Braves bring back manager Brian Snitker for 2018 season

With everything that happened in the Atlanta Braves front office this week, the focus of the first week of the offseason took a drastic turn. Instead of figuring out whether to fire manager Brian Snitker, we saw upheaval higher up the food chain, as GM John Coppolella was forced to resign after “a breach of Major League Baseball rules regarding the international player market.”

On Thursday, the Braves got back to their first question and they decided Snitker is sticking around for 2018. They’ve exercised their option on his contract. Here’s Atlanta’s statement on the matter:

The Snitker decision really could have gone either way. He’s 131-155 in his tenure with Atlanta (he managed a partial season after Fredi Gonzalez was fired in 2016), including 90 losses this year. But the Braves also didn’t give Snitker a ton of talent to work with. They’ve been a team playing for the future the past two seasons, building a better farm system than big-league club.

With Coppolella out, the decision fell on John Hart, the President of Baseball Operations, who is also the acting GM. Snitker shouldn’t be too comfortable, though. A new GM will be on the way soon and the Braves don’t figure to be tremendously better next season. And notice that the Braves didn’t give him a new contract. They just exercised an option for next year.

So Snitker is employed, yes, but he’ll still enter 2018 on the hot seat.

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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz