The Braves have made the decision to keep Brian Snitker on as manager and as many of us suspected, the front office turmoil may have played a factor in the decision to keep him around for the 2018 season.
Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports has been one of the many national reporters who have been on top of the Braves’ front office situation, and now he’s reporting in his latest article that the Braves may have made the decision to keep Snitker in order to give off some look of stability.
The Braves surely won’t admit that now, and with all the changes it’s understandable that the organization previously known for its stability ultimately decided to keep a manager in Brian Snitker that was well-liked personally by all, and especially the players – though by just picking up his option for 2018 and not extending him he returns as a lame duck again.
The Braves want to show stability, even if they don’t necessarily have real stability. Several people familiar with the situation say the perception of instability was at least one factor in making the call to keep Snitker even after the team’s rough start. The team also said club president John Hart was making the call, and it seemed for weeks, according to people with knowledge of the situation, that Hart was leaning toward making a change.
Heyman also seemed to confirm the rumors that if the Braves did indeed decide to move on from Snitker, they would have just promoted either Ron Washington or Bo Porter from within the coaching staff. However, once the lid blew open on the scandal, that’s when what was remaining of the front office decided that it would be better to keep the dugout manager’s position intact, rather than to add an extra issue to what was/is already a stressful situation.
Meanwhile, Heyman also pointed out that John Hart and John Schuerholz are serious about repairing the rumored “rift” in the front office, to the point where they’ve reportedly been eating and working with each other on a regular basis. This all sounds good and well as long as this leads to there being some clear idea of a hierarchy in the front office. If this leads to multiple people still trying to call the shots despite having a new GM in place, that’s still going to be an issue going forward.
They clearly want to make it look like there’s some sort of stability going on, which is why Snitker is staying on as manager. It appears that one of the biggest “winners” to come out of this mess was the manager himself. It’s hard to find people who came out of this ordeal looking good, but Snitker was in the right place at the right time.
It’s clear that the departure of John Coppolella increased Snitker’s chances of staying around as the manager, and now he’ll have at least another season running things in the dugout before we start speculating over his job security by the time the end of next season rolls around.