MLB WORLD SERIES: ASTROS VS BRAVES

October 25, 2021

Brian Snitker

Minute Maid Park

Atlanta Braves

Workout Day Press Conference

Q. I'll go with Troy. I know you're proud of him for a lot of reasons, but go back to when he said he wanted to get a job, and he said I don't want to work for the Braves, I don't really want to work for the Royals. I want to do this on my own.

BRIAN SNITKER: I told him too, I said, you're going to sell yourself. I can help get you in the door, but he didn't want me to do anything. He knew the Braves would hire him or Dayton would if he did something with the Royals.

He sent out all the letters. He taught himself Spanish through the Rosetta Stone and was attracted to the Astros.

Q. That just makes what he's done that much more?

BRIAN SNITKER: Yeah, I'm very proud of him. He went about it the right way. He's always been just a really hard, dedicated worker. He got his foot in the door, like a lot of us have over the years, and it's just where he's at.

Q. I know you've been asked about Eddie a lot the last week, but I have to ask. When you guys got him, he was injured. You didn't know when he'd play. And also, he'd had some ups and downs in the last couple years with Minnesota and then Cleveland. What did the organization see in him that made you guys think he'd be a good fit and could help you guys?

BRIAN SNITKER: Like I said, we kicked the tires on him in the winter as a free agent. I know Walt and I reached out to people in the Minnesota organization that we knew, got great reports on him. Didn't work out with us, obviously, but I think that's probably -- I can't speak for Alex, but we'd had some interest in him previously.

You look at his track record and what he'd done, and we were in need of an outfield boost.

Then he came -- like I say, he was hurt when we got him. We kept him on rehab a fairly good amount honestly because there wasn't a need, so we were able to. Then he could make sure that everything was good. Then when he came back, he was just playing sporadically because we had four guys.

And I told them, it's like we've got four every day Major League outfielders. Somebody's probably not going to like me because without the DH, you can't play all four of them.

All of those guys to a man were all great. They all did everything they could to stay ready and do whatever we needed to help win a game.

Q. Now that your and Alex's partnership has led to this point, how and why has what you do and what he does, your style and his style, worked so well together?

BRIAN SNITKER: Because we listen to each other. I don't think either of us has to be right in any situation. I've really come to really respect his opinion, what he's got. He's a guy that he's on go all the time. The only thing he's guilty of is never stopping to try to make our club better.

I think one reason, like I say, is neither of us has an ego. Neither of us has to be right. We listen to each other. A lot of times, we'll have conversations, then we'll leave, then we'll come back a couple hours later and let things sink in. And too, we come to a mutual understanding all the time.

It's good. It's a great relationship. I've learned a lot from him. But like I say, I think two guys who are bouncing things off each other, and ultimately we just want to do what's best for the team.

Q. A little rudimentary, but the other night, so many emotions as you made it to this point. As you're here today, what is it that's soaking in? What are you taking in? What does it mean and all that to be here?

BRIAN SNITKER: All day yesterday I roamed the house and was numb. I'm starting to get feeling back in my body and mind and everything. Really just the thought that, my God, we're in the World Series. I mean, it's -- and how hard it is to get here.

I never take a day for granted anyway, but this has been kind of surreal for me. It's been great so far, I know that. It will get a little hairy, 24 hours or whatever. Things will start ramping up.

No, it's been awesome just to think of where we've come throughout the year, and now to put ourselves in this position, it's really something special.

Q. To go back to Troy for a minute, he told me earlier that the best blessing you taught him was the value of work ethic and a good work ethic. I wondered, sometimes children can teach their parents things. Is there anything that he taught you?

BRIAN SNITKER: Yeah, I kind of validated the fact that maybe I did something right, the way he turned out. He's a heck of a young man. And he does have a great work ethic, I know that.

And in talking a couple years ago at the All-Star Game and visiting with the Astros players, that was kind of a common theme to tell him to back off just a little bit. You don't have to go a hundred miles an hour all the time.

Yeah, I admire the way he -- I love the fact that he's meshed because I raised him in a dugout, on a bus, on the field a long, long time ago before analytics were ever invented. I think he's a good blend of the old-school way of doing things and he's very open and gets all the new information that's out there. I think it's a good mix.

Q. Was the timing of Jorge Soler's, if he had to miss for COVID, to miss that series and be back for this one where you'll need a DH. Does that help? Has he had a chance to take live pitching the last few days or live BP?

BRIAN SNITKER: Well, he had a really good bat against Kenley Jansen the other day. I'd say, well, he's okay. He took some prior to coming back, but still it's not the same thing. No, he's good to go.

I guess. Thank God that we had guys to plug in when he went down. That's the thing. We had four of them. So we used all three, and one of them got really hot. But it's good to have him back.

Q. With the evolution of this infield defense, it seemed like there was a point around May or June where you change your positioning and started shifting more. Can you share anything about that?

