Andruw Jones has sky-high praise for Walt Weiss, Braves coaching staff

There are no shortage of storylines surrounding the Atlanta Braves through the first month-plus of the season.

Michael Harris II, Matt Olson, Drake Baldwin, and Ozzie Albies have each looked like the best player at their respective positions. Chris Sale is pitching like a man chasing another Cy Young, and it’s not out of the question that Bryce Elder finds himself back in the All-Star conversation.

Then there are the new faces — the ones nobody expected to matter this much. Mauricio Dubón has quickly become a fan favorite, Martín Pérez looks like he turned the clock back five years, and even Jorge Mateo has made a real impact despite just 12 starts.

At 25–10 — the best record in baseball and 8.5 games clear in the NL East — there’s very little to nitpick. The players deserve the bulk of the credit, but it’s impossible to ignore the imprint of first-year manager Walt Weiss and his staff.

“I think everything started with the coaching staff, to be honest with you,” Braves legend Andruw Jones recently said on 680 The Fan. “Not that they didn’t have a great coaching staff before — but this group Walt Weiss put together, it’s all new voices. The roster is largely the same, maybe one or two changes, but I give a lot of credit to the staff.”

The end of Brian Snitker’s tenure left a sour taste. Back-to-back steps in the wrong direction culminated in the club missing the postseason for the first time since 2017. But pinning it all on Snitker ignores the bigger picture — stars underperformed across the board, and the pitching staff was decimated by injuries. No manager was fixing that.

Still, what Weiss has brought feels different.

Weiss commands respect without demanding it, and more importantly, he gives it right back. He’s not interested in calling players out publicly — but he’ll go to bat for them every single time. That mentality traces back to his days under Bobby Cox, and it showed almost immediately this season when he physically stepped in to defend Reynaldo Lopez when Jorge Soler was trying to send him to the shadow realm with one punch.

But what’s really resonating is the way this team competes for nine innings.

Under Snitker, the Braves often felt passive late in games — especially when trailing. This group doesn’t. Weiss has managed aggressively, pushed the right buttons, and more importantly, instilled the belief that no game is out of reach. The result has been a string of comeback wins that have fueled this early surge and helped create real separation in the division.

That kind of approach isn’t sustainable over 162 games. But the cushion the Braves have already built — paired with the depth added this offseason — will give Weiss the flexibility to keep guys fresh, especially as key players work their way back from injury.

Weiss has aced just about every part of the job since the moment he was named manager of the Atlanta Braves. He’s assembled a strong staff, and the blend of his old-school backbone with a willingness to embrace modern philosophies has him pushing all the right buttons early.

In an organization like this, managers are ultimately judged by what happens in October. But through 35 games, it’s hard not to love identity this team is beginning to form under Walt Weiss.

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(Photo by David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire)