It’s not time for the Atlanta Braves to change course at the top

The Atlanta Braves have several big decisions coming up soon, but none is bigger than whether Brian Snitker will continue as the manager.

Snitker took over last season when the ship was sinking. He led the Braves to a respectable finish and then got a chance for this season. But instead of giving Snitker a guaranteed contract for 2018, the Braves simply hold an option on his contract.

This year’s team likely will finish just a bit better than last year. That may disappoint some, but for the umpteenth time, we must remind everyone: The Atlanta Braves are rebuilding. Teams don’t get better overnight in a rebuild. This takes time.

Some wonder if Snitker is the manager who will get the Braves to a World Series. Well, how do we know that now? This year’s team was never built to contend for anything like that. This is year three of the rebuild, so that’s not even a relevant question right now.

Maybe Snitker is not the manager for this team when it gets good, but we won’t know that until he’s given a better roster. Then Snitker truly can be evaluated on if he’s the man to manage the Braves to a World Series.

Right now, the goal is to make steady progress, to let the young players get their feet wet and get experience. He has done that very well. Snitker has been patient with the young players. He didn’t panic when Dansby Swanson got off to a horrible start in April. Snitker now has given Ozzie Albies the chance to play every day.

Look at how this team never gives up. The Braves have scored 239 runs in the seventh inning or later this season, which ranks second in baseball and most in the NL. It’s not like these players have just given up, and some credit for that must go to the manager.

Freddie Freeman went to Atlanta executives John Hart and John Coppolella several months ago and told them the players love Snitker and want him to continue being their boss. Freeman did it last year, and the front office listened. Would the front office really go against the team’s best player now that Snitker’s had a full year to prove himself even more?

There are two others who have been mentioned if Snitker is not retained. Bo Porter, now a front office assistant for the Braves, failed as a manager when the Houston Astros were rebuilding. The talk around baseball was that Porter was overmatched and did not have good communication skills.

Then there’s Ron Washington, the current third-base coach and the former manager of the Texas Rangers. He’s now 65 years old, so do the Braves really want a manager even older than Snitker, particularly one with a very bad off-the-field record in his career?

Would that be the solution?

No. It would be embarrassing if the Braves changed course now. The Braves need stability. They do not need to start over with a new staff in the dugout. Snitker deserves at least two more years to show what he can do when this team gets better.

Teams don’t change managers during a rebuild. San Diego is rebuilding. The Padres have Andy Green, who has done nothing to impress in his first two years as a manager. But they recently gave Green a three-year contract extension.

Bryan Price is finishing his fourth season as Cincinnati’s manager. The Reds have never had a winning record under Price, and they are just a tad worse than the Braves this season. Yet Price had his 2018 option recently picked up. The Reds are rebuilding.

Pete Mackanin is returning next year in Philadelphia. The Phillies are even deeper in its rebuild than the Braves, but they are bringing back the man who is getting them through this process.

This Braves team wasn’t built to win a division. Things had to fall perfectly for the Braves to even sniff the break-even point, and the rotation from was a mess from day one. When it was obvious the trio of Bartolo Colon, R.A. Dickey and Jaime Garcia was doing nothing but holding spots until the kids were ready, it showed there was no rotation in place to compete for anything in the postseason.

Is that Snitker’s fault? No. Instead, he has concentrated on helping make the young pitchers who have replaced those veterans better. He hasn’t panicked when the young pitchers like Sean Newcomb and Lucas Sims have given up runs. That’s the time to let them learn, and Snitker’s done that well.

The Braves should give Snitker at least two more years to prove his value to this team. In that time, we should see significant improvement in the record as the talent gets better. But to change course now would interrupt the progress that has been made.

This story was originally published September 9, 2017 at 10:31 AM with the headline "It’s not time for the Atlanta Braves to change course at the top."