BRIAN SNITKER: And there was, and it was kind of -- I think I hand it to our players, Wash, and our analytics, and the kids that were putting that all together. They had a meeting, and everybody kind of talked about their feelings on this thing.

Again, nobody was rigid and had to be right. They got together to try to make this thing the best that we could because there were some things happening that were bothering a few people, some of the players.

Those guys, you're talking about infielders that all have really good baseball IQs. These guys have got great feel, instinct, and they get it. They know our pitchers. They've been around long enough now that they know the opposition, and they had some things on their minds as well as the people that were putting the cards together.

It was great. I sat in on it. It was a great meeting. Everybody was give and take, and let's talk about this. It ended up with a really good result because, like I said, nobody was hard lined to where they had to be right. There weren't any egos. Everybody was in there for all the right reasons.

I think some of the analytics guys who were doing this learned some things. I know the players get -- they understood a little bit more about where they were coming from, and the end result was pretty good.

Q. With Soler back, is it best to keep Rosario at the top of the lineup? And as you look back on that Dodgers series, was it ever a problem to have two lefties there paired together? Yuri, as soon as he gives up the hit to Rosario that day, that plan is out the window --

BRIAN SNITKER: No, when they're swinging the bat like that, I don't think it matters. With Freddie, when he's going good, with Eddie, I don't think a right-hander with a change-up or something would give him as much trouble as a left-hander. So I don't think it even matters.

Q. But Eddie will be at the top of the lineup?

BRIAN SNITKER: I haven't decided that totally yet, but there's a good chance.

Q. What kind of interaction have you and Troy been able to have and might have? Is he going to tell you how to get Altuve out?

BRIAN SNITKER: I don't know if he knows (laughter). No, we FaceTimed a lot over these -- as a matter of fact, when I come off the stage the other night, he was FaceTiming my daughter, and I got to talk to him.

We talk as much as we can. We both have unbelievably busy schedules this time of year, and I'll see him this evening when we're done because I told him, if we don't this evening, we may not because these are long days and long games. So there may not be a lot of time.

Hopefully, he's with his mother right now, I think spending some time with her while I'm out here. But it's good. We just talk generalities. I'm not going to pick his brain about that or do that to him or anything. Quite honestly, tomorrow at 7:09 or whatever, he's going to want to kick my ass (laughter).

Q. It's mutual then too, right?

BRIAN SNITKER: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I don't know, there might be time for a breakfast or something the next few days. I don't know.

Q. I wanted to ask you, because you have lived an earlier life in baseball, are you fascinated by how analytics have taken over to some degree? I'm not saying they take over completely, but when you were a young player, could you have ever imagined playing baseball this way?

BRIAN SNITKER: Probably not. Because it wasn't there. There's a lot of things that have changed in my evolution in the game that you didn't really -- I mean, we didn't have cell phones when I started out. When I started managing, I don't know how we made moves because I used to tell guys when I was in Triple-A, you'd better keep that thing on at night because, if I can't get a hold of you, the guy that I can is the one going up.

A lot of stuff has changed. Analytics is information. In our situation, we don't force it on guys.

It's there if they have a question. If they want to know something, we have people that will get it for them. Those guys, most of them young, really bright people that are doing that, and they work extremely hard at what they do.

Q. How is your wife handling the situation?

BRIAN SNITKER: I don't know that she knows what she's getting into (laughter). She had a couple interviews yesterday. She's been probably more -- I'm an emotional guy. She's way more emotional than I am. But she's proud of both of us and what we've done. If it wasn't for her, he or I wouldn't be here honestly. She's allowed Troy and myself to follow our dream, and we're very appreciative.

She's drug him all over the southeast after me, my daughter, while she held a job, and they played ball and cheerleading and all that kind of stuff. So it was always a family affair when we -- Troy at batboy and take care of the umpires and working the clubhouse. I'd go home after games, and the clubhouse guy would bring him home two hours later.

But he's come by all this naturally pretty much. It's always been a family affair wherever we went.

Q. You guys defeated two teams that were better on paper. Obviously, the game isn't played on paper, but what were the big reasons you got past the Brewers and the Dodgers?

BRIAN SNITKER: Our pitching, which I think this time of year is what this thing's all about. Our bullpen has been just unbelievable. Them guys have just been consistent, and I rode them hard too. We pitched them a lot, but they all -- they answered the phone. They got ready, and they came in and did a job.

That first series, runs were hard to come by. We knew with their pitching staff that they would be. We got some big hits late in games, and our defense was really good. I think overall our pitching was really good in both series.

That was a tough, tough series that we just came out of against a team that had a really, really good bullpen.

We won a couple of walk-offs in Atlanta, but it was just kind of -- it was tough. Our bullpen has just been outstanding this whole postseason.