The Braves announced this morning that they have signed manager Brian Snitker for a two-year contract extension through the 2023 season. The deal also includes a club option for the 2024 season.
“I am delighted that Brian will continue to lead our club on the field and in the clubhouse,” Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos said in a statement. “Three consecutive division titles speak to the impact of Brian and his staff, and we are delighted that he will lead our club through 2023.”
This is the second consecutive spring with an extension for Snitker, although today’s additional two years (and a club option for a third) give a stronger confidence than last year’s extension by one year. The deal would have expired at the end of the season. Snitker now not only raises the dreaded lamb duck status, but also gains job security for many years.
Snitker, 65, is a Braves lifer who has spent more than four decades in the organization, including the past five as the great league skipper. Snitker originally took over half of the 2016 season following the dismissal of Fredi Gonzalez, and led the club to a 72-90 performance in its first full season (2017), but achieved three consecutive division titles at the helm of a team that played. 578 ball during the regular season since 2018. The Braves are 222-162 during that time, and Snitker’s overall management record (in the Majors) stands at 353-317.
In his 40 years at the organization, Snitker managed seven different minor league affiliates, had two different tournaments as the league’s head coach (both in the 1980s) and was the third base coach for both Gonzalez and Bobby Cox. He was named the national league manager of the year in 2018 and has since finished third and fourth respectively in the subsequent manager of the year.
Snitker’s Braves jumped into the first round in the first round in 2018 and 2019, but he found success in the national season in his third event in 2020. The Braves swept both the Reds and the Marlins during the first two rounds of last year’s extended post-season format to limit the eventual World Series Champion Dodgers to their extreme in a power play with the national league championship series in seven games.