Braves never gave up on season
HOUSTON – In a baseball universe increasingly given over to the young, where managerial experience is no longer a prerequisite to run a dugout, the World Series champions are led by a 66year-old organizational lifer, who was filling out lineup cards in remote depots of the Deep South four decades ago.
In a competitive landscape where win curves and playoff expectancy rule all, the best team in baseball couldn’t crack .500 by the All-star break, lost its greatest player to injury – and then tripled down, wheeling and dealing for an entirely new set of outfielders.
And in a postseason in which they had to get through the market-defying Milwaukee Brewers, the big bucks and bigger brains of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the still-formidable, industry-disrupting Houston Astros, the champions of Major League Baseball reigned thanks to the decisions of a twice-recycled GM who eschews corporate speak and a topto-bottom organizational mindset that values every voice.
Yes, these Atlanta Braves don’t look or sound or transact like so many of the 29 other franchises in the major leagues. And as they put the finishing touches on a 7-0 victory over the Astros in Game 6 of the World Series on Tuesday night, nailing down their first championship since 1995, that’s something for which many baseball fans can be grateful.
None moreso than their millions of supporters in greater Atlanta, who have waited not so patiently for a winner – any winner - since Tom Glavine and David Justice teamed up to beat Cleveland 1-0 in the 1995 Series, two stadiums and a different millennium ago.
Hard to believe, but Brian Snitker was both a Brave and in the house at Fultoncounty Stadium that night. He spent ’95 as a roving minor league instructor, 13 years after he first filled out a lineup card for the 1982 Anderson (South Carolina) Braves, in low A-ball.
As Tuesday night turned to Wednesday
morning at Minute Maid Park, Snitker, in his 47th year in the organization, but just his sixth at the helm of the big club had a special gift on its way.
“I’m going to give it to Brian,” first baseman and franchise anchor Freddie Freeman said of the baseball he cradled for the final out of Game 6, then tucked it in his back pocket, safe from the celebratory fray. “He means so much to this organization. He’s put on every hat there is.”
Tuesday night, he added another one – 2021 World Series champions, and there’s no asterisks for how hard it was nor how doubtful it looked for so much of the summer.
No, we won’t be confusing these Braves with the ’27 Yankees or the ’98 Yankees or even the ’18 Red Sox. They won just 88 games, and only the 2006 Cardinals (83 wins), 2000 Yankees (87) and 1987 Twins (85) won fewer games and a World Series title over a full season in the divisional era.
Yet this is four consecutive National League East titles for the Braves, proof that their organizational foundation and individual fortitude renders their relatively light win total an aberration. Lest we forget, this season began with ace Mike Soroka re-injuring his Achilles’ heel and missing the season, a big reason the Braves were 41-44 and in fourth place on July 6.
It ended with veteran horse Charlie Morton breaking his fibula in Game 1 of the World Series.
And in the middle of this manure sandwich was the great Ronald Acuña Jr. suffering a torn ACL in July.
So many franchises might have cashed it in. But general manager Alex Anthopoulos is not wired that way, nor is the organization.
“Alex went ahead and said ‘No, we’re not sellers, we’re buyers,” reliever Tyler Matzek said after finishing a dominant postseason with a two-inning, fourstrikeout performance.
“And he bought the right people, that’s for damn sure.”
One of them, outfielder Jorge Soler, seized the World Series MVP trophy in Game 6, clubbing a baseball 466 feet and over the Minute Maid Park train tracks – his third go-ahead home run of the Series. Another, Adam Duvall, slugged a Game 5 grand slam. Joc Pederson carried them past Milwaukee in the NL Division Series.
While the Braves are quietly proud of their work in the analytics space, another department seems just as crucial – human resources.
“It is knowing the people in your organization understand what it is we want to accomplish, what the prize is, what the purpose is – and that is to build a championship team, with players who have championship hearts,” says Hall of Fame GM John Schuerholz, architect of the Braves’ dynasty of the 1990s and their last championship club.
“Alex did that and now we find ourselves World Series champions.”
Yet to give credit to yet another rockstar GM would be to miss the point of these Braves. Certainly, they have star power, from Freeman to Acuña to emerging slugger Austin Riley. Yet after Morton went down, the group was carried by a pitching staff that tasted failure far too recently.
Matzek remains one of the game’s great reclamation stories. Yet in this World Series, with the staff terribly compromised, it was A.J. Minter and Luke Jackson, Kyle Wright and Chris Martin all consuming crucial outs and holding the group together.
All shared another trait: Veteran pitchers forced to swallow their pride and spend time at Class AAA Gwinnett this season.
It was a true test of a pitcher’s resolve and also the organization’s brain power. Minter, for one, says he would not be here without Class AAA pitching coach Mike Maroth keeping his head right.
“Everyone should experience failure,” says Minter, who finished with 18 strikeouts in 12 postseason innings and pitched in six of the Braves’ 11 victories. “That’s what makes you who you are. What (Maroth) did for me, over two years, personally, goes unmatched.”