MLB WINTER MEETINGS

December 6, 2022

Brian Snitker

Atlanta Braves

Press Conference

Q. Now that you've had time to kind of digest the season, are you even more excited about what it might accomplish this year and what it might mean going forward?

BRIAN SNITKER: Yes, I think I'm walking around town, everybody's kind of, man, we're sorry about your season. I'm, like, I'm not. I'm very proud of our season and what we did and what we accomplished and where we came and how we fought back and the fact that we won our fifth division in a row. I'm extremely proud about everything that happened.

And I tell the guys, it's you fight to get in the playoffs because you never know what can happen. We got in. A couple months we're going to go back to Spring Training and get ready to do it again and try to win the division again, try to get in the playoffs because you never know what can happen. Until you will get in, nothing special can happen.

And we know after the experiences we've had the last few years that anything can happen. But you've got to get in to give yourselves a chance.

Q. (Indiscernible) mentioned, because it's such a crap shoot, how much does it have to be about just getting there and you kind of -- long season, twists and turn and you just manage it just to get there?

BRIAN SNITKER: I think that's where it's at. It's getting there. Like I say, until you get there you don't have a chance. And I tell them the first meeting in Spring Training our goal is, number one is to win the division, not the World Series, win the division. Until we get in the door we don't have a chance to do the other.

So we'll go there, put our energies into everything we can do to try to win the division. If not that, get in the playoff scenario.

Q. Were you pleased to see Trea Turner back in the division for 11 years?

BRIAN SNITKER: Good for him. Great player. He's fun to watch. He's one of those, he's kind of probably more happy that Jacob deGrom is not here.

But he's a great player. And you watch, he plays the game the right way. I've got a lot of respect for that kid. And happy for him.

Q. Swap deGrom for Verlander --

BRIAN SNITKER: Keeps getting easier, doesn't it? But we talked about that last year. It's like those teams are going to continue to push and get better. And they have resources. And it's just that's the way it is, a really good division.

And they're in the same boat we were in a year ago. But we've got to play the game. That's why we play the games and we knew going in last year that these teams were going to get better. They're going to continue.

And I feel like we are, too. We're going to be another year older, another year more experienced with some really talented young players. And I think we're all really excited to get to work again.

Q. How excited were you to hear about Nick Anderson, or just to get Anderson there and know that the possibility what he can do?

BRIAN SNITKER: No, I mean, anytime we sign those depth pieces and guys that are big leaguers and they've had success, and -- because you need a bunch of them, as we talked, you need a lot of pitchers to get through that long season. When you get an established, quality guy like him, we talked about him a couple years ago at trade deadline his name came up a few times. You get guys like that, it's good. You need to.

Q. On the same topic, the three former Braves who are free agents who probably wouldn't be too costly to sign -- I'm think about Andrelton Simmons, Craig Kimbrel and Jason Heyward -- are you interested in any of those guys?

BRIAN SNITKER: You know what, all that stuff is up to Alex. I know all three of those. I obviously have a history with them. Love all three of those guys for who they are.

But I let Alex take care of all of that kind of stuff. He does a great job. He works tirelessly at making this roster really good and providing the depth. And he'll call me with what he's doing and give an opinion and we'll just -- I defer all that to him.

Q. There's so many teams making some big moves but you have to keep -- if your fans get a little antsy, do you have to kind of remember you guys have signed so many of your guys long term that you don't have a lot of openings?

BRIAN SNITKER: No, you're right. I've told the guys a couple years ago, we've worked really hard to get to where we come to Spring Training and knowing there's not a lot of jobs.

And that's a good thing, because like I said, when I first got here, we were putting "will work for food" signs on the interstate to get guys to come here.

We've worked really hard to get this where it is and the expectation, and we've set the bar pretty high for ourselves. We've done a great job organizationally and locking up some really quality, young talented players. And I feel really good with where we're at.

Q. With that back -- fifth spot in the rotation you'll have a couple of guys competing there who have been further up in the rotation that have had success. How excited are you for that come Spring Training?

