Brian Snitker stepped into his office after the final game of the 2017 season, drove home and wondered if he’d ever be back, waiting for the phone to ring with some somber news.
He was going to be fired as Atlanta’s manager.
He knew it. The players knew it. And Atlanta GM John Coppolella certainly knew it, privately already making the decision.
Snitker was out, and Ron Washington would be his replacement, after finishing with a 72-90 record, their fourth consecutive losing season.
“Honestly, I was pretty sure I was going to be gone," Snitker tells USA TODAY Sports. “I remember coming in from Atlanta, going home, and thinking I wouldn’t be around anymore.
“My contract was up. We had a bad season. And if things had stayed the course, I guarantee I would have been gone."
Instead, it was Coppolella who was gone.
Coppolella was fired a day after the season when an MLB investigation discovered that he blatantly violated international prospect signing rules. He received a lifetime ban from baseball one month later, which was rescinded in 2023.
Now, given a brief reprieve, Snitker still had to sit around for five weeks awaiting his fate when Alex Anthopoulos was hired Nov. 13, 2017, to be Atlanta’s new GM.
The first time Snitker ever met Anthopoulos was at his press conference. He had no idea whether Anthopoulos would keep him.
Anthopoulos reached out to several GMs, in particular Hall of Fame executive Pat Gillick, asking their advice. Should he let everyone go coming into a new organization and bring in his own people? Or does he wait, giving him time to make his own evaluations?
“Pat is someone I looked up to a lot and when he changed clubs," Anthopoulos said, “you never saw him make wholesale changes and bring in a lot of new people. You saw him bring in a scout or two, but you never saw him get rid of everybody.
“So I was predisposed to not making changes unless there were real obvious reasons. I wanted to give Snit more time. Besides, everybody had good things to say about Snit.”
Snitker stayed. Atlanta won the NL East in 2018. Then again in 2019. And again and again and again and again. Atlanta won six consecutive division titles, reached the postseason seven consecutive times, and was the World Series champion in 2021.
Six months after retiring as Atlanta’s manager, Snitker received the organization’s highest honor Saturday when he was inducted into its Hall of Fame.
Oh, what a little patience can do for a legacy.
“It was a pre-arranged marriage," Anthopoulos said. “You have no idea how it’s going to go. But I was so grateful that when I walked into the Braves organization, I had him. It wasn’t a coincidence that Hank Aaron hired him, and Bobby Cox channeled him to manage. He’s a steward of the Braves.
“We don’t do any of this without Snit as our manager. He made me better. He made all of us better. In terms of trust, character and integrity, you’re not going to find anyone better. Even our first year together, when he’s on the last year of his deal, he never once even hinted about his job security. He never ran from anything. He dealt with a lot of adversity, injuries, and everything else, and he always stayed the course.
“Snit was always Snit. I love this man."
Snitker, 70, never had to wonder about his job security ever again. When the 2022 season ended, Anthopoulos quietly gave him an eight-year contract extension. It would include three years as a manager and five years as a senior advisor.
And Saturday night, with 150 friends, relatives and even high-school teammates on hand to celebrate Snitker, he looks back and wonders how life would be so different if Anthopoulos didn’t have patience to see if he was the right man for the job.
This is why Snitker is perturbed, with Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora being fired after their 10-17 start, with four others on the hot seat, and worries for his friends.
Carlos Mendoza of the New York Mets, Rob Thomson of the Philadelphia Phillies, Joe Espada of the Houston Astros and Matt Quataro of the Kansas City Royals already are hearing rumors and speculation that their jobs could be in serious jeopardy.
Snitker can’t believe it.
It’s April.
The season is three weeks old.
Teams still have 135 games remaining.
And you want them fired now?
“I just hate hearing it, really, for everybody involved,” said Snitker, who heard the same rumors about himself during the World Series year in 2021 when the team was stull under .500 in early June. “It’s such a long season. I look at the Mets. I look at Phillies. I know things aren’t clicking for them. But when you can weather storms like that, something is good on other side.”
There’s no need to look any further back than 2019 when the Washington Nationals were 19-31, and manager Davey Martinez was expected to be fired at any moment, paying the price for the struggles of a team that had World Series aspirations.
It didn’t matter that All-Stars Juan Soto, Trea Turner and Anthony Rendon were on the IL. Or that Cy Young winner Max Scherzer was struggling with a 3.72 ERA. Or the bullpen was in shambles.
“I never considered it at all,”Rizzo said from his Florida home, when asked if Martinez was nearly fired. “Now, I don’t know if anyone above me considered it, but I sure didn’t. There were plenty of reasons for our slow start, but I never thought Dave was the issue at all.
“I still remember coming back from New York. We just lost all four games against the Mets, three with late leads, it’s 3 in the morning, and I’m on my rooftop drinking bourbon and smoking a cigar. I’m fired up and leave Davey a long Knute Rockne text message, letting him know that we’ll get out of it.
