NORTH PORT, Fla. — One day this offseason, assistant basketball coach Matt Tuiasosopo – whose job is to “control the chaos,” he joked – was driving to his 5-year-old son’s practice. On the way, he received a call from Braves manager Brian Snitker.
The Braves were bringing up Tuiasosopo to be their third-base coach.
And when Tuiasosopo was at practice, his phone buzzed again, and he had to step away. This time, Ben Sestanovich, the Braves’ assistant general manager for player development, was calling.
The hire was official.
“I had to keep it quiet for about a week, and that was the hardest week,” Tuiasosopo recently recalled. “All my friends – I live up in North Georgia – they’re all die-hard Braves fans, and they kept asking me, ‘Have you heard anything?’ And honestly, I did. But I was like, ‘Nope, I don’t know anything.’ We were very excited, and we’re just looking forward to getting this going.”
For three seasons as Triple-A Gwinnett’s manager, Tuiasosopo delivered the most exciting news of players’ careers when he told them they were headed to the major leagues. Those moments, he said, were special. But recently, he received his own call-up when the Braves promoted from within to replace Ron Washington, who departed to manage the Angels.
“This is where you want to be,” Tuiasosopo said. “The dream is always to be in the big leagues.”
This is a certainty: There is no replacing Washington, the man with an energetic, charismatic personality that resonates with everyone he’s around. Everyone knows “Wash,” as he is called by those in baseball, is a one-of-a-kind person and coach. But Tuiasosopo, who learned from Washington and uses some of his drills, is ready to excel at the job – in his own way.
Multiple times when speaking to reporters, Tuiasosopo mentioned the word “serve.” It’s clear this is important to him. Serving players. This is at the center of everything he does as a coach.
“I think if you’re a coach, you’re a servant,” Tuiasosopo. “It’s all about the players. You have a servant attitude. It’s not about us as coaches anymore, it’s about giving these players love and instruction. Sometimes you gotta be hard on ‘em, sometimes you gotta lift ‘em up and build ‘em up. I always believe that you build up and not tear down. And I think that if you serve these guys and love on ‘em and build that trust, build that relationship, you can do a lot of great things. It’s something that I believe in, just in life in general and not just here at the field – serving people around you and thinking about others and not yourself, and I just try to live that.”
In 2016, Tuiasosopo joined the Braves as a minor leaguer and played for Gwinnett. Snitker was his manager. Ozzie Albies was his teammate. In 2017, Tuiasosopo shared a Triple-A clubhouse with Albies, Ronald Acuña Jr., Max Fried and A.J. Minter. As Gwinnett’s manager, he had AJ Smith-Shawver and others as players, and saw a few major leaguers for their rehab assignments.
In 2019, Tuiasosopo managed Single-A Rome. Two years later, he became Gwinnett’s skipper. He’s built relationships throughout the organization, even with some of the players in the big-league clubhouse for spring training.
“He went back and kind of started his coaching career, did everything right, and he’s done a great job,” Snitker said. “I know the organization thinks the world of him, as do I. I love that phone call when I can call and offer him this position. He’s gonna do a great job.”
Asked about his approach to building those relationships, Tuiasosopo said it’s a lot of baseball talk. He wants to know what thoughts go through players’ heads and how they think about the game.
Eventually, he talks about life with them. It can’t be all baseball.
“I believe that once the guys know you really care about getting to know them, that you care about them as a person, then you have an opportunity to build that trust, and then you can really get to work and do whatever you need to do,” Tuiasosopo said. “But I’ve always heard that until players know that you care about them, they don’t care about how much you know. They want to know that you care about them and you can help them get better, so I really try to build that trust that way.”
Of Tuiasosopo, Dylan Dodd, a pitcher who has spent time in Gwinnett, said; “I think he was really professional but also was able to have relationships with the players outside of the game of baseball. And I think that goes a long way. As your manager, you’re able to have conversations with him about really anything. I think that’s really important to have with the manager.”
We’ve made it far enough into this story without discussing, well, the actually primary duty of a third base coach: Sending or stopping runners. The Braves could be MLB’s best offense again, so Tuiasosopo’s arm won’t get much rest.
Washington was known for his aggressiveness.
How will Tuiasosopo be?
“Well I like to score runs, too,” he said. “I like to be aggressive. I don’t like to be reckless. It’s all about situations – understanding where you’re at in the games, who’s running. I know that these guys, in their mindset, that we’re ready to run and score. I like that as a third base coach, I love when runners have that mindset that, ‘I’m scoring. You’re not gonna stop me.’
“I think last summer, Ronald ran through one stop sign already. I’m gonna make my call and, like I say, it’s just a suggestion. Sometimes those guys are going too hard and they’re in the moment, and it’s my job to not let the environment obviously overwhelm me.”
Then there’s the infield work. In previous springs, Tuiasosopo was out at 7:30-9:30 a.m. every day to do infield work with Washington and the players. In observing Washington, Tuiasosopo learned