Braves GM John Coppolella was a guest on Buster Olney’s podcast at ESPN.com today (audio link) and discussed a number of topics, including the timing of Dansby Swanson’s promotion, his expectations for free agency, what to expect from SunTrust Park, the health of prospect Ozzie Albies and the team’s managerial vacancy heading into the offseason. The entire interview is about 12 minutes in length and is well worth a listen in its entirety, but a couple of highlights from the interview stand out.
Asked about the unorthodox timing of Swanson’s promotion to the Majors, Coppolella plainly stated that service time doesn’t factor into the team’s decision-making that often. (Notably, he pointed to the decision to have Jason Heyward on his Opening Day roster back in 2010 rather than keep him in the minors for three weeks to delay his free agency, and he pointed to Atlanta winning the Wild Card by a lone game that season as a beneficial outcome.) The Braves were in negotiations with the Tigers on August’s Erick Aybar trade, and when discussing the possibility of trading another player who was performing well at the time (Aybar hit .313/.361/.424 in the month preceding the trade), it was team president John Hart who made the suggestion to call up Swanson in his place. While Coppolella originally felt the move might be premature, vice chairman John Schuerholz quickly agreed, and as the trio talked it over, an agreement was reached to promote Swanson. The results, of course, have been excellent, as Swanson is hitting .313/.364/.424 through his first 110 big league plate appearances (a bizarrely similar line to the one Aybar produced between the All-Star break and the trade to Detroit).
Swanson joins a growing core of position players that have helped the Braves move from the worst-hitting team in baseball in the first half to one of the best in the second half (by measure of wRC+), as Coppolella pointed out (with a tip of the cap to Fangraphs’ Jeff Sullivan). Swanson, Ender Inciarte, Freddie Freeman, Nick Markakis, Matt Kemp and Adonis Garcia have all performed quite well in the season’s second half, leading Coppolella to once again state that his focus figures to be on pitching this winter.
“We have more money now than we’ve had in any of the 10 years that I’ve been a part of the Braves,” said Coppolella. “Our biggest needs are going to be starting pitchers. We have a lot of good young starters, guys with great arms, guys that we still really like. They have been somewhat force-fed into opportunities because of guys getting hurt and/or traded. So part of what we want to do is get guys that are more stable — not that we’re going to write off any of our young arms, we still like all them very much — but if we could add two veteran starting pitchers, that would really help our team.”
Another focal point for the Braves early in the offseason will be determining who will manage the team on a full-time basis in 2017 and beyond. Coppolella was quick to heap praise onto interim skipper Brian Snitker for the job that he’s done since Fredi Gonzalez’s firing, explaining that all he’s done is improve his own chances at shedding the interim label. However, the Braves will still conduct a search to determine the best candidate.
“Brian couldn’t have done any better,” Coppolella tells Olney. “…It’d be easy for this team, knowing that they’re not going to the playoffs, to just kind of go through the motions. That has not happened. These guys are playing hard every night. They’re doing great things every night, and that’s a big tribute to Brian as well as to this whole staff. … We’ll end up seeing which way it turns out. If he ends up being the guy — we aren’t set that he wont be, we aren’t set that he won’t be — we just feel that we owe it to our players, to our organization to at the very least talk to a few people without the Braves to see what they have to offer.”
Again, Braves fans will want to check out the entire segment, as Coppolella offers insights into the decision-processes, preliminary testing that has been done on wind patterns in an effort to gauge how SunTrust Park will play, and the strides that have been taken by Freeman in all facets of his game this season.
The “healthy” of Albies?
Minor typo. Get over it.
As much as Snitker has done as interim manager, I’d rather see someone outside of the Braves to become manager.
Mark Derosa for manager!
NO! He’s already annoying enough on MLB network.
I’ll be interested during the interview process because even Eddie Perez is a great candidate, though I’m not sure the timing is right.