“The next day, I sat down with Davey and the coaching staff and said, ‘We are all in this together. And we are all going to get fired unless we get this thing going. And when we leave this room, everything will be rosy.’”
The Nationals went out and won the next three games, nine of the next 11, climbed over .500 on June 28, went 46-27 the second half, won the final eight games of the regular season to capture a wild-card berth, and on Oct. 30 were in Houston celebrating their first World Series title.
“It became us against the world," Rizzo said, “and we did it."
It was similar to the St. Louis Cardinals’ comeback in 2011 when they were 10 ½ games behind Atlanta on Aug. 25, and Tony La Russa had privately decided that he was going to retire after the season. The Cardinals went 23-9 in September, clinched a playoff berth on the final day, and won the World Series in dramatic comeback fashion over the Texas Rangers.
So, is it really fair to fire Mendoza when his team was overhauled in the winter, when their premier power hitter (Pete Alonso) and All-Star closer (Edwin Diaz) weren’t brought back, playing without Juan Soto for 15 days when they lost 12 in a row and averaged 1.8 runs a game, and are now without All-Star shortstop Francisco Lindor for perhaps two months?
Can you really dump Thomson who has a severely flawed lineup after Bo Bichette left them at the free-agent altar? This is a team that has no true cleanup hitter, a predominantly left-handed lineup that’s 0-9 with a paltry .561 OPS against left-handed starters, a pitching staff that has a league-worst 5.68 ERA for its starting rotation, and, oh yeah, a 10-game losing streak entering Saturday.
Should Espada be gone and replaced by bench coach Omar Lopez when saddled with a Houston pitching staff that has the worst ERA in baseball (5.99) with a major-league leading 16 players on the IL, including five starters and All-Star closer Josh Hader?
How can you justify firing Quatraro with an offense that’s even worse than the Red Sox, with slugger Vinnie Pasquantino hitting .160 with three home runs, no home runs from superstar shortstop Bobby Witt, Jr., and the worst bullpen in baseball?
Remember, it was just a year ago at this time when Blue Jays manager John Schneider was on the hot seat too. His team was still under .500 in late May, and already eight games behind the New York Yankees, and wound up being just two outs away from winning the World Series.
“If you want things to be fair," said La Russa, the Hall of Fame manager watching his White Sox this week in Phoenix, “you got to find something else to do for a living. There are going to be times when it’s not fair. And if that bothers you, you can’t do this job. I feel like unfairness comes with the job. You just got to be grateful that you’ve got the opportunity.
“A lot of it comes down to having the owner and the general manager believing in you. They either believe in you or don’t. They also have to have the understanding that sometimes you get off to a slow start, but you’ve got to play it out. Whether you’re a manager, a coach or a player, the beauty of 162 is it gives you time to show who you are. You just can’t give in."
Snitker is a living, breathing testament to patience, and he hopes that the same men who he fiercely competed against, survive the turmoil, and are given the chance to recover from all of the adversity.
“There’s only 30 of us in the world so everybody is appreciative and sympathetic when you see guys going through this,’’ Snitker said. “I remember going to the St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York on an off-day last year, look up, and see Carlos [Mendoza] with his three sons. I said, ‘I see you’re here lighting candles too.’
“I told him, “Well, when you’re lighting them, I’m coming right behind you and blowing them out.’
“I just feel bad seeing what these guys are going through. They’re good baseball guys. They are. Good people. I just hate it for everybody involved.”
Well, it’s not Snitker’s worry anymore. He just attended the Masters for the first time. He sat in the stands a week ago at Truist Park with his grandsons, staying to watch the fireworks show. He’ll make sandwiches and snacks for their entire Little League teams. He’s going to Hawaii for a two-week vacation with his wife, Ronnie. And, after spending 50 years with the same franchise, he’s got speeches to prepare and alumni events to attend.
“I don’t think we will ever see me again," Snitker said. “Look at trends. I don’t think you will ever see a guy 50 years in an organization again, not with all of the recycles."
Snitker, who says he’ll forever be indebted to Cox for his guidance, teaching him patience and constantly reminding him how difficult it is to play this game, took a piece of La Russa’s advice before Saturday’s Hall of Fame induction.
“I got a call from Tony on the morning of our World Series parade," Snitker said. “He said, 'When you’re at the parade today, take a good look at all of the faces and see the joy that you brought all of those fans. You should take great pride in that.'"
Snitker was able to do just that Saturday evening at Truist Park, receiving the organization’s highest honor, and a reminder what can happen when managers are shown a little patience.
Around the basepaths
- The Chicago White Sox remain uncertain who they will draft with the No. 1 pick in July, and insist they have not committed to taking UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky, the consensus top player in the draft. It’s also unclear, several executives say, whether the White Sox are Cholowsky’s top preference.
One GM, whose team drafts in the top five, believes there’s still a chance Cholowsky falls to them.
– San Diego Padres starter Nick Pivetta, on the injured list with a right elbow flexor strain, needs to return by Aug. 22 this season to prevent the Padres from voiding the remaining two years of his contract.
