The Braves announced this morning that they have hired manager Brian Snitker for a two-year contract extension until the 2023 season. The agreement contains a club option for the 2024 season as well.
“I am thrilled that Brian will continue to lead our club on the field and at club headquarters,” said Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos in a statement that accompanied the announcement. “Three consecutive division titles show the impact of Brian and his team, and we are pleased that he will continue to guide our club until 2023.”
It is the second consecutive spring with an extension for Snitker, although today an additional two years (and a club option for a third) is a stronger vote of confidence than last year’s one-year extension. That deal would have expired at the end of the season. Snitker now not only loses his dreaded lame duck status, but also gains job security for several years.
Snitker, 65, is a Braves who has spent more than four decades in the organization, including the last five as a major league captain. Originally taking charge in the middle of the 2016 season after Fredi Gonzalez’s resignation, Snitker managed the club with a 72-90 display in his first full season (2017), but won three consecutive division titles at the helm of a team that Have you played. 578 ball during the regular season since 2018. The Braves have 222-162 during that time, and Snitker’s general administrative record (in the Majors) is 353-317.
In his more than 40 years with the organization, Snitker managed seven different minor league affiliates, had two different spells as a major league coach (both in the 1980s) and served as the third base coach for Gonzalez and Bobby Cox. He he was elected National League Manager of the Year in 2018 and has since finished third and fourth, respectively, in the vote for subsequent Manager of the Year.
Snitker’s Braves were eliminated from the postseason in the first round in 2018 and 2019, but he succeeded in the postseason on his third opportunity in 2020. The Braves beat the Reds and Marlins during the first two rounds of the expanded format of last year’s postseason before taking the eventual World Series Dodgers champion to his limit in a clash of seven National League Championship Series games.