BRIAN SNITKER: That's a great thing, that depth. You can never have too much pitching depth. When you look at the group of guys that we have that we're going to be competing for that job, and I know a guy like Ian and Mike, those guys have been in rookie-of-the-year conversations. They've pitched big games, in World Series, championship games.

And so it's good. Like I say, you never know what the injury bug is going to do. You never know you can't have too many of those guys. And they've all got experience. That's the thing. They've all made starts and have shown improvement.

Q. When they've got options, how much easier does that make that for you guys when you're doing things throughout the season?

BRIAN SNITKER: The bullpen, those options in the bullpen are invaluable. The options in our starting rotation. If we want to go with six for a while or depending on how the schedule goes.

If a guy needs a little blow and you can manage your roster to bring somebody in. Those guys in that's invaluable.

Q. How about the rule changes, have you talked about how you're going to address them?

BRIAN SNITKER: Not a lot. I'm going to kind of get educated in them a little more tomorrow at our managers meeting. I'm excited about that because I haven't thought about it a lot. I've been kind of -- got done with the playoffs and things and just kind of put baseball on the back burner a little bit. And haven't really dove into it a lot.

Q. I know you probably are still hoping to get Dansby back. If he were not to come back -- they've talked about Vaughn Grissom, and Wash assured Alex he could get him ready to start. Have you seen enough of Grissom and his athleticism and what Wash has been able to do?

BRIAN SNITKER: I haven't seen that. We'll go to Spring Training. We've got Arcia and Griffin, we'll let them play and see where it goes. We've got 30-some games to decide which way we want to go.

Honestly, I haven't seen -- I don't even remember Griss playing shortstop in Spring Training, those guys caddying for us and helping fill games out. That's one of those things. For me, I'm going to put my eyes on the whole situation before I make any determination.

Q. Is it nice to have a resource like Wash at this time?

BRIAN SNITKER: It's good. And they're spending time down there. It's not going to hurt, I'll tell you that. I think anytime somebody can get that individualized instruction it's really good for the individual player.

Q. I know it's a business, but what is it like for you when there's a situation like Dansby, and you've built a relationship with that guy, you've seen him grow, and you know what he brings.

BRIAN SNITKER: It's tough. We went through it a year ago right now, going through the same thing. And it's tough. You do get attached to those guys. My God, we're spending a lot of time together. They're quality individuals. Love them to death.

And but it is. That's part of the business. We all know that when we get in here. That's part of it. And just kind of time will tell which way we go. But I'll always root for that kid.

Q. In terms of the rule changes, basically one is just going back to what you knew most of your life or not -- you know, with the shift. Maybe going back to traditional time when they played that way. But from the pitch clock, when that came out last year, looked at all the guys' time. You're basically looking at Jesse Chavez and maybe one other guy on your roster who was under that time. Do you think that's going to be the most challenging --

BRIAN SNITKER: Yeah, I think it's going to be a big adjustment, especially for some older, veteran pitchers. I've seen it. I've been a part of it in the minor leagues. It works.

There are times that I wonder, I know I thought about it last year, especially late in the game when things are getting hairy. And those games are big in the ninth inning and eighth inning and things like that.

And that's the one thing that I heard from -- you know what the guys we've brought up from the minor leagues when they pitched you could tell they were a product of that.

And the one thing that they all said was that when you want to kind of reach back and regroup, you don't have that ability with that pitch clock. And that might be something, I don't know, that is going to be the big adjustment for guys, and in the batters box, too. I saw that.

So we'll be doing it in Spring Training. Hopefully by the time end of Spring Training guys have kind of gotten it off their chest and expressed their pleasure or not, whatever with it and we'll see.

Q. To follow up on that, might it even be a bigger adjustment in the postseason because you see so many of those big moments where guys need to regroup, it's a big situation?

BRIAN SNITKER: It is. And those are big things. Games mean a lot. And those situations are huge. And hopefully it doesn't interfere with the game.

Q. I'm in Toronto so I cover the AL East a lot. We get talking about the meat grinder that division is, how there aren't any breaks and we don't talk about the NL East. But it's the same thing, with the schedule change now, you don't have to play the Phillies, Mets 19 times. How different is that going to be and how much better could that be?

