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.