Brian Snitker

Braves Name Brian Snitker Manager, Hire Ron Washington As Third Base Coach

By Steve Adams | October 11, 2016 at 8:10am CDT

The Braves announced on Tuesday morning that they’re dropping the “interim” label from Brian Snitker’s title and naming him their full-time manager. Additionally, the Braves announced that Ron Washington has been hired as the team’s new third base coach, as Bo Porter will become a special assistant to general manager John Coppolella. Snitker receives a one-year deal for the 2017 season with a club option for the 2018 campaign as well.

In addition to those moves, the Braves exercised their 2017 options on bench coach Terry Pendelton, first base coach Eddie Perez, hitting coach Kevin Seitzer and assistant hitting coach Jose Castro, adding that bullpen coach Marty Reed will return to the team in 2017 as well. Pitching coach Roger McDowell is the only 2016 coach that won’t remain with the club, as was reported last week, and he’ll be replaced internally by minor league pitching coordinator (and former Rays pitching coach) Chuck Hernandez.

“Brian earned this opportunity through his dedication to the Braves and to our players,” said Coppolella of his new full-time manager, via press release. “We are excited for the energy and momentum he will bring into SunTrust Park next season.”

The 60-year-old Snitker (61 next week) was named interim manager earlier this season after the Braves dismissed Fredi Gonzalez from the post that he had occupied since the 2011 campaign. The 2017 season, incredibly, will be the 41st year that Snitker has spent with the Atlanta organization, Atlanta notes in its release. He’s spent 20 of those seasons as a manager at the minor league level, overseeing clubs in Triple-A, Double-A, Class-A Advanced, Class-A and Rookie ball.

Suffice it to say, while Snitker may not have been a household name at the time he was named interim skipper earlier this year — and may still not be a household name now — he’s been a mainstay in the Braves organization and has earned the trust of Coppolella, president of baseball operations John Hart and vice chariman John Schuerholz over the life of his lengthy career with the team. Beyond his four decades of loyalty, the turnaround to which Snitker guided the rebuilding Braves in 2016 was indeed impressive. Inheriting a 9-28 club, Snitker saw the Braves finish at a much-improved 59-65 pace — including a 37-35 record in the season’s second half. While some of that success, certainly, can be attributed to the arrival of players like Dansby Swanson and Matt Kemp, in addition to rebounds from veterans Nick Markakis, Jim Johnson and others, David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Mark Bowman of MLB.com have repeatedly reported on how well respected Snitker became in the clubhouse early on as they began to report over the past week that he had emerged as the favorite to land this position.

Snitker’s primary competitors in the search were longtime Padres manager Bud Black and the man who will now serve as his third base coach: Washington. O’Brien and Bowman have been suggesting that Snitker was the likeliest candidate to come away with the job over the past week, however, and multiple reports yesterday indicated that Snitker was the favorite, with an announcement expected in the very near future. Washington will depart the Athletics organization, where he also served as third base coach, to join the Braves, and Coppolella expressed excitement over the addition of the former Rangers skipper to his coaching staff in the aforementioned press release:

“Ron’s background and success as a Major League manager will be an asset to everyone on the club,” said Coppolella. “His tireless work ethic, up-beat attitude and tremendously high baseball IQ will benefit our players and our staff.”

Black, meanwhile, will have to wait a bit longer to find himself at the helm of another big league club, though his reputation, experience and industry-wide respect make it likely that he’ll land such a post at some point in the future if he remains interested in pursuing such opportunities.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Braves “Close” To Naming Brian Snitker Manager

By Connor Byrne | October 10, 2016 at 4:58pm CDT

4:58pm: Atlanta appears to be close to naming Snitker the full-time skipper, per Bowman. An announcement is expected in the coming days, at a time that won’t coincide with the ongoing postseason action.

3:13pm: Snitker is indeed the favorite for the position, reports ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick, citing a league source.

