<img alt="Pittsburgh Pirates v Atlanta Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/l2iFA9wLdlxlVV0Qd2-GeQ62btE=/0x0:4571x3047/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73470611/2160019650.0.jpg">
Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images
As the Atlanta Braves manager prepares to hit another career milestone, his path to success continues to amaze. Going into the 2024 All-Star break, the Atlanta Braves had 53 wins on the season. That total brought Atlanta manager Brian Snitker’s career win total as the team’s manager to 699.
On the doorstep of 700 career wins, Snitker’s path to a successful MLB managerial career gets no less amazing. Already in third-place all-time in franchise history for managerial wins, the soon-to-be 69-year-old sits just outside the top 100 in managerial wins in MLB history and is likely to end this season in the mid-’90s. He’s the ninth winningest active manager only a handful of victories behind former Braves third base coach and current Los Angeles Angles manager Ron Washington.
Now in his eighth season leading the Braves, Snitker has stewarded a World Series-winning squad, captured seven division titles and finished in the top four for NL Manager of the Year six times - including winning the award in 2018.
All of these accomplishment occurred after he turned 60.
The story has been told numerous times, but Snitker is a Braves lifer. Signing with the organization as a catcher in 1977, Snitker has spent all-or-part of the last six decades as a player, roving instructor, coach and manager at all levels of the organization.
The last full season that the Braves took the field without Snitker leading the team, Williams Perez, Matt Wisler and Alex Wood each started 20 or more games in the team’s rotation.
Here’s where we slide into some editorializing.
When I watch the Braves play, and think about Snitker, I’m not getting wrapped up in some of the decisions he makes related to starting pitching or the bullpen. I don’t have too many qualms about his line-up construction. But there is one question I can not shake. One question that mystifies me to this day.
How did he do it?
How did he stay with an organization that sent him back to the minors after coaching at the MLB-level three different times? How did he stay with the organization when he went 16 years - SIXTEEN - between his second and third stents on the Braves coaching staff?
In 2007, at age 52, he re-joined Atlanta’s coaching staff after last serving on the big league staff in 1990. It was his 30th season with the organization. If there is where the story ended, it could be considered a triumph of perseverance. An organizational icon get a late-career opportunity to be an on-the-field coach before riding off into the sunset.
Seventeen years ago, I would have still asked, “How did you do it?”
Imagine yourself in his position - a two-time big league coach heading back to the minors with the Braves prior to the 1991 season. The first season after you leave, the Braves have the remarkable worst-to-first turnaround and go to the World Series.
By the time you return in 2007, the entirety of Atlanta’s legendary division winning streak started and ended.
You missed it all.
Finally, you return. You’re there for two Wild Cards, Bobby Cox’s last season and one division title. Then, in your late 50’s, its back to the minor leagues.
Would you do it? Could you do it?
Snitker did and then on May 17, 2016, he got the chance to take the reigns of the Atlanta Braves on an interim basis. A 60-year-old first-time big league manager.
Eight years later, here we are.
I am personally still amazed at how Snitker was able to stay with the organization through all those personal ups-and-downs. How did he manage the doubts, the hurt ego, the questioning of self-worth and ability that was sure to have come with these opportunities came-and went? Was he anger and bitter at the organization? There had to at least be resentment, right?
Maybe he didn’t have any of those. I know I sure would have had them and I’m suspect many of you would have as well.
How the heck did he do it?
What ever he did - how ever he did - he did it.
Back to present day, with the Braves having 67 games left in the 2024 season to either make an incredible sprint to the finish to try to win the division or at least solidify the top Wild Card spot, they will continue to be led by a man who is 15 months from turning 70.
No one knows how much longer Snitker will manage. He hasn’t come out and said how much longer he plans to do so, but given his success and obvious respect within the clubhouse and the organization, as long as the Braves are a playoff team, he would seem to be a good bet to manage at least two more seasons beyond this year.
Fast forward to 2027. Three season from now. He could be closing in on 1,000 career wins, a total less than 70 managers have currently reached in their MLB career.
Of the active managers ahead of him on the wins list, only Washington and Bruce Botchy are older and only two are even in their 60’s. On the other end of the spectrum, Kevin Cash is only 46 and A.J. Hinch just turned 50 two months ago.
If he’d been given the opportunity to manage the Braves sooner? Might he join Bob Melvin with 1,500+ wins or Botchy with 2,100+? Probably not Botchy; but it’s possible he could be in the same neighborhood as Melvin. Then again, it might not have worked out, and his career as an MLB manager wouldn’t be as impactful as it has been.
But if, just if, he can get to win 1,005 with the Braves, he’d be in sole possession of second place in franchise history only behind Cox.
Regardless when his managerial career ends, it has already been one of the most unique ones in baseball history. And when he does decide to retire, if there were doubts he had about his ability to succeed as a big league skipper, those should have long-since been squashed.
What an amazing journey he has had. An inspiration in real time.
