People’s ability to show how little they know about a sport remains a stronger constant than anything in America.

And Atlanta fans are as strong as anybody in that lack of awareness and knowledge and inability to be smart.

By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com

Being passionate doesn’t really mean you have to be a simpleton.

So here’s a head-spinner.

Brian Snitker is a better manager than Bobby Cox was.

(*Pause for heads exploding).*

One can be great, and still be overrated (like a former two-sport player in Atlanta years ago, now a staggeringly overrated college football coach).

One can be great and be overrated. Step away from your team, and look around, and you’ll see players and coaches on other teams that you think are great but overrated.

Put Cox on that list.

Cox won 55.7 percent of his games covering 25 years with Atlanta. Snitker won 54.8 percent, in 10 years.

Snitker won 51.1 percent in the playoffs to 49.6 percent for Cox.

Can we all agree that Cox had substantially more talent on the roster for most of those 25 years and did less with it than the talent Snitker had consistently and did more with it in 10 years?

Snitker didn’t have a hall of fame pitching coach. Didn’t have maybe the best pitching staff in history together for more than a year.

The Cox cupboard had more than Snitker’s, by a chunk.

I’ve never been one – too much lucidity and objectivity – to say concretely a team should’ve won this or that, or should’ve won that series or bowl or title, etc.

But I will say that in 25 years, Atlanta should have more than one World Series title, should have been more competitive in the Series they lost, and should probably have more than four NL pennants (back when it was easier, too).

Snitker visit Macon and Mercer right before the season
Long before he took over in Atlanta, Brian Snitker was a Maconite in Barrington Hall who slept at Luther Williams

Cox was a player’s manager, as was Snitker. But Cox managed by-the-manual as much as anybody in MLB history, and Snitker did too much of that, although some organizational strategies he had to operate under were weak and didn’t help.

Still, Snitker was better.

The future Hall of Famers in Atlanta under Snitker?

Freddie Freeman (who was let go), and perhaps Max Fried (who was let go), and perhaps Austin Riley, and perhaps Ronald Acuna (who in reality has a lot of work to do, including staying healthy, and he could be traded, too, anyway).

That’s it. One. One first-ballot pick.

Snitker didn’t manage the Braves when the organization was better, more professional, and spent a little more money.

The farm system isn’t nearly as good as it was 20, 25 years ago.

Pick an All-2000s Atlanta team lineup and rotation – at least three seasons in a Braves uniform - and they’re mostly Cox players. By far.

Freeman, and maybe Acuna, and not a pitcher.

Snitker did better with less stability, constant changes within the game and playoffs and gimmicks, and more competition.

I kept hoping Snitker saw this year for what it was: a stunning debacle of bad karma and bad luck.

The 0-7 start? No biggie. I said before the season really was over that if the Braves’ just had average years at that point – rather than a team-wide slump that few broke out of in time to spark them – they’d be back in the playoff hunt.

If the duct-tape pitching staff – how many such staffs did Cox have? – wasn’t all on the injured list at the same time, they’d have been in the playoff hunt.

I wanted him to go out having made a run under normal circumstances, with a healthy Chris Sale and probably-healthy Spencer Strider and some lineup stability. Plus, good grief, the Braves played so many new faces, Atlanta couldn’t help but be pretty stacked next year without a lot of signings.

He damn sure deserved to go out better than what this year gave him. But that can’t overshadow what he did, and where he left the Atlanta organization, in better shape than people think.

Here’s hoping he and Bobby Cox get a chance to attend a Braves game or two in 2026. They deserve to hear the explosive applause together.

Hank was Mr. Brave. But Brian Snitker spent day one to day last in one organization. He’s sure high on that list.