By Dan Murphy
Congratulations to Yonkers native Brian Sweeney, who was recently named the pitching coach for the Kansas City Royals. Sweeney, 48, has worked his way up the ranks for different Major League Baseball teams, as a pitcher and a coach, to get his first pitching coach job.
Brian Sweeney played for the North Yonkers Boys & Girls Club and Yonkers PAL baseball when he was young boy. He attended high school at Stepinac where he played baseball, football and basketball. He attended Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, where he played baseball for 4 years.
Sweeney spent 18 years working his way through the Minor Leagues as a pitcher in the Seattle and San Diego organizations, as well as a three-year stint in Japan. He appeared in 73 Major League games with a 3.38 ERA and two saves.
He started coaching professionally in 2015 and became a respected coach because of his willingness to embrace analytics and data, and using that to help his players improve. Sweeney also has an ability to connect with players and pitchers, which helped him in his first job in the Philadelphia Phillies minor league organization before joining the staff of the Cleveland Guardians in 2018, and becoming the team’s bullpen coach in 2020.
In his four years in Cleveland, Sweeney worked under Manager Terry Francona, one of the best managers in baseball for the past two decades, and who praised Sweeney, saying last year, “He will be a pitching coach somewhere. Don’t be surprised when you see that happening pretty soon, because he’s good. He’s real good.”
Sweeney’s work in Cleveland was appreciated by many, including Royals General Manager JJ Picollo. “Knowing what our pitchers need, where they are in their careers, the urgency while they’re in the Major Leagues to continue to develop and get on a path that will allow them to be successful, I think Brian has the ability to get the most out of them. He’s great at building relationships. Great at understanding the data, and great at collaborating,” said Picollo.
The Sweeney family in Yonkers is proud of Brian and his accomplishments. Brian’s dad Edward Sweeney, is a retired Lieutenant from the Yonkers Fire Department. When he was coaching in Cleveland, Brian started the Ready to Respond program, which honors all First Responders. Brian is also a volunteer firefighter in upstate New York where he lives with his family.
“Whenever that pager goes off, you have to make a choice,” Sweeney said. “It doesn’t go off because people are happy. Somebody’s calling 911 and it’s an emergency, and I feel like it’s my responsibility, regardless of the situation, if it does go off and I’m able to respond, I should go.
Sweeney took the firefighters test in Yonkers when he was 18, but knew that baseball was his true calling.“I have huge respect for first responders that do it full time. It’s a really hard job. You never know what to expect. It’s really cool to see how a volunteer company can come together in a community and help.”
Brian would go into the Yonkers firehouse with his dad and hang out. “I’ve seen the camaraderie. It’s very similar to what a locker room is like.”
With sping training around the corner, Brian Sweeney is looking forward to his first job as Pitching Coach for an MLB team. “We’d like to build something here. It’s not just me as the pitching coach, we want to build a pitching team to support these players. They deserve it, and the organization deserves it. We’re excited about getting that process going.”
And there is a lot of family, friends and firefighters in Yonkers who will be watching alot of Royals baseball this year.
