River Bandits Announce 2024 Coaching Staff

Davenport, Iowa — The Quad Cities River Bandits, in conjunction with the Kansas City Royals, today announced their 2024 coaching staff, led by manager Brooks Conrad, who returns to Modern Woodmen Park for his third season at the helm. Joining Conrad in Davenport are pitching coach Derrick Lewis, hitting coach Ryan Powers, assistant pitching coach Taylor Bloye, assistant hitting coach Chris Corbett, strength and conditioning coach Chad Gravenorst, and athletic trainer Nevan Dominguez. Matt Resar returns for his fourth season as Quad Cities’ coordinator of clubhouse operations.

Conrad, the 39th manager in the Quad Cities’ Midwest League history, enters his eighth season—seventh managerial—in the Royals organization and will be the first skipper to lead Quad Cities in three consecutive seasons since Jeff Carter (2001-2003) after managing the River Bandits in 2022 and 2023. In those two seasons, Conrad led the Davenport Blue Sox to a 7-2 win over the Cedar Rapids Bunnies in the MiLB at Field of Dreams Game on Aug. 9, 2022, and collected his 200th career managerial victory on April 20, 2023 when Quad Cities defeated Wisconsin 11-4.

Prior to his coaching career, which also includes stints as manager in Burlington (2018, Rookie), Lexington (2019, Low-A), and Columbia (2021, Single-A), the 44-year-old played parts of six seasons in the Majors with Oakland (2008), Atlanta (2009-11), Milwaukee (2012), Tampa Bay (2012), and San Diego (2014). He was selected in the eighth round of the 2001 Draft by Houston, where he played seven seasons in the minors before making his Major League debut with the A’s. The infielder also played a season in Japan with the Hanshin Tigers in 2013 and with the Mets’ Triple-A affiliate in 2015.

Lewis returns to Quad Cities for his second year as pitching coach and his fifth with the Royals organization after serving in the same role at Northwest Arkansas (Double-A) in 2021 and 2022. Before beginning his tenure with Kansas City, the Montgomery, Alabama native spent 16 seasons in the Atlanta Braves organization, including the last two as pitching coordinator. Lewis played seven seasons in the Braves minor league system from 1997-2003 after being selected in the 20th round of the 1997 Draft.

Powers, who began his tenure with Kansas City as a video intern for Quad Cities in 2021, returns to the River Bandits for his second season as hitting coach after serving as assistant hitting coach with Omaha (Triple-A) in 2022. Entering his fourth year in the Royals organization, Powers spent two years with the Miami Marlins as a player development analyst in 2019 and minor league video coordinator in 2018. He also held minor league video intern roles with the Texas Rangers (2017) and Los Angeles Dodgers (2015). Powers graduated from Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa in 2014 with a degree in business administration with a concentration in sports management and a leadership minor. At Wartburg, Powers was a four-year starter at third base for the Knights and was a two-time All-Conference selection, two-time All-Region selection, and was named to the ABCA/Rawlings All-America team in 2013.

Bloye enters his first season with Quad Cities and his first as a coach in the Royals organization following a five-year playing career in the minor leagues and independent ball. The Lynchburg, Virginia native spent time in the Pacific Association (2018), American Association (2019, 2022), Australian Baseball League (2020), Pioneer League (2021), and Low-A East, appearing in eight games for the Columbia Fireflies (Single-A) as a Royals farmhand in 2021.

Corbett also heads to Quad Cities in his first year in the Royals organization after spending the previous two years as an assistant coach and the recruiting coordinator for Randolph-Macon College. Corbett began his coaching career as an assistant and junior varsity head coach at North Carolina Wesleyan College in 2020 after a three-year playing career in the San Francisco Giants organization, who selected him in the 18th round of the 2017 Draft out of Rollins College.

Gravenorst joins the River Bandits staff in his first season with the Royals organization, but has served as a consultant for Major League Baseball since 2015. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biokinetics from University of the Western Cape (South Africa) in 2008 and a master’s in biokinetics from the University of Cape Town in 2016.

Dominguez enters his first year as Quad Cities’ athletic trainer after serving in that role for Columbia (2022-2023), Surprise (2020-2021), and the Royals Dominican Academy (2018-2019). He was the Major League Athletic Training Intern for the Royals in 2017 and previously worked professional extreme sports events with the Red Bull Rampage and Red Bull Crashed Ice. Dominguez is a 2016 graduate of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He is a Certified Athletic Trainer through the BOC and a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist through the NSCA.