Brian Snitker

Mets Get Chopped

By: Joe Delaney

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Homers by Dansby Swanson and Matt Olsen powered the Atlanta Braves to a 5-3 win Sunday night and a three-game sweep of the formerly first place New York Mets in front of a raucous Truist Park crowd.

It was the third game in a row in which BOTH Swanson and Olsen have homered and it came against a loaded Mets lineup and three of the best pitchers in baseball.

The sweep gave Atlanta a 2-game lead over the Mets with 3 games to play with Atlanta holding the tiebreaker by winning the seasons series 10-9.

The Braves head to Miami to take on the Marlins, while the Mets close out the season at home with the Washington Nationals.

Any combo of a Braves win and a Mets loss and the Braves take home the Division Title again. And that’s after trailing the Mets by 10 ½ games on June 1.

It really looks like Deja Vue all over again as these Braves seem to be jelling at the right time. Last year they got hot in the playoffs. Well, they have sure looked like a formidable team rolling into October again.

The starting pitching has been steady. Max Fried and company have consistently gotten the Braves in a position to win after 5 or 6 innings and the bullpen has been stellar. The Atlanta bullpen posted a 1.70 ERA in the month of September. That’s flat out throwin BB’s sports fans……

While the pitching staff has been taking care of business, the starting lineup is playing bash ball. And that’s all through the lineup 1 thru 9.

The Mets rolled into Truist Park with a 1 game lead. Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, and 15 game winner Chris Basset had pitched 377 innings between them. Those 377 innings posted a great 2.79 ERA. One of if not the best trio in baseball.

They flew back to New York with a 6.91 ERA through 14 innings. Basset never even got out of the third inning.

When you look down the Braves lineup, they can all hurt you……….and they will. Matt Olsen now has over 100 RBIs. Austin Riley and Dansby Swanson are pushing 100. Hell, the 2 catchers Travis d’Arnaud and William Contreras have combined for over 100 RBI’s and around 40 home runs. Up and down there is speed and power in this lineup.

Defensively, the Bravos have been excellent with one of the tightest infields in the league and that’s with Ozzie Albies still out of the lineup.

Swanson might be the best overall shortstop in baseball and everyone knows what Matt Olsen and Austin Riley bring to the table game in and game out.

The outfield is just as good with rookie of the year candidate Michael Harris II leading the pack……….wait, did I say Michael Harris II leading the outfield???? What about Ronald Acuna? Well, that’s how good they are.

And last, but at the top of old chief Noc-A-Homa’s totem pole, is the steady excellent coaching staff headed by Brian Snitker. They need to put a big bronze in front of Truist Park of Ron Washington. That’s how steady those guys are.

So, what’s left?  Can they go win it all again. If the Braves can finish out the Marlins and take care of business, the Dodger Series would be one for the ages.

If they can battle past LA……….I like their chances! GO BRAVES!

New Brave World

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.

New Braves’ Chiefs

draytonBy: Drayton Hogarth

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

With Major League Baseball in the middle of the playoff run, the Atlanta Braves have made news for the 2017 season by taking the interim tag off of Brian Snitker, and have now named him the new permanent manager.

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