Most rebuilding clubs are giving their managers the benefit of the doubt. The Philadelphia Phillies signed Pete Mackanin to a one-year extension with a club option in May. The San Diego Padres locked up Andy Green through 2021 in August. The Cincinnati Reds exercised Bryan Price’s option earlier this month.
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But Brian Snitker, who is completing his 41st season in the Atlanta Braves’ organization and his second as manager? The Braves are letting him twist. John Hart, the team’s president of baseball operations, and John Coppolella, the general manager, are mulling whether to retain Snitker, and do not need to decide on his club option until five days after the World Series ends, according to major-league sources.
If the Braves believe change is necessary, it would be better to do it at the end of the season than wait until their first stumble next season, as the Reds might do with Price. If the Braves believe they made a mistake a year ago in choosing Snitker over Bud Black—who became manager of the sagging but, at the moment, still playoff-bound Colorado Rockies—better to just acknowledge it and move on.
The Braves’ next manager, however, would be their third under Hart and Coppolella, who became the team’s lead baseball executives after the 2014 season. (Fredi Gonzalez was fired in May 2016.) A managerial change, no matter how much a front office might spin it, marks an organizational failure. The removal of Snitker would indicate the team miscalculated his impact last season, when the Braves finished 59-65 under him after starting 9-28 with Gonzalez, and expected too much of the club this season, its first at SunTrust Park.
Both Hart and Coppolella declined comment. In an interview on Thursday night, Snitker, 61, made it clear that he would love to remain manager “for a while,” but added, “I don’t worry about it. I figure things will happen the way they do. Because of where I am in my career and my life, I’m secure with everything. I don’t need this to define me. I feel like the Braves are going to do what they’re going to do. And I’ll be good with it. I’m not beating the door down for an extension. I feel when the time is right, they’re going to come to me and I’m going to be the manager or not.”
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That’s typical Snitker, forever a good soldier, but it doesn’t guarantee he would accept an offer to remain in the organization if he was no longer manager. Snitker was noncommittal on that question, even though he previously has stayed with the Braves after being reassigned, most notably when the team’s former GM, Frank Wren, demoted him from third base coach to Triple A manager following a 96-win season in 2013. “I don’t know,” Snitker said. “It’s not a blanket ‘yes.’ That’s something I would evaluate at the time.”
The Braves’ players think highly of Snitker, sources say, and they certainly have not quit—they have 19 wins in their last at-bat, including three in September, second only to the Red Sox, who have 22. The team’s record might be significantly better than 68-83 if it had an improved bullpen rather than one that is tied for next-to-last in the National League with a 4.67 ERA. The Braves are on pace to score 740 runs, their highest total since 2008, even though first baseman Freddie Freeman missed 48 games from May 15 to July 4 with a fractured left wrist and left fielder Matt Kemp has been sidelined a total of 39 games because of left-hamstring problems.
Since they were 45-45 on July 16, the Braves have gone an NL-worst 23-38, which is the biggest black mark on Snitker. That 45-45 mark, however, was not necessarily an accurate measure of the Braves’ performance through the first 90 games; their run differential was negative-34. Baseball Prospectus projected the Braves’ “third-order” record, based on underlying statistics and adjusted for quality of opponents, should have been 40-50.
Rebuilding clubs generally view managers through a softer lens. The Braves’ future appears particularly bright, considering that their farm system generally is ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in the game. But in an effort to better compete and bridge the gap to the team’s top prospects, the front office added a number of veterans on short-term deals this season, including starting pitchers R.A. Dickey, Bartolo Colon and Jaime Garcia, and second baseman Brandon Phillips. The idea was to take a step forward from last year’s 68-93 record, and the team’s second-half slide this season has created tension in management that has been evident to the players, sources say.
On Aug. 23, the Braves blew a 5-4 lead at home when they allowed five runs to the Seattle Mariners in the eighth inning and eventually lost 9-6. Afterward, several players heard Hart berating Snitker, sources say. Reliever Jim Johnson, signed to a two-year, $10 million extension last October, had started the inning by failing to retire any of the four hitters he faced while also throwing a wild pitch and allowing a stolen base. Hart, sources say, was upset that Snitker then summoned right-hander Dan Winkler in only his second appearance of the season to face the left-handed batting Kyle Seager, who hit a three-run homer. Snitker’s choices, though, were limited; the Braves’ principal lefty, Sam Freeman, had pitched the previous two nights, and rookie A.J. Minter had joined the team that day (he would end up pitching a scoreless ninth).
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Tempers occasionally flare during the course of the season—passions run high, and there is a game nearly every day. Still, some of the players who heard Hart yell at Snitker were taken aback, sources say. Coppolella, as I reported last month, also had become increasingly testy with subordinates. The Braves have made a series of organizational adjustments, promoting some in the front office, reassigning and changing the titles of others. On Sept. 13, they announced the hirings of Adam Fisher as assistant GM and Perry Minasian as director of player personnel. On Thursday, they dismissed five scouts, but plan to replace them with others, sources say.
Most organizations undergo change at this time of year. The Braves operated one way, under former GM John Schuerholz and manager Bobby Cox, for the better part of three decades, and were highly successful for much of that period, winning 14 straight division titles from 1991 to 2005. But this is their fourth straight losing season, their longest such stretch since 1984 to ’90. Hart and Coppolella might view Snitker as an extension of the team’s past, and prefer a voice from the outside. That’s baseball, that’s business. Happens all the time.
If the Braves do make a managerial change that new voice might be third base coach Ron Washington, who was the skipper of the Texas Rangers for nearly eight seasons before resigning in September 2014 for personal reasons; Washington later said he was unfaithful to his wife. Some in the organization, however, believe Coppolella wants a “yes” man, saying that two front-office employees, director of baseball operations Billy Ryan and special assistant to the GM Rick Williams, received new, lesser titles because they occasionally voiced dissenting opinions. Washington is not a “yes” man. Neither is Arizona Diamondbacks bench coach and former Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, who also could draw consideration.
Whatever the Braves decide, the stakes are getting higher. Hart and Coppolella stuck with Snitker after last season in part because they would have looked heartless dismissing a valued longtime employee after finishing the season on a 20-10 roll. This time, coming off a disappointing year, they probably do not need to fear a negative backlash if they make a change. But they had better be right.
The Braves’ average home attendance in their first season at SunTrust is 30,750, the fifth-lowest of the 15 ballparks that have opened since 2000. Hart and Coppolella are virtually certain to pursue some big-name additions that will excite fans, and the likely arrivals of top prospects such as outfielder Ronald Acuna also will keep interest high. But if a new manager is hired and the team continues to sputter, the decision-makers will fall under scrutiny. A franchise can promise a better future and scapegoat managers for only so long.
(Photo: USA Today Sports)