‘Great knowledge of the game’: The Walt Weiss era arrives for the Braves

When Braves pitchers and catchers reported for duty the week of Feb. 10, and when many of the team’s position players made it to southwest Florida not long after, one of the more prevalent subject matters brought up by reporters who bounced from locker to locker pertained to Walt Weiss.

But questions about who the Braves’ new manager is, how he operates, how things will be different between the chalk and from in the dugout, were mostly met with shrugs of indifference. The narrative was that not much at all will be different from Weiss compared to his predecessor, Brian Snitker.

Weiss, after all, has been with the organization since 2017. He has a World Series ring, like many of the team’s core group of players still in the everyday lineup. And being the team’s bench coach for nearly a decade has allowed him to already develop strong relationships with nearly everyone up and down the roster.

“I was very, very happy to see him get the job because you want someone with a sense of how things run and operate,” Braves pitching ace Chris Sale said. “He’s had a relationship with all the guys in here. But more importantly, he really cares about obviously his guys, but he cares about this organization.

“We had a meeting the other day, and he was stressing the emphasis of what it means to be an Atlanta Brave and talking about the people in the past and the respect that you need to show to the uniform and the pride that you should have wearing this uniform. I think that’s important, too, and he has that.”

The Walt Weiss era begins at 7:15 p.m. Friday at Truist Park when the Braves play the Royals. The notion this new era won’t hold too many striking differences from the previous one is somewhat true, but it’s not the whole picture.

There will be nuanced changes: how the lineup is constructed day-to-day, an emphasis on speed and base running, a cognizance of mental health, and a balance between the best analytical tools available juxtaposed with old-school hunches and gut feelings.

The 62-year-old Weiss takes over a team with postseason and World Series aspirations. Directing that team toward those goals begins this weekend.

A Carolina kid from New York

As a senior at Suffern High School, about an hour north of New York City, Weiss was a good enough prospect to be on the radar of professional scouts, so much so that he would be drafted by the Orioles in the 10th round of the 1982 MLB draft. College baseball wasn’t really part of the equation for Weiss until a graduate assistant from East Carolina got in touch with him by telephone and told him ECU would be sending scholarship papers in the mail.

The somewhat naive Weiss figured, OK, he’d sign those papers and be off to Greenville, North Carolina, to play for the Pirates. There was no official recruiting visit, no website to click on to learn more about the program and the school.

But in the meantime, Mike Roberts, the coach at North Carolina who often liked to recruit the New York area, had gotten wind of Weiss.

Roberts showed up to meet with Weiss in person and offered the 1982 Rockland County player of the year a scholarship to play for the Tar Heels. This all went down, Weiss said, with four or five games remaining in his senior season.

That scholarship offer from ECU never arrived, by the way.

Weiss would become a star in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His reputation as a relentless worker and trainer matched his performances on the diamond. A profile on Weiss, a shortstop, in The Daily Tar Heel in 1985 detailed his commitment to hours of postgame workouts, winning locker room pullup challenges, and a steadfast dedication toward becoming the best.

In 1985, after being selected All-ACC in each of his three seasons at UNC, Weiss became the No. 12 overall pick in the draft and joined the Oakland Athletics organization.

A star in Oakland, an All-Star in Atlanta

Weiss made his MLB debut at the end of the 1987 season, then put together a rookie of the year campaign with the A’s in ’88. He drove in 39 runs and had a .633 OPS and .979 fielding percentage over 147 games. He became a world champion a year later when the A’s swept the Giants in the World Series.

After a season with the Marlins in 1993 and then four in Colorado, Weiss joined the Braves in 1998 and finally made his first and only All-Star team that season. Weiss returned to Denver to play in that year’s Midsummer Classic, not knowing that 14 years later he would get his first crack at managing in the same city.

A run with the Rockies

In November of 2012, Weiss was named the manager of the Rockies. He had spent seven seasons (2002-08) with the organization as a special assistant to the general manager, but had no experience at the top step of an MLB dugout. Before the appointment he had been coaching the Regis Jesuit High School (Colorado) baseball team.

