KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
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New Royals hitting coach Connor Dawson never really displayed big-league talent at the plate as a high school or junior college baseball player.
“He wasn't a remarkable player at all, but he was a very high-IQ guy, if that makes sense,” said Steve Murry, who is in his 40th season as Neosho County’s head baseball coach and coached Dawson at the juco level. “Connor was kind of a coach on the field.”
Former Olathe North baseball coach Matt Smith — who coached Dawson and was an assistant when his brothers, Tanner and Eric, played for the Eagles — described him much the same way.
“He wasn't a great hitter, but he concentrated so much on all of it, all aspects of the game and all aspects of hitting,” Smith said.
He made the Eagles’ varsity squad as a utility player his sophomore season, able to play any position, and settled at shortstop the next two years, but he was a light-hitting prospect at the plate.
“His baseball IQ was so high,” Smith said. “He always had an idea of what the coaching staff — what I — was thinking. He played so many positions and just kind of understood the game. ... He always knew what we needed, whether it's get a bunt down, move a runner over, hit a sac fly, whatever. He was always a team-first guy.”
That’s among the ways Dawson did stand out.
“He was always slight of size, so he just wasn't as physical as other players,” Murry, one of the winningest junior college coaches of all-time, said. “He was not a bad player by any means, but ... the game-day assignment for Connor was literally to keep the charts on the other pitchers — what they were going to, you know, throw in certain situations — and he did that with amazing success.”
Within a few innings, Dawson could diagnose an opposing pitcher’s tendencies and relay those to the rest of the dugout.
“He could tell you by the third inning what this dude was going to throw in a 2-0 count or an 0-1 count or whatever ... so he was light years ahead of most people's thought process when it came to hitting,” Murry said.
After retiring as a player following his time with the Panthers, Dawson spent time as an academy coach. He worked with St. Thomas Aquinas’ baseball program in Overland Park before serving as pitching and hitting coach for Marshalltown (Iowa) Community College in 2019.
That led to a job in the Seattle Mariners’ minor league system, where he rose through the ranks before the Milwaukee Brewers poached him for their MLB staff in 2022.
Dawson spent the last four years in Milwaukee, which averaged 92 wins during that span and made the playoffs each of the last three seasons.
“It doesn't shock me at all that he's doing what he's doing,” Murry said.
The Brewers ranked 27th among 30 MLB teams with a .233 average and averaged 4.56 runs per game in 2021, the year before Dawson’s arrival.
Milwaukee climbed to 22nd (.235) in 2022, remained 23rd (.240) in 2023, jumped to eighth (.248) in 2024 and peaked at third (.258) last season.
The Brewers, who led MLB with 97 wins last season, finished third in the league, averaging 4.98 runs per game, behind only the New York Yankees (5.24) and the eventual World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers (5.09) in 2025.
The Royals ranked 26th in runs scored last season, averaging 4.02 runs per game.
“It's worked,” Smith said of Dawson’s analytics-driven approach. “You've seen it work in Seattle. You've seen it work with the Brewers. Hopefully, it can work with the Royals as well.”
Asked whether Dawson is a home-run hire for the Royals, Smith couldn’t help himself: “Definitely,” he said with a laugh. “I guess we'll see you, though. I’m excited.”
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