BRIAN SNITKER: I like it. It's not just the Phillies and the Mets, the Nationals and the Marlins.

When you play that many games against your division, I think it's going to be great to play everybody. I love that format. And I'm looking forward to it. And I'm kind of glad that we're not playing so many games in the division.

Q. Does it serve the division better because they don't beat up on each other as much and can go out maybe face more teams?

BRIAN SNITKER: I've never thought about that.

Q. What's it been like being in your guys' division when you look at the last maybe three, four years and it seems a few you guys have gotten better every single year and it's like an arms race every year?

BRIAN SNITKER: It is. Teams are getting better. They're using their resources to make their club better. And they're big games. They're fun games really when you think about it.

You go in and to a big series with a really good team, you get jacked up. You like it. That's why we do this. It's fun to do that.

Q. How happy were you to see Fred get --

BRIAN SNITKER: It was awesome. You know what, I texted him the other day. He got back to me this morning. He said things were slowing down. I can't wait to see him.

I asked (indiscernible) if he was running around here anywhere because I'd love to give him a big hug. It's so cool. So happy for him. So proud that he's part of our organization.

Q. He was like a kid yesterday, so happy.

BRIAN SNITKER: It's awesome. I guarantee you, there's not a teammate or anybody that knows him that isn't just as happy as they can be for him.

Q. What was it like to see Troy win?

BRIAN SNITKER: It was awesome. I was more worrying watching his games than I was when I was managing against him the World Series last year, just pulling for him so hard. It was really cool. Got that RSV stuff so we couldn't go. I had to cancel two trips.

But I went to bed early a couple times, just get up and check to see what the final score was. But it was cool. I'm very proud of him what he did last year. And I don't know there's many households that have back-to-back World Series champions living in them either.

Q. Did you get a chance to talk to Dusty at all?

BRIAN SNITKER: Haven't seen him.

Q. How about some of your injured guys like Ozzie Albies and Kirby?

BRIAN SNITKER: Saw Ozzie the other day. Everything is -- he's doing great, exactly what he needs to be doing. And Ozzie is going to be very consistent and diligent in his rehab. He's fired up. Had a good look about him and very confident and everything went great.

And Matzek was doing good. He was feeling good. It's going to be obviously a while before he's ready. But all those guys, they're at the stadium every day working out. I've seen him a few times.

Q. Kirby?

BRIAN SNITKER: I haven't seen Kirby. He's back home. But Kirby ended the year -- we wanted to get him activated, but it just wasn't possible. But he threw in Gwinnett, at the alternate site, and he had a good feeling that he could have a normal offseason. The poor guy just didn't want to rehab for the winter.

So I think he kind of -- it was good that he felt that. He threw his sim game, felt good about it, where he could go into the offseason with some normalcy.

Q. How much could a normal offseason help Acuña too.

BRIAN SNITKER: It will be great. Seen videos where he's out there running around. And the time off and small spatterings of what he's doing now, I think just having a normal offseason for those guys is huge for them. Let their bodies regroup, do the normal, their weightlifting and conditioning and all that and come to camp. And I'd be real surprised if he just doesn't have a really big year.

Q. We've asked you about after your 500th win, and you talked about the people here in this organization and just loving that. When in your life did you realize that you liked working with people so much that you wanted to be around it and you really cared about players?

BRIAN SNITKER: I think the career here with the Braves, when it always has been so much about the people and the people in this organization. And from Paul Schneider, and I remember, Bill Lucas, Bobby, all those guys.

And they're all about makeup and Hank and being a young minor league instructor. You go in there five years in a row and the room in West Palm wasn't a whole lot bigger than this area that we're sitting in right now, but it might be Bo sitting where Jesse is one year, Jesse sitting here where Bo is the next year but it was always the same guys.

And everybody just did what they could do to help that organization. And it's always been about the people here. And the players, more importantly. We talked about that.

I still talk to Randy Ingle, Rick Albert, and all those development guys, and how much fun we had developing players and being about the players. And I think if you ask guys that came through this organization, they would echo the same thing.