<img alt="Pittsburgh Pirates v Atlanta Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/l2iFA9wLdlxlVV0Qd2-GeQ62btE=/0x0:4571x3047/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73470611/2160019650.0.jpg">
Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images
As the Atlanta Braves manager prepares to hit another career milestone, his path to success continues to amaze. Going into the 2024 All-Star break, the Atlanta Braves had 53 wins on the season. That total brought Atlanta manager Brian Snitker’s career win total as the team’s manager to 699.
On the doorstep of 700 career wins, Snitker’s path to a successful MLB managerial career gets no less amazing. Already in third-place all-time in franchise history for managerial wins, the soon-to-be 69-year-old sits just outside the top 100 in managerial wins in MLB history and is likely to end this season in the mid-’90s. He’s the ninth winningest active manager only a handful of victories behind former Braves third base coach and current Los Angeles Angles manager Ron Washington.
Now in his eighth season leading the Braves, Snitker has stewarded a World Series-winning squad, captured seven division titles and finished in the top four for NL Manager of the Year six times - including winning the award in 2018.
All of these accomplishment occurred after he turned 60.
The story has been told numerous times, but Snitker is a Braves lifer. Signing with the organization as a catcher in 1977, Snitker has spent all-or-part of the last six decades as a player, roving instructor, coach and manager at all levels of the organization.
The last full season that the Braves took the field without Snitker leading the team, Williams Perez, Matt Wisler and Alex Wood each started 20 or more games in the team’s rotation.
Here’s where we slide into some editorializing.
When I watch the Braves play, and think about Snitker, I’m not getting wrapped up in some of the decisions he makes related to starting pitching or the bullpen. I don’t have too many qualms about his line-up construction. But there is one question I can not shake. One question that mystifies me to this day.
How did he do it?
How did he stay with an organization that sent him back to the minors after coaching at the MLB-level three different times? How did he stay with the organization when he went 16 years - SIXTEEN - between his second and third stents on the Braves coaching staff?
In 2007, at age 52, he re-joined Atlanta’s coaching staff after last serving on the big league staff in 1990. It was his 30th season with the organization. If there is where the story ended, it could be considered a triumph of perseverance. An organizational icon get a late-career opportunity to be an on-the-field coach before riding off into the sunset.
Seventeen years ago, I would have still asked, “How did you do it?”
Imagine yourself in his position - a two-time big league coach heading back to the minors with the Braves prior to the 1991 season. The first season after you leave, the Braves have the remarkable worst-to-first turnaround and go to the World Series.
By the time you return in 2007, the entirety of Atlanta’s legendary division winning streak started and ended.
You missed it all.
Finally, you return. You’re there for two Wild Cards, Bobby Cox’s last season and one division title. Then, in your late 50’s, its back to the minor leagues.
Would you do it? Could you do it?
Snitker did and then on May 17, 2016, he got the chance to take the reigns of the Atlanta Braves on an interim basis. A 60-year-old first-time big league manager.
Eight years later, here we are.
I am personally still amazed at how Snitker was able to stay with the organization through all those personal ups-and-downs. How did he manage the doubts, the hurt ego, the questioning of self-worth and ability that was sure to have come with these opportunities came-and went? Was he anger and bitter at the organization? There had to at least be resentment, right?
Maybe he didn’t have any of those. I know I sure would have had them and I’m suspect many of you would have as well.
How the heck did he do it?
What ever he did - how ever he did - he did it.
Back to present day, with the Braves having 67 games left in the 2024 season to either make an incredible sprint to the finish to try to win the division or at least solidify the top Wild Card spot, they will continue to be led by a man who is 15 months from turning 70.
No one knows how much longer Snitker will manage. He hasn’t come out and said how much longer he plans to do so, but given his success and obvious respect within the clubhouse and the organization, as long as the Braves are a playoff team, he would seem to be a good bet to manage at least two more seasons beyond this year.
Fast forward to 2027. Three season from now. He could be closing in on 1,000 career wins, a total less than 70 managers have currently reached in their MLB career.
Of the active managers ahead of him on the wins list, only Washington and Bruce Botchy are older and only two are even in their 60’s. On the other end of the spectrum, Kevin Cash is only 46 and A.J. Hinch just turned 50 two months ago.
If he’d been given the opportunity to manage the Braves sooner? Might he join Bob Melvin with 1,500+ wins or Botchy with 2,100+? Probably not Botchy; but it’s possible he could be in the same neighborhood as Melvin. Then again, it might not have worked out, and his career as an MLB manager wouldn’t be as impactful as it has been.
But if, just if, he can get to win 1,005 with the Braves, he’d be in sole possession of second place in franchise history only behind Cox.
Regardless when his managerial career ends, it has already been one of the most unique ones in baseball history. And when he does decide to retire, if there were doubts he had about his ability to succeed as a big league skipper, those should have long-since been squashed.
What an amazing journey he has had. An inspiration in real time.
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