Brian Snitker and the Atlanta Braves agreed to a contract extension through the 2023 season with a club option for 2024. It’s the second straight spring with an extension for Snitker, although Friday’s additional two years (and a club option for a third) makes for a stronger vote of confidence than last year’s one-year extension. That deal would’ve expired at the season’s end.
“I am thrilled that Brian will continue to lead our club on the field and in the clubhouse,” said Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos. “Three consecutive division titles speak to the impact of Brian and his staff, and we are pleased that he will continue to guide our club through 2023.
The 65-year-old Brian Snitker took over the Braves on an interim basis in 2016 during the massive rebuild of the club after the firing of Fredi Gonzalez.
After going 72-90 in his first full season, Atlanta won the first of its three straight division titles in 2018.
Snitker’s Braves were bounced from the postseason in the first round both in 2018 and 2019, but he found postseason success in his third opportunity in 2020. The Braves swept both the Reds and the Marlins during the first two rounds of last year’s expanded postseason format before taking the eventual World Series Champion Dodgers to their limit in a seven-game National League Championship Series showdown.
Snitker is the only manager in Braves history to lead the team to the postseason in three of his first four full seasons.
Snitker has been with the Braves organization for 45 years as a player, coach and manager — most in the minor leagues — after signing with the club as an undrafted free agent in 1977.
He has an overall record of 353-317 (.527), which makes him the fourth-winningest manager since the franchise relocated to Atlanta in 1966. He trails Bobby Cox (2,058), Fredi Gonzalez (432) and Luman Harris (379).
In his 40-plus years with the organization, Snitker has managed seven different minor-league affiliates, had two different stints as the MLB bullpen coach (both in the 1980s) and served as the third base coach for both Gonzalez and Bobby Cox. He was voted National League Manager of the Year in 2018 and has since finished third and fourth, respectively, in subsequent Manager of the Year balloting.
