Matt Quatraro

Matthew John Quatraro

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 2", Weight 205 lb.
• School Old Dominion University
• High School Bethlehem Central High School

• Born November 14, 1973 in Selkirk, NY USA

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

Matt Quatraro was a top performer for Old Dominion University for a few years. In 1994, the sophomore hit .413/?/.690 and was second in the Colonial Athletic Association in batting average. In '95, he was second in the CAA in average once more, trailing Sean Casey by 90 points with a .371 mark. His 13 homers were one behind CAA co-leader Casey and he stole 15, slugging .685. He made the All-Conference team as a catcher. As a senior, he finally took the Association batting crown (.416) and also led in hits (87) and doubles (26), while slugging .766 and making the All-Conference team again as the top backstop. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays drafted him in the 8th round of the 1996 amateur draft.

Quatraro began his professional career with the Butte Copper Kings, hitting an impressive .344/~.405/.455, but in the high-offense Pioneer League, he just missed the top 10 in average. He still made the league All-Star team at catcher. Matt moved up to the Charleston RiverDogs in 1997, batting .299/~.340/.446 and stealing 15 in 20 tries.

The Tampa Bay minor leaguer was with the St. Petersburg Devil Rays in 1998 and he hit .248/~.318/.359 there. Returning to St. Pete in '99, he batted .261/~.306/.385; he made it to AA that year with the Orlando Rays, going 1 for 4 with a 2-run homer and two strikeouts there. In 2000, the New Yorker struggled in a third year with the St. Petersburg outfit, only hitting .204/.325/.327 in 15 games. Up to Orlando again in 2001, the 27-year-old produced well in AA, hitting .325/.375/.494 with 24 doubles in 271 at-bats. He did not play enough to qualify for the batting championship or he would have led the Southern League, 5 points ahead of Ben Broussard. Old for a first-time AAA player, Matt failed to light it up in 2002 with the Durham Bulls, only batting .198/.248/.257 in 35 games. With Durham, he mostly played first base and his 22 games nearly led a team that used 7 players there between 13 and 25 times - Aubrey Huff and David McCarty tied for the lead in usage.

Let go by the Rays, Matt came to the New York Yankees for a 2003 spring training invitation but didn't make the club and retired.

In 2004, he became the first Rays minor league player to join the organization’s coaching staff when he was hired as the hitting coach of the Hudson Valley Renegades. After two years in that role, he was promoted to the manager's job which he held in 2006 and 2007. He became skipper of the Columbus Catfish in 2008. During this five year stretch, Quatraro also worked as an assistant coach with the University at Albany Great Danes. Quatraro next skippered the Bowling Green Hot Rods in 2009. Following the 2008 & 2009 seasons, Quatraro expanded his coaching experience even further by working as a third base coach for the Leones del Caracas in the Venezuelan League. Quatraro finished this portion of his Tampa Bay career by serving as the Rays minor league hitting coordinator from 2010-2013.

Quatraro finally made it to the major leagues in 2014 when the Cleveland Indians hired him as an assistant hitting coach. He stayed in this role through 2017. After the 2015 season he also managed the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League, an unusual assignment for a major league coach. Quatraro returned to the Rays in 2018 as their third base coach. In 2019, he was promoted to bench coach where he remained through 2022.

On October 30, 2022, he was announced as the manager of the Kansas City Royals for 2023, replacing Mike Matheny. The hiring had similarities to that of Quatraro's predecessor as bench coach of the Rays, Charlie Montoyo, by the 2019 Toronto Blue Jays. In both cases, the hiring team was looking for someone from an organization with a track record of success in developing young players into contributing major leaguers and of integrating data and analytics into game strategies. A number of other Rays coaches like Rocco Baldelli, Derek Shelton and Dave Martinez had also been hired by other teams to become first-time major league managers in recent years, as had members of the team's front office. His managerial career started off on the wrong foot as the Royals lost their first two games of the 2023 season by shutout. That made him only the fourth skipper in major league history to experience this, following Jack Chapman of the 1876 Louisville Grays and Mike Redmond and Ryne Sandberg, both in 2013, respectively with the Miami Marlins and Philadelphia Phillies.

Preceded by Mike Matheny

Kansas City Royals Manager 2023-

Succeeded by current

Sources: 1995-2003 Baseball Almanacs, "Q's New Path" by Rob Jonas for Spotlight Newspapers

Year-By-Year Managerial Record

Year	Team	League	Record	Finish	Organization	Playoffs
2006	Hudson Valley Renegades	New York-Penn League	31-43	12th	Tampa Bay Devil Rays
2007	Hudson Valley Renegades	New York-Penn League	34-42	9th (t)	Tampa Bay Devil Rays
2008	Columbus Catfish	South Atlantic League	67-69	10th	Tampa Bay Rays
2009	Bowling Green Hot Rods	South Atlantic League	64-74	14th	Tampa Bay Rays
2023	Kansas City Royals	American League	56-106	5th	Kansas City Royals
2024	Kansas City Royals	American League			Kansas City Royals

Further Reading

• Anne Rogers: "Royals hire Matt Quatraro as next manager", mlb.com, October 30, 2022. [1]
• Lynn Worthy (Kansas City Star): "KC Royals hoping to get some of Tampa Bay Rays’ secret sauce by hiring Matt Quatraro", Yahoo! News, October 30, 2022. [2]