The “Braves way” wins out in the hiring of Walt Weiss

As we got over a month removed from Brian Snitker officially announcing his retirement, the feeling was that the Braves must be hiring from outside, potentially waiting until after the World Series to pluck Dodgers bench coach Danny Lehmann out of Los Angeles. Instead, the “Braves way” won out, with Walt Weiss receiving the promotion to manager after serving as the team’s bench coach for the last eight seasons.

The process the Braves took to get here was peculiar. It’s a bit odd that it took more than a month to promote someone who’s been sitting right next to Brian Snitker for nearly a decade — a guy who received Snitker’s endorsement from the moment he announced his retirement. One would think a decision like that wouldn’t take this long. Still, the candidate himself comes as no surprise.

If you had polled 100 people familiar with the Braves organization at the start of this process, well over half of them likely would have guessed Walt Weiss would be the next manager.

This is what the Braves do. For more than three decades, this organization has had just three managers — soon to be four — and every single one of them has been promoted from within in some form or fashion.

That’s not exactly the type of process that excites fans, who are constantly searching for the sexy hire that dominates headlines. But it’s a process that has worked remarkably well in Atlanta. Since Bobby Cox took over the dugout in 1991, the Braves have captured 21 division titles, appeared in six World Series, and brought home two Commissioner’s Trophies. Only a handful of organizations can even dream of that kind of sustained success, so why stray too far from the path that’s led to those achievements?

Some of the postseason disappointments under Brian Snitker since the Braves’ 2021 championship have been gut-wrenching, and the team has taken a step back in each of the last two seasons, missing the playoffs this year for the first time since 2017. But how much of that really falls on Snitker when historic offenses go silent in October and injuries decimate nearly the entire roster?

That’s baseball.

Walt Weiss is among the most respected figures in the sport. He’s paid his dues as Atlanta’s bench coach during one of the most successful stretches in franchise history, knows the personalities in the clubhouse better than anyone, and even brings prior managerial experience from his time with the Rockies.

The flashy hires don’t always pan out. There are countless examples of that throughout baseball history. But for over three decades, the “Braves way” has proven nearly bulletproof. Weiss embodies that philosophy — steady, respected, and deeply rooted in the organization’s culture. He’s not coming in to reinvent the wheel; he’s coming in to refine it, keeping the same values that made Brian Snitker so successful while hopefully improving in areas where Snitker might not have been as forward thinking.

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Photo: Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire

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