OCT. 10, 10:00am: MLB.com’s Mark Bowman tweets that the Braves are nearing the completion of their managerial search and believes that Snitker will ultimately land the job. David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution also expects news sooner rather than later and believes that Snitker will ultimately be selected for the job (Twitter link).

OCT. 8: The Braves are deciding among Brian Snitker, Ron Washington and Bud Black for their managerial position, according to FanRag Sports’ Jon Heyman, who adds that they’re likely to make a hire during the upcoming week.

Snitker has the least experience of the three, but as the only in-house candidate, he has much more familiarity with the organization than Washington or Black. The 60-year-old Snitker took over the Braves’ dugout on an interim basis after the rebuilding club fired Fredi Gonzalez in May. The Braves started 9-28 under Gonzalez, but the Snitker-led outfit rallied to post a respectable 59-65 mark. Impressively, Atlanta finished above .500 (37-35) after the All-Star break.

Washington has experienced more success as a manager than either Snitker or Black, though he had plenty of talent at his disposal in Texas. Between Washington’s hiring in 2007 and his resignation in 2014, the Rangers went 664-611 and made three playoff trips – two of which resulted in American League pennants. After leaving Texas, Washington took over as the Athletics’ third base coach in 2015. Notably, the 64-year-old has a connection that goes back nearly 50 years with Braves president John Schuerholz. When Washington signed with the Royals in 1970, Schuerholz was a member of the club’s front office. More recently, Braves president of baseball operations John Hart was an executive in Texas when Washington managed there.

The well-regarded Black, 57, grabbed the reins as the Padres’ manager in 2007 and held the position until the team fired him in June 2015. Black’s Padres won at least 89 games in a season twice, with the second successful campaign leading to 2010 National League Manager of the Year honors. That was also the final time the talent-challenged Padres finished above .500 in a season under Black, who compiled a 649-713 mark in San Diego. Black – who’s now part of the Angels’ front office – knows Schuerholz and Hart from his days as a pitcher in Kansas City and Cleveland (Hart also worked there previously).

Before whittling their search down to Snitker, Washington and Black, the Braves interviewed bench coach Terry Pendleton, first base coach Eddie Perez and third base coach Bo Porter. Perez is now a candidate for the Rockies’ job.

Braves To Interview Ron Washington, Bud Black

By charliewilmoth | October 5, 2016 at 12:54pm CDT

WEDNESDAY: Washington will sit down with the Atlanta brass today, Jim Bowden of ESPN.com tweets.

MONDAY: The Braves will interview Ron Washington and Bud Black for their managerial vacancy, MLB.com’s Mark Bowman (all Twitter links). At last check, the Braves had already interviewed four internal candidates: interim manager Brian Snitker, bench coach Terry Pendleton, first base coach Eddie Perez and third base coach Bo Porter.

Snitker could be the favorite after winning praise for his work with the team down the stretch (although Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets that Black is the “leading candidate“). Braves president of baseball operations John Hart says that hiring Pendleton, Perez or Porter would be difficult given what the team has done with Snitker at the helm. Snitker, meanwhile, says he understands the team’s need to evaluate other candidates.

Washington and Black are, of course, qualified candidates in their own right. Washington served parts of eight seasons as the Rangers’ manager and led them to two World Series before resigning in 2014. He currently serves as the Athletics’ third base coach. Black managed the Padres from 2007 through 2015, has an NL Manager Of The Year award to his credit, and has won praise for his work with pitchers. He was a candidate for the Nationals’ managerial opening last winter, and he currently works in the Angels’ front office.

Latest On The Braves’ Managerial Search

By charliewilmoth | October 1, 2016 at 8:47am CDT

The Braves have interviewed four internal managerial candidates, Mark Bowman of MLB.com writes (Twitter links). Those include interim manager Brian Snitker, bench coach Terry Pendleton, first base coach Eddie Perez and third base coach Bo Porter. Bowman notes that, of the four, Pendleton stood out as being impressive.

