The Braves announced a slew of changes to their coaching staff on Friday, led by the hiring of former Rockies manager Walt Weiss as the club’s new bench coach. Atlanta has also hired Eric Young Sr. as its new first base coach/outfield instructor and Sal Fasano as its new catching coach. Former bench coach Terry Pendleton and first base coach Eddie Perez have been offered new positions within the organization, according to the team’s release.
Weiss, 53, managed the Rockies from 2013-16 before Bud Black took over the club for the 2017 season. In his four years at the helm of the Rockies, the team posted an unsightly 283-365 record, though Weiss managed some clubs that had exceptionally thin pitching staffs. Weiss, the 1988 AL Rookie of the Year with the Athletics, spent the final three seasons of a 14-year Major League career with the Braves. He’s yet to serve as a coach in the Majors, but he’ll bring prior managerial experience and more than a half decade as a special adviser in the Rockies’ front office to his new post with the Braves.
Young, 50, spent parts of 15 seasons playing in the Majors and has spent five prior seasons as a first base coach with the D-backs and Rockies (in addition to his on-air work with ESPN’s Baseball Tonight). Young swiped 465 bases in his career and averaged 47 steals per season from 1995-2000 and has previously worked as a baserunning instructor with the Astros.
The 46-year-old Fasano has worked in a variety of capacities in the Blue Jays organization, serving as a minor league manager as well as a minor league pitching coordinator and a minor league catching coordinator. He spent parts of 11 seasons as a Major League catcher — mostly as a backup — and long carried a reputation as a quality defender and receiver behind the dish.
Per the Braves, hitting coach Kevin Seitzer, assistant hitting coach Jose Castro, third base coach Ron Washington, pitching coach Chuck Hernandez and bullpen coach Marty Reed will all return to the organization in 2018.
I feel like baseball is just better with a guy named Sal Fasano in it.
More like Sal Fasano’s mustache. Like Corky Miller, if either of them ditches the stache, nobody would care about either of them. Fun little novelty players but the jury is out on their “coaching” abilities.
Matt LeCroy where’s he?
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what do you mean Weiss has yet to serve as a coach in the majors?
Exactly what the sentence said; read it a few times to comprehend.
He went straight to being the Rockies manager without any managerial or actual coaching experience (aside from being a special instructor), so this is his first stint as an actual coach.
Weiss has coaching experience at the high school level. The Rockies hired him straight from Regis Jesuit High School to replace Jim Tracy.
Great move! Not
I was hoping that Chuck Hernandez was going to get the boot. He doesn’t seem to connect with the young pitching staff very well and I can probably count on both hands how many trips that he made to the mound for visits during games when a pitcher is getting shelled. It wouldn’t have hurt my feelings to read that Snitker was replaced as manager by Washington either. He is aggressive and brings a wealth of managing, postseason and infield experience that would be invaluable to any club.
I agree with Hernandez should get the boot. We hired him because he was supposed to be great with young pitchers, but he hasn’t shown it. Let’s give him an off-season with them though. I think I’ve come to terms with Snitker returning… I’d also like to keep Washington at 3rd. That being said, it’s a dream of mine for us to promote Snit to front office and go after Dusty Baker or Joe Girari
No to Baker, the guy is a horrible manager.
I thought Pendleton had managerial momentum for years. What happened?
Pendleton hasn’t really been in the forefront of any managerial hiring in quite a while now. I’m not exactly sure what the knock on him is but obviously there must be one. Tons of new candidates have passed him by.