Pivetta, who signed a four-year, $55 million contract, has a clause that allows the Padres to end the contract after two years if he’s sidelined for 130 consecutive days with an elbow injury. He is scheduled to earn $32 million the final two years of his backloaded contract.
The Padres also have the option to pick up a $14 million club option if he’s on the IL for that length of time. If Pivetta returns before Aug. 22, he has the option to become a free agent after the season, or exercise his $14 million contract in 2027 along with an $18 million player option in 2028.
The Padres also have a $5 million club option in 2029 if Pivetta is sidelined for more than 130 consecutive days any time from July 1, 2026through 2028.
– The Philadelphia Phillies are paying $34.2 million to players no longer on the roster with outfielder Nick Castellanos and starter Taijuan Walker, who was released this past week. Walker, who was in the final year of a four-year, $72 million contract, wound up with a 5.12 ERA with the Phillies, including a 9.13 mark this season.
– How impressive was the Chicago Cubs’ 10-game winning streak entering Saturday?
There were six teams entering Saturday with 10 or fewer victories all season.
– Kudos to Arizona Diamondbacks scout Chris Carminucci, the man who discovered Ildemaro Vargas playing for the Bridgeport Bluefish independent league in 2015.
Vargas entered Saturday with an 18-game hitting streak for the Diamondbacks, .357/.375/.671 with five homers and 16 RBI. He’s just one homer shy from matching his career high for homers.
– It’s humorous to the Dodgers that seven years later, only now are folks complaining now about the Shohei Ohtani rule, permitting the Dodgers to carry 14 pitchers instead of 13 since Ohtani is a two-way player. The rule went into effect in 2019, allowing players to earn a two-way designation if the player pitches at least 20 innings and has started in at least 20 games as a position player or designated hitter.
So, if the Angels had decided to accept Ohtani’s request for heavily deferred 10-year, $700 million contact, would there be a single person complaining since he would be an Angel and not a Dodger?
“It’s not a Dodger rule," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts reminded reporters Friday. “I mean, this was implemented when he was with the Angels.”
Said Cubs manager Craig Counsell: “This is not a Dodger thing. It’s not an Ohtani thing. It’s a bad rule.”
– Is there a more disappointing player in the game than San Francisco Giants first baseman Rafael Devers?
The Giants continue to say they’re not worried about Devers, but he has been a shell of himself since being traded from Boston last June, with the Giants assuming about $255 million in his 10-year, $313.5 million deal.
Devers is hitting .213 with two homers, nine RBIs and a .544 OPS. If you factor in his defensive struggles and lack of speed, he has a negative 1 WAR
Since joining the Giants, he’s slashing .230/.325/.420. The Giants are wondering what happened to the guy who slashed .279/.340/.510 in nine seasons with the Red Sox?
– Major League Baseball could have three new ballparks built within three years of one another in Las Vegas, Kansas City and Tampa.
The Athletics’ new ballpark on the Vegas strip will be ready by mid-summer next year and they’ll officially make the move in 2028.
The Tampa Bay Rays unveiled plans for a new $2.3 billion stadium in Tampa.
And the Kansas City Royals are hoping their new $1.9 billion downtown ballpark could be ready by 2030.
It puts all three teams in line for the All-Star Game in the next decade.
The Rays have never hosted the All-Star Game.
The Athletics last hosted the All-Star Game in 1987.
And the Royals last hosted in 2012.
– The ABS challenge system has resulted in one side effect that has MLB officials cringing.
The time of games are 2 hours, 42 minutes, the longest since 2022, the last year before the implementation of the pitch clock, with 21% of games lasting more than 3 hours, according to Codify Baseball.
– The Padres have already won two games this season in which they’ve trailed by three or more runs in the ninth inning. No other team has done it once.
The Padres also have five comebacks this year trailing by at least four runs in a game.
– The Mets have not provided a timetable for Francisco Lindor’s calf strain, but are privately expecting him to be out until weeks into June.
– It’s only April, but the White Sox’s signing of Munetaka Murakami to a cheap two-year, $34 million deal could be the greatest free-agent signing of the winter.
Murakami entered the weekend tied with Houston Astros’ slugger Yordan Alvarez with 11 homers.
The last White Sox player to lead the league in homers?
Dick Allen, back in 1972.
– Just how impressive is Tigers rookie infielder Kevin McGonigle’s start?
He entered the weekend with 30 hits, 10 doubles and just 14 strikeouts in his first 25 games, the first 21-year-old to produce those numbers since Joe DiMaggio in 1936.
– Padres closer Mason Miller, who has not allowed a run since Aug. 5, spanning 33.2 innings, had one streak end this week.
He failed to record a strikeout for the first time in 24 appearances against the Colorado Rockies, with 56 of his previous 77 outs courtesy of the strikeout.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: MLB managers on the hot seat but 'unfairness comes with the job'
