By: TJ Hartnett

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

It has been nothing but upheaval in Braves Country the past few months.

The John Coppolella scandal shook the front office on down and they are still piecing things together.

From the top down, it has been somewhat of a bizarre turn of events, in that Coppy’s forced resignation has caused decisions that both change things and keep things the same.

Brian Snitker will remain the Braves manager in 2018. Doubtlessly, a direct result of the circumstances surrounding Coppy’s departure.  It’s a little bass ackwards since usually you would see a new GM being given the opportunity to select his own skipper, but Snit was awarded his contract for next season right after Coppy left, well before Alex Anthopoulos’ arrival.

I call this a direct result because the word was that the Braves were going to replace Snitker prior to the scandal breaking. Snitker’s maintaining of his job was a move made to provide a little stability to the organization and specifically to the clubhouse during what was going to be (and is) an uncertain time.

It’s maybe not an ideal way have your job saved, but I’m sure Snitker is happy to have another opportunity to prove his mettle.

That being said, after retaining Snitker the Braves stopped trying to carry over coaches from last season.

Former Braves shortstop Walt Weiss was hired as the new bench coach for the 2018 season, replacing longtime Braves coach Terry Pendleton.

Eddie Perez is also being relieved of his duties as first base coach, removing the last two vestiges of Bobby Cox’s tenure from the clubhouse aside from Snitker himself.

It’s a move that says to me that the Braves moved too quickly to retain Snitker and probably even regret doing so.

Clearly, they’re looking for a change in the regime, but they reacted to Coppy’s royal screwup by keeping the head of that regime attached.

For the record, I’m in favor of this kind of massive changeup of the coaching staff. As a Bobby Cox devotee, I find it strange to even be typing this, but it’s time his fingerprints were wiped from the team.

Bobby had a very particular managerial style. One that players and fans like myself loved and admired; that has permeated the tenures of both Fredi Gonzalez and Brian Snitker.

It was very old school, and while there is nothing wrong with that, it’s just time for a changing of the guard.

I think the Braves would like to see a little bit less traditional managing and something a little more brazen.

It’s probably not a coincidence that these changes away from “Bobby’s guys” is happening after the World Series-winning manager AJ Hinch (allegedly) got into a bar fight in the middle of the series. There’s fire out there and I support bringing it in to Atlanta’s clubhouse.

Anthopoulos serves as another example of the kind of aggression the Braves need to move toward.

This is a guy who decided the Blue Jays were going to make a run in 2015 and traded for Josh Donaldson, Troy Tulowitzki and David Price before and during the season.

Donaldson won the MVP that year and Toronto went to the ALCS. Now he’s got a whole new toy chest of goodies in the Braves’ minor league system and given the choice between waiting for them to develop or trading them, chances are we’ll see the latter.

That’s not a bad thing. Prospects are far from sure bets and Atlanta has tons of them. Some of them need to be turned into bona fide major league players and Anthopoulos has shown he won’t hesitate to pull the trigger on a deal if he thinks it will help the major league club.

He’s a pallet cleanser of a GM and I think we’ll see some exciting moves during his stint.

All this change probably means that Snitker’s seat is hotter than ever but if he can steer in the direction the Braves want him to, we might see some fire from him after all. If not, then there will still be fire; it’ll just have a ‘d’ at the end.