It was two years ago Wednesday, about an hour following a loss in Pittsburgh, when Fredi Gonzalez received an inadvertent email from an airline notifying him that he had been booked on a flight from Pittsburgh to Atlanta the next day.
This was the clumsy way Gonzalez discovered he had been fired as the Braves' manager. It was not the proudest moment for John Schuerholz's oft-proclaimed "great, grand organization" that once operated with efficiency and without exploding clown shoes. That extent of that embarrassment soon was surpassed by the international signing scandal that ultimately buried John Coppolella and John Hart.
But amid all that muck, there emerged a genuine and calming leader: Brian Snitker.
The Braves are 25-15 at the quarter-turn of the season. They're 10 games over .500 for the first time since 2014. They have the best record in the National League and trail only New York (28-12) and Boston (28-13) in the majors. The Red Sox are No. 1 payroll ($234.2 million), the Yankees are seventh ($168.9 million) and the Braves are down at 21st ($119.9 million), right next door to Cincinnati and Dollar General.
There has been a lot of discussion about Ozzie Albies, Ronald Acuna and an offense that leads the majors in team batting average (.269), is tied for first in OPS (.783) with the Yankees and ranks third in runs scored (219, or 5.47 per game). The Braves also have received some nice pitching performances lately and play an aggressive style that many have clamored for.
But nobody's really talking about Snitker. Why is that?
Baseball managers frequently leave themselves open to second-guessing on in-game decisions, including lineup, batting order and bullpen management. But most of what Snitker has done this season has worked, players love playing for him and there's a positive vibe around the clubhouse that there hasn't been in years.
The manager should get some credit for that.
There are still 122 games left in the season. But at this point, two years down the road, Snitker deserves to be viewed as more than a glorified temp, which contractually is still what it looks like. He doesn't have a deal for next season.
The background: After Gonzalez's fumbled exit, Snitker was named "interim" manager for the rest of the season. Nobody realistically believed he would keep the job when the season ended, least of all Coppolella and Hart. But he inherited a team that started 9-28 and the Braves went 59-65 the rest of the 2016 season, including 20-10 down the stretch.
Management decided to keep him, but almost seemed reluctant in doing so. Snitker was given a one-year contract with a one-year club option.
In summary, Coppolella and Hart wouldn't even guarantee the second year of a contract for a man who had been in the same organization for more than four decades. Even in the worst-case scenario of the Braves' bombing last season, they couldn't give Snitker the equivalent of a gold watch for 41 years on the job? It was another example of how class and professionalism had left the organization.
With dreadful starting pitching and another relative "4A" roster, the Braves scrapped to a .500 record in July last year, but ultimately and predictably fizzled and finished 72-90. Some players spoke up on Snitker's behalf, including Freddie Freeman, who said in August, "I went to them a couple of weeks ago and expressed to them that we love Brian in here. (He has) put in all the time and done everything possible to help us win. He deserved the managerial job when he got it, and we all hope that he's back."
There's no guarantee Snitker would've kept the job, given the unpredictable maneuverings of Coppolella. But with those public comments and the forced resignations of Coppolella and Hart in October, making a managerial change didn't make sense. The Braves needed some sense of stability. So a few days after the signing scandal broke _ and before general manager Alex Anthopoulos was hired _ the Braves pick up the option on Snitker's contract for 2018.
The manager does not have a contract for 2019.
Anthopoulos continues to evaluate the entire organization: roster, minor-league system, scouting, coaches, manager. Logic says he'll let this play out for a while. But if somebody wants to make the case that Snitker is somehow holding the Braves back, I would love to hear it.