Please not Perez! If not Snitker it needs to be someone from the outside. Perez would be like Freddy G all over again. No more Bobby Cox holdovers
And you know Perez would be similar to Gonzalez how? Both of the internal candidates (besides Snitker) are highly intelligent students of the game who have been described as such for years. It is more likely they would be more strongly influenced by the Hall of Famer Bobby Cox. Yes Gonzalez was also a Cox disciple (as was Ned Yost) but the thing is all of those guys have their own strengths and weaknesses that need to be evaluated on their own right.
Cox (like any other long term managers) certainly had his detractors but oh how many things did he get right as well? Almost universally he is praised by his former players. I strongly believe that most fans tend to recall the failures on the calls they don’t agree with than the calls that don’t work out. It is hard for me to see the hate for Cox that some people spew.
I’m not opposed to having Snitker continue as manager because simply just looking at the available candidates I don’t see any ones that stand up head and shoulders above him (or the rest). It isn’t like guys such as Bochy or Maddon are available.
I am the first guy that wants to move on from a Cox loyalist, and I don’t think he is one, at least not like Fredi. The man was smart enough to be Maddux’s catcher for a reason, so I believe he knows how to manage his pitchers, and in turn, his players. Of course, I don’t have a lot of info on someone that’s only coached in the winter leagues. I really like the trend of hiring ex-catchers turned managers (Mike Matheny, Brad Ausmus, Joe Torre, Mike Sosocia, etc.). No, not everyone is successful, but there’s a reason Perez has been talked about for some time about managing. He’s one of the best internal candidates not named Snitker we’ve got. Yes, they should cast a large net, but I feel Perez would have a fighting shot against much of the competition.
You have misunderstood me. I loved Bobby, but the game has hanged a lot over he last handful of years. We need someone different. Someone who makes the game fun. Someone similar to Joe Maddon or Terry Francona. No more boring old school guys like Perez. And as far as student of the game goes I could care less. A lot of people are students of the game. That doesn’t m an they should be our next manager. We need something new and fresh. Someone exciting. Neither Perez or Pendelton are exciting and both are too old school.
I think I agree that he is a good candidate and catchers do seem to have good success as managers, as you can add Girardi, Bochey and Leyland to that list all 3 of whom along with Matheny were the managers in the 2012 championship series’ for both AL and NL.
Nice piece
New and fresh is not always better
Bo Porter. He got shafted with that patchwork of an Astros team
Swanson has had 99 AB’s in the bigs… not 110.
I didn’t say at-bats, I said plate appearances, which are different and are a better representation of a player’s entire body of work as well. The nine walks and two sacrifice flies he’s picked up aren’t reflected in his at-bat total. They are in his plate appearances.
Props for the level-headed and well-worded response to that comment. You’re a better man than I.
Could’ve easily just said “thanks idiot, that’s not what I wrote.”
Good job of not feeding into the unnecessary blatant negativity.
One comment trying to nit-pick your article for any errors is annoying, but it happens..
Although, to post two comments trying to make you look bad, that’s just uncalled for and flat out disrespectful!!
Excellent job walking all over that troll’s bridge!! (Maybe some of you are too young to understand the reference lol, but hopefully most aren’t) …Either way, I believe the kids these days would call that getting “horse wanged!” lol hahaha
Bravesfan88 no I wasn’t being disrespectful, I was simply making sure the facts were correct. I have seen time and time again lazily written articles filled with errors. I like the content that MLBTR puts out and meant no disrespect to Steve or the MLBTR crew. And to be completely fair, I was correct on the first one.
Well it definitely comes off as just trolling, or just wanting to point out errors in the comments section, solely just to make the writer look bad….
Several people do it all the time on websites and blogs just to be douche bags…Figured you were just being another one of those annoying people..
Thank goodness. Another article cop. No, there aren’t dozens of those around trying to point out grammar and spelling errors..which was the one you were right about and which did not make the article anymore well understood
So do you go through these articles looking for as many mistakes as possible and then make a post about them? I think you need a hobby.