“He was an incredible competitor and really appreciated guys that played hard. I felt like he was always in my corner as a manager,” said Charlie Blackmon, one of the Rockies’ all-time greats. “I felt like we were in the fight together every day. He didn’t take a day off.

“He was a guy that as a player was a real grinder, played hard and didn’t take for granted how hard it was to play the game of baseball and how hard it was to stay healthy and how hard it was to play the game every day as a position player. That put him in a situation where you just trusted him to know what you were going through and trusted him to do the best for the team.”

Yet the Rockies were not a great squad during Weiss’ tenure. They never finished better than third in the NL West and lost at least 87 games in all four of Weiss’ seasons at the helm.

In October of 2016, Weiss stepped away from his role as manager, telling MLB.com, “I just felt like the working relationship between (myself) and (general manager) Jeff (Bridich) wasn’t a cohesive one or a productive one; that’s the bottom line. It was just best for everybody.”

A year later, Weiss got a call from Snitker.

Back in Atlanta

“I wanted a former manager. And I didn’t know (Weiss) that well at the time. He’s just a good baseball guy,” Snitker told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in February while he watched the Braves practice at CoolToday Park in Florida. “And everybody that ever was around Walt — players, coaches, Bobby (Cox) — they just spoke so highly of the man. More than the baseball, it was more about the guy.

“I remember I had him come into instructional league and he interviewed for the job — he didn’t need to interview for me, it was his if he wanted it, you know? I didn’t need to ask him anything other than, ‘You want the job or not?’”

Weiss had suddenly found a permanent home with the Braves. Snitker kept Weiss on staff through the end of Snitker’s tenure, allowing Weiss to be a part of the team’s seven straight postseason appearances and 2021 World Series title.

His role as bench coach, as well as working with Braves infielders, put Weiss in position to be a candidate for the club’s managerial vacancy when Snitker stepped down as manager in October.

“He’s got great feel. He’s got great knowledge of the game. He’s not just a guy that played it; he’s a guy that studied it when he was a player. I can tell that,” Snitker said. “He still is in on the nuances of the game and the different things. He’s perfect. He was the perfect guy for me. And he was a good influence for me in my managing time. I was just really happy when they chose to stay in-house and give him this opportunity.”

No. 22

Weiss’ weightlifting sessions are a bit of a growing urban legend.

“He just gets after it. He lifts more than anybody in here,” Braves first baseman Matt Olson said. “It’s insane. We’re rolling in for the day to get going and he’s got 315 (pounds) on the squat rack, just reppin ’em out. But you feel that. He’s somebody that’s taking care of himself, wants to be better, and you kind of feel that.”

Weiss, who wears No. 22 because his favorite athlete growing up was Miami Dolphins running back Mercury Morris, has also trained in martial arts. He loves Bruce Springsteen and listens to Manchester Orchestra, as well as some grunge and classic rock, maybe even playing along on his mesh drum kit.

But, of course, his sole focus is baseball and having a second chance at managing a big-league club.

“In my experience, you see guys that have done this job, and then they have time to kind of be around other people and see the thing — usually, they’re better prepared the next time around,” Snitker said. “He’s more ready for this job now than he was, I’m sure, than when he got it with the Rockies.”

Added Blackmon: “I could tell over his tenure (with the Rockies) that he got better as a manager. I can only imagine how much more experience he’s had now. To do as well as he’s done as the bench coach over there, especially considering the team success they’ve had, I’m sure he’s really well positioned to be successful.”

Weiss said he believes his managerial strengths will be his ability to relate to the guys who take the field day in and day out, in being able to connect on a personal level to gain trust that leads to being able to make the tougher conversations easier. “I’ve left blood on the same field that they’re leaving blood on. I think there’s a little something to that,” he said.

When Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos told Weiss in December that he had gotten the job as Braves manager, Weiss said he couldn’t sleep as his mind raced, thinking about lineup permutations and pitching matchups and his speech to the team on the first day of camp and the new challenges that will be the 2026 season and beyond.

The Braves themselves sound as if they’re going to be with Weiss every step of the way during those challenges.