Atlanta Braves Top Franchise Managers: #4 – Brian Snitker
The Atlanta Braves team that opened the 2016 season were pretenders instead of contenders. After opening the campaign with a 9-28 record, they handed their manager his last paycheck and called up old-faithful.
The Atlanta Braves signed Brian Snitker in 1977, and he’s been with the club since then. At least, that’s the headline we hear repeated every time Snit’s team does something special, but it wasn’t that easy.
The Man
Brian Gerard Snitker was raised about 100 miles up the road from me in Macon, Illinois. When he started high school, he wore thick glasses, and teammate Stave Shartzer said he wasn’t a stolen base threat.
“There’s dead people that can outrun him.”
But when you attend a high school with 260 students, knowing how to catch the ball and swing at bat will get you a shot. Snitker tried out and won a job playing right field for the Macon High School Ironmen.
In 1971, the Ironmen shocked the world by becoming the smallest school in Illinois history to reach the state finals. If you haven’t read One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball, I suggest you take the time and change that.
He went on to play American Legion Baseball and told the American Legion Magazine that playing Legion ball helped him make the jump to a professional career. After two years at LSU, the Braves signed him, and three years later, they released him. Atlanta Braves’ fans know the story of the Hank Aaron phone call that made him a braves instructor/coach, but not many know how hard a road it was to travel.
Called Up, Sent Down, Wash, Rinse, Repeat
After the now legendary call from Hank Aaron, everything went perfectly, except it didn’t. Roving hitting instructors are Gypsies, traveling from one minor league town to another and doing a lot of things not in the job description of a hitting coach.
I’ve been everywhere, man I’ve been everywhere, man Crossed the desert’s bare, man I’ve breathed the mountain air, man Of travel I’ve a-had my share, man I’ve been everywhere (Geoff Mack, Hank Snow, Johnny Cash)
Snitker must have felt like a yo-yo. After a year on the road as hitting coach, the Braves gave him the reins of the Anderson Braves. In 1983 he moved to Durham, and in 1985, a call to join the Atlanta Braves as bullpen coach.
When the Braves changed managers in 1986, Snitker found himself back in A-Ball again with Sumpter for two years before returning to Atlanta as Bench coach; two years later, it was back to the Sally League. Over the next 15 seasons, Snitker managed in Macon, Danville, Macon, Myrtle Beach, Greenville, Pearl, and Richmond.
Atlanta Braves bench coach
In 2006 the Atlanta Braves lost Fredi González to the Marlins, and after 17 years in the wilderness, asked Snitker if he’d like to join Bobby Cox to coach third base. Two years later, Cox retired, and González took over, but this time Snitker remained.
After the Braves reached the 2013 playoffs while Craig Kimbrel stood amazed in the bullpen, Frank Wren told the coaches everyone would stay, but there might be a few tweaks.
I’m the Tweak
Two days later, Wren called Snitker at home and asked him to come to the ballpark. He told Sports Illustrated’s Chris Ballard that Wren made the offer to manage AAA Gwinnett sound like an opportunity, but it felt like a slap to Snitker.
. . . he couldn’t retire. He hadn’t made enough and didn’t qualify for the full pension from MLB. And, since all he’d ever done was play or coach baseball, he had no fallback career. “If I was young, I’d have told them to shove it,” says Snitker. That fall, he and Ronnie returned to the minor league life.
Long time friend Greg Walker told Ballard he thought moving to Gwinnett was the end.
“He was getting older. It’s kind of like going back to Triple A as a player. I figured that was the end.”
Snitker went back to doing what he’d done for the Atlanta Braves since 1981, grooming players for the Major League roster.
On May 16, 2016, GM John Coppolella called Snitker and told him they were firing González and asked if he would like to manage the Atlanta Braves.
Finally, Atlanta Braves Manager
On May 17, Brian Snitker became the second oldest rookie manager in the history of the Major Leagues. They finished the season 59-65, a great turnaround considering the roster and the team’s awful start to the year. Snitker was sure the interim tag meant they’d replace him.
Atlanta Braves’ players felt strongly he should stay. Freddie Freeman and Nick Markakis went to Coppolella’s office and told him so. We have no way of knowing what led them to choose Snitker over Bud Black, and it wasn’t a unanimous choice.
Perhaps they felt that Snitker’s talent in player development was what the team needed with a roster soon to have a group of rookies on board, and gave him a one-year deal to turn the team into major leaguers.
The following year Coppolella and Hart were suddenly gone, and a new analytics-driven GM arrived. It was widely believed Anthopoulos would bring in his own man to manage. Then the team that finished 72-90 in 2017 reversed those numbers, won the NL East, and Snitker was named Manager of the Year.
The Fun Wash-Rinse-Repeat Cycle
Anthopoulos and Snitker became the oddest but most successful pairing in the game. According to Ballard, the catalyst that created their bond was Snitker heading towards the mound to have some personal time with Jose Urena after the Marlin pitcher drilled Acuña in the elbow.
Players held him back, and I think Urena should send them thank-you notes for saving his . . . since that day, the odd couple seems to have a system. Snitker gets the team to the trade deadline in the title hunt, and Anthopoulos makes the trades that push their nose over the finish line ahead of the rest of the East.
Since Snitker took over, his Atlanta Braves have a 541-451 record, claimed five consecutive division titles, and hoisted the World Series Trophy in 2021. Chipper Jones told Ballard that Snitker’s success comes down to one word, honesty, which is what Snitker told Ballard, thought about when he took over in 2016.
“The truth is all I’ve ever wanted to hear and haven’t. I’ve been shoved aside probably more than the player I’m talking to and I’ve never been told the truth, and I had to learn to deal with it. So I just tell them the truth.”
It appears his approach works. Snitker’s 542 wins are fifth on the all-time list of franchise managers. When the Braves win their 19th game this year, he’ll move into fourth, and team-win 48 will move him into third place.
That’s a Wrap
Brian Snitker’s overnight success as manager of the Atlanta Braves began 45 years ago. His rise from a minor league catcher whose career highlight was a 4-12 streak with AAA Richmond in 1978 to manager of the Atlanta Braves was the opposite of meteoric – my Funk and Wagnalls says the word is sluggish, so we’ll go with that – and profitable.
He would have quit after his 2014 demotion to Gwinnett to quit, but couldn’t afford to. When Coppolella made him manager of the Atlanta Braves, he and his wife lived in the basement of their daughter’s home near Atlanta. Those problems are in the past, but what’s he see happening in his future?
Next. Brian would have liked Fred. dark
In 2021, he told SI that he’d go maybe three more years before giving it up to travel –he can afford first class now – and spend time with his grandkids. I hope he tacks on another 300 wins before then.