Why Braves’ speculated managerial candidate may not prove to be the hire

The Braves’ manager search now is in its fourth week.

That’s a healthy amount of time to hire a manager. But by the standards of president of baseball operations and general manager Alex Anthopoulos, it’s possibly not enough at all.

That’s why growing speculation that the hire will be Los Angeles Dodgers bench coach Danny Lehmann leaves room for doubt.

The tea leaves do make a case for it. Lehmann makes for an attractive candidate, being a top lieutenant for the best organization in the game. Lehmann joined the Dodgers in 2015 as a video scout and has worked his way up the ladder. He earned the promotion to bench coach in 2022, a clear indication of the high regard the Dodgers hold for him.

Further, Lehmann has a connection to Anthopoulos, both having been in the Dodgers organization from 2016 to 2017, when Anthopoulos was vice president of baseball operations and Lehmann was in his video job.

The further logic behind Lehmann being Anthopoulos’ choice is based on the fact that the Dodgers are in the World Series and other speculated candidates are with teams that have been eliminated. As the thinking goes, if it were someone else — such as Detroit Tigers bench coach George Lombard, a graduate of The Lovett School and a one-time Braves draft pick who played briefly with the team — Anthopoulos could have made the hire already. But since there hasn’t been a hire to this point, then that would be an indication that it’s Lehmann, whose team is still competing.

However, here is where that line of thought may be off target.

It’s not uncommon for a hire to take this long. It’s not as if all the other teams that had managerial openings have made their hires and the Braves are waiting around like wallflowers at a school dance.

Besides the Braves, four of the nine teams with managerial openings had yet to fill them as of Tuesday, although Colorado’s search has to wait until it hires a general manager first.

In 2023, when there were eight openings, seven were made on Nov. 6 or later, and none of the hires came from World Series teams. (Two were delayed, as they were a result of managers leaving one team for another after the regular season had ended.)

Like those hires, it might just be that the Braves’ search is not waiting for the completion of the World Series but merely is taking time. It wouldn’t be a surprise. If nothing else, Anthopoulos is methodical.

When he spoke with media Oct. 4, he said he would like to complete the hire “as soon as possible with so many openings, but you just can’t rush it or force it. It’s a big decision. It’s a big hire.”