The Braves still will likely speak to external candidates. There’s no word on who those might be, although last week, Today’s Knuckleball’s Jon Heyman linked the Braves to Red Sox bench coach Torey Lovullo, former Padres manager Bud Black, former Twins manager Rob Gardenhire and Royals bench coach (and former Mariners manager) Don Wakamatsu.

Snitker would seem to be the most obvious candidate, as he’s won plenty of praise for his work with the Braves down the stretch after the firing of Fredi Gonzalez, and he has extensive experience as a big-league coach and minor league manager. But Pendleton, Perez and Porter also all have résumés well worth considering. Pendleton has served 15 years on the Braves’ staff as a hitting coach and first base coach, and he won an MVP award as a Braves player in 1991. Perez played nine seasons for the Braves as a catcher and has been a coach for the Braves since 2007. Porter has extensive experience outside the Braves organization — he was the Astros’ manager in 2013 and 2014 and has also managed or coached in the Marlins, Diamondbacks and Nationals organizations.

Coppolella On Swanson, Free Agency, Manager

By Steve Adams | September 21, 2016 at 1:20pm CDT

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.

East Notes: Red Sox, Marlins, Albies, Snitker, McCann, Verrett

By Steve Adams and Jeff Todd | August 30, 2016 at 10:44am CDT

Recent struggles in the Red Sox bullpen look ominously familiar to president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, writes ESPN Boston’s Scott Lauber. As Lauber notes, a faulty bullpen was a frequent Achilles heel for Dombrowski’s Tigers teams that made the postseason (or came close to doing so), and the relief corps is the weak link for Boston right now. The July acquisitions of Brad Ziegler and Fernando Abad haven’t been enough to solidify the staff (Abad has struggled quite a bit), leaving manager John Farrell with a great deal of uncertainty in the late innings. A return for Koji Uehara (more on that here), a successful transition to the bullpen for Clay Buchholz or Joe Kelly, and a last-minute add from outside the organization are three possible saving graces, Lauber writes, noting that Kelly in particular has excelled out of the bullpen at Triple-A Pawtucket.

Heyman’s Latest: Managers, White Sox, Yunel, Dodgers, Puig, Norris, Rangers

By Steve Adams | August 18, 2016 at 4:22pm CDT

Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports kicks off his weekly Inside Baseball column with a look at the job security of a number of managers, noting that Mets skipper Terry Collins, D-backs manager Chip Hale and White Sox manager Robin Ventura could all be on the hot seat, while Braves interim manager Brian Snitker doesn’t seem especially likely to shed the interim label and keep his post. Other names mentioned include Mike Scioscia (Angels), Brad Ausmus (Tigers), Kevin Cash (Rays), Paul Molitor (Twins), Bryan Price (Reds) and Walt Weiss (Rockies), but none from that group seems to be eminently in danger of losing his job even at season’s end, per Heyman.