You do realize that he WROTE the article.. I’m quite sure he doesn’t need me to defend him, but it is probably part of his job to clarify his intentions to some degree. At least you are getting feed back from the writer. I’d think writing the article gives him at leas some insight into it.
To be honest there has been a time or two I didn’t realize the writers were responding to some of the posters. Don’t feel bad.
I guess I’m going to have to blow the screen up to 150% or so to see my punctuations. I have a hard time seeing it in this font. Then I don’t always notice it in my proofreading either. LOL guess I’m never going to be editor material (not that I’d want that job).
I believe he is responding to chieftoto…But it’s okay, don’t feel bad lol (;
Lol #brainfart totally forgot those are two different things…
This explains a lot….
Granted I don’t know all about other teams GMs, but as a Braves fan, it’s been refreshing to have someone as open, upfront and available to the media as Coppy has been this year. He seems to continue provide a nice balance of keeping fans interested and optimistic while not over promising and basing much of the facts in reality. Yes, I’m aware that they first stated they were hoping to compete by 2017, and while that looks like a long shot, with an upgrade at C, and 2 consistent SPs, with some tweaking in the bullpen, and this team should very interesting in 2017. And that’s not including some of the youngin’s that might be ready, including but not limited to: Dustin Peterson, Ozzie Albies, Rio Ruiz, Patrick Weigel, AJ Minter and more.
I’m sure part of their decision making with Swanson, is that he’d likely be interested in a extension before hitting FA, because he’s a hometown kid. Not saying he’ll take less, or sign in the next couple of years, but I’m sure there will be mutual interest in an extension before his 6 years of service time is through.
With the way Braves build Stadiums, though, they’ll break ground on their next one in 2022 in Charlotte to be “closer to their fan base”.
I don’t see why so many criticize the stadium move. I hated the spot of the old Atlanta Fulton County stadium and Turner Field was in almost the exact same spot. I certainly expect the traffic to be a mess the first couple of seasons until they sort it out, but I look forward to experiencing Suntrust Stadium.
That’s a very good catch and call!! Although, I’m sure they probably thought the samething about Heyward at the time, initially, but that plan obviously didn’t work out too well…
But I do think you’re correct, the Braves seem to be much more aggressive with hometown kids. They have shown a tendency of moving them up earlier, and not necessarily worrying about service time..
I believe they also did the same or had similar paths drawn out with guys like Chipper, Francouer, Alex Wood, and Mike Minor who went to GA Tech and hailed from a well known “Braves State” in Tennessee…
There are probably plenty of other guys I’m forgetting, then again there are also some examples of guys like Furcal and Andrew Jones being promoted aggressively, but they weren’t from “Braves Country” or considered local products…So, Idk honestly, but there are some trends there to make it a valid argument….
I can’t believe a new stadium was even considered, more less built, in Atlanta. It’s a transient town and very difficult to draw fans. The Hawks and Falcons struggle. I think there were two NHL teams that have come and gone.
I personally don’t think Swanson has been impressive during his brief stint in the majors. He’s striking out in 25% of his AB’s, his .313 BA is great….but his BAbip is .392
You understand its a brief stint but then you use all of the most volatile rate stats?
He’s looked fine in his first 5 weeks in the bigs, his ceiling is still as high as it gets. If his OPS was .400 you might have a point, but this is exactly how I thought he’d fare.
K% is far from the most volatile of rate stats.
Been very pleased with the current lineup since acquiring Kemp. Very curious to see what free agent pitchers we go after. Our starting staff needs a major overhaul.
In Offseason Braves should trade with D’Backs;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Newcombe,Pache R,Sanchez and Vizcaino for Miller,Drury and B.Obrien. Sign J.Garcia. Pitchers 2017 Teheran,Garcia,Miller,Allard and Folty
Braves could trade with Yanks:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Inciarte,Markakis,Blair,Jenkins and Wisler FOR McCann,Judge and Severino.