While the story of John Coppolella resigning as General Manager of the Atlanta Braves amidst a black cloud of scandal has rightfully been dominating the headlines today, it’s still important to keep an eye on what was the biggest story heading into the offseason for the Braves — the status of the managerial position in the dugout.
With or without John Coppolella serving as GM, the Braves still have an important decision to make when it comes to the future of Brian Snitker, and it appears that the organization’s decision on Snitker won’t be affected by the news that broke today.
According to a tweet from David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, John Hart says that the scandal won’t affect the decision on Brian Snitker.
#Braves will likely have a decision on Snitker by mid-week. Hart says Coppy situation doesn't affect it either way.
— David O'Brien (@DOBrienAJC) October 2, 2017
With that being said, I absolutely understand if you take that statement with a huge grain of salt. While it’s been assumed that Hart was on the side of Coppolella in the rumored power struggle that was going on in the Braves front office, you have to imagine that it’ll be very difficult for the powers that be to act like this won’t have any affect on the decision.
It’s been tough to make heads-or-tails of where the Braves would go, since it seems like Snitker’s job security has fluctuated from week-to-week as the season came to a close. Personally, I’d rate it as a coin flip at this point as to whether or not Snitker stays on as manager, but we’ll see what happens.
With that being said, probably the most important bit of information gleaned from DOB’s tweet is that the decision will be made this week. We’ve already had an extraordinary start to the offseason, and things will apparently get even more interesting later this week.