Some highlights from the lengthy column…

White Sox GM Rick Hahn was far more in favor of a deadline sale than owner Jerry Reinsdorf, Heyman writes, but the Sox ultimately held onto nearly all of their tradeable assets, with the exception of left-hander Zach Duke, suggesting that Hahn ultimately wasn’t given the go-ahead to operate as he might’ve wished. The Sox haven’t put Chris Sale on trade waivers yet, Heyman notes, though that decision is a moot point. He’d be claimed by the first team available — the Twins, as things currently stand — and pulled back off waivers. Chicago had interest in Gary Sanchez when the Yankees were looking at Sale, he adds, though that’s not much of a surprise. Catcher has long been a weak spot in Chicago, and Sanchez is among the more highly regarded prospects in all of baseball.
There wasn’t much chatter pertaining to Yunel Escobar prior to the non-waiver trade deadline (and there’s been less in August), but Heyman writes that Escobar did draw interest in July. However, the Angels like what he’s been able to give to the club offensively, batting .316/.365/.397 in 474 plate appearances. I’m not sure I see the logic behind not being willing to move Escobar but trading a similarly priced and very arguably more valuable asset with the same amount of club control (Hector Santiago) for what amounted to an injured prospect, but perhaps the Halos simply didn’t receive an offer to their liking for Escobar.
The Dodgers “love” Rich Hill and were planning to pursue him last winter until Brett Anderson accepted the team’s qualifying offer, per Heyman. Those two don’t seem like they should’ve been mutually exclusive — the Dodgers went out and signed Kenta Maeda and Scott Kazmir following Anderson’s acceptance of the QO, after all — but perhaps the Dodgers either couldn’t guarantee a rotation spot or didn’t find the notion of two starters with such recent injury woes to be palatable. Either way, if the Dodgers are as fond of Hill as Heyman indicates, it seems likely that they’ll be in the mix to re-sign him come the offseason.
One executive from a non-Dodgers club opined to Heyman that no team will claim Yasiel Puig if and when he’s placed on revocable waivers and added, “…if they do, they’re going to get him.” Furthermore, Heyman writes that it isn’t likely that Puig will rejoin the Dodgers at any point this season, as he has “turned off” many of his teammates. It seems difficult to fathom that the Dodgers wouldn’t bring him back in the month of September when rosters expand, but we’ll find out in just a few weeks — if Puig isn’t dealt first.
The Padres have yet to put Derek Norris on trade waivers, and Heyman calls him a more likely offseason trade candidate. The Indians showed mild interest but ultimately decided that their internal options were preferable to Norris, who is once again struggling tremendously following a strong showing at the plate from May 1 through the All-Star break. Heyman also notes that the Padres are interested enough in Puig to at least be thinking about it and points out the connection between pro scouting director Logan White and Puig. White was the Dodgers VP of amateur scouting prior to his Padres gig and was one of the execs that recommended Puig to his colleagues.
The Rangers weren’t able to swing a deal for any of the big-name starters they pursued, but that’s in part due to the asking prices they received. The Rays asked the Rangers for Jurickson Profar and other pieces in exchange for Matt Moore, while Rougned Odor’s name was suggested by the Rays in Chris Archer talks and by the White Sox in talks for Chris Sale.

Coppolella On Snitker, Teheran, Norris, Pitching

By charliewilmoth | July 12, 2016 at 11:58am CDT

Here’s the latest from Braves GM John Coppolella, via the first part of a Q+A with Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Brian Snitker is a serious candidate to shed his interim manager tag and take the job on a more permanent basis, but Coppolella indicates the team will look to outside candidates as well.
Coppolella says flatly that the Braves aren’t trading Julio Teheran, who, of course, has been the subject of months of rumors and discussion. As we’ve noted elsewhere in these pages, Teheran is controllable through 2020, so the Braves could conceivably hang onto him as a veteran anchor for their rotation, even though his fine season and the relatively limited number of good starting pitchers available would also make him a strong trade chip this summer.
The recent spate of injuries to pitchers — both within the Braves organization and elsewhere — itself demonstrates why the Braves emphasized pitching so much in their current rebuild, Coppolella says. He notes, though, that part of the Braves’ strategy was a function of opportunity. The organization’s core of young pitching now includes Ian Anderson, who the team selected with the third overall draft pick last month even though they already had lots of young pitching. “There’s so much attrition associated with pitching that you truly can never have enough talent or depth when it comes to arms,” Coppolella says. “It’s great the Cubs built around bats, but that’s what was available to them in the draft. There was no Kris Bryant or Kyle Schwarber in the draft this year.”
The Braves’ trade of Bud Norris late last month was motivated in part by a desire to beat the trade-deadline rush and get as much as possible for a player who would be a rental for his new team, Coppolella confirms. “It was difficult to trade Bud, but knowing he was a free agent after the season was the overriding factor,” says Coppolella. “Bud was pitching terrific and the Dodgers made us an offer that we felt compelled us to make that move at that time.”

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