the light at the end of the tunnel as a player was fading, turned to this veteran baseball man and said, “What do I gotta do to manage?”
Corrigan responded, “Well, the first thing you’ve got to do is play another five years.”
Grifol was 24 at the time and had gotten as high as Triple-A in the Minnesota Twins system, but to be considered for a managerial job that young, without big-league playing experience and having had a relatively short career in the minors was unheard of at the time.
He played through age 28, having finished his career in the minors with the New York Mets.
When he stopped playing he held off on going into coaching or player development because his wife had just had the couple’s second of their three daughters and Grifol had the chance to scout from his home in Miami and help raise his daughters.
Initially thought of as a one-year or two-year venture, Grifol remained in that role for six years before he moved into player development.
In a good place
In the past two years, Grifol has been in the running for three managerial opening — the Orioles, Royals and Giants — but has been passed over each time.
“Maybe 15 years ago I would be like damn, I’ve got to get that job,” Grifol said. “That’s not where I’m at. Where I’m at mentally is I’m in a really good place. I’m with the Kansas City Royals, they gave me a great opportunity to be in the big leagues.”
His thought process has evolved from being laser focused on a managerial job to where it is now a goal he’d be happy to reach, but one that doesn’t consume him.
He repeatedly stressed that he enjoys the group of people he’s working with in the Royals organization. Grifol praised the leadership of general manager Dayton Moore, lauded ownership and expressed respect and admiration for new manager Mike Matheny, who he played against in college.
“I’m not really concerned about managing like I was back in the day. If it happens, it happens. Do I want to do it? Sure, of course. That’s why I keep taking those interviews. As far as being disappointed if I don’t get the job, not really. … I’m happy, man. I really am.”
After Grifol didn’t get the Giants job and the Royals hired Matheny, the two sat down for several hours and found a natural connection.
Grifol will take on the role of bench coach on Matheny’s staff. He’ll continue to coach the catchers as well as work with individual hitters on translating film and analytics into a plan of attack at the plate.
“Vance (Wilson) and Pedro both, I just see them as special coaches and try to continue to present them with some challenges and how can we help grow them and to be the kind of coach they want to be, expose them to as much managing as possible too,” Matheny said this week at the MLB Winter Meetings in San Diego. “Both of them should be in those considerations as we move further down the line.”
