Atlanta Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos is widely regarded as one of the absolute best GM's in all of baseball. He is beloved by Braves country for a number of reasons. Just like the Braves fanbase, Anthopoulos was a little deflated with the way Atlanta's season ended.
With that said, AA and his front office got right to work reviewing what happened in 2023 and what things can change as they navigate the 2024 offseason. Obviously, Anthopoulos is pretty guarded in what news he let's get out into the public, so his 2023 offseason team building blueprint wasn't laid out in these quotes, but we can at least get a sense of some direction with what he gave us. Today we break down all of Anthopoulos' comments since the Braves historic season came to an abrupt end.
There is no secret formula for postseason success
Trust me I know it's hard to see such a talented team you care so much about come up short. The Braves getting bounced by the Phillies in the NLDS for the second straight season put all of Braves country in a really sour mood. But AA quickly preached on it in his end of season comments, it was four games where the Braves didn't show up. That doesn't mean it's time to tear the house down.
"Nobody has an exact formula, otherwise somebody would be winning every year"Alex Anthopoulos
Alex pointed out the facts, this Braves team had their opportunities in their postseason series, they had times with runners in scoring position and never got the big hit. Moving forward AA said he knows this is still a very talented offensive club and he can sleep well at night knowing that.
"I sleep well at night knowing we have a very good offensive club now, even going into 2024 and beyond."
— Bally Sports: Braves (@BravesOnBally) October 13, 2023
Braves GM and president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos on his takeaway from the season/postseason⬇️ pic.twitter.com/NRNEeqh5Tg
Still full confidence in Snitker
Not that there was much doubt in Braves country, but Anthopoulos quickly shutdown any possibility of Braves manager Brian Snitker not being the guy to lead this team in 2024. Snitker just turned 68 over a week ago, but based on the conversation between AA and Snit there isn't much reason to anticipate Snitker retiring.
When AA was asked about some of the questionable decisions made by Snit in the NLDS, Anthopoulos issued a level-headed response. "My big takeaway from the series was that outside of Game 3, where the score was pretty out of hand by the end of it, we were in the other games, and obviously one of those we won. We had opportunities in the other games, and what is clearly the strength of our team and was clearly the strength of our team the entire year, we had traffic, we had opportunities, we had men in scoring position. We just weren’t able to capitalize with the big hit.
Anthopoulos clearly knows how to take a step back and evaluate, something he does quite well when making these key decisions on players. None of the questions that AA was asked brought out any type of overreaction about the NLDS. At the end of the day this great team just didn't hit to their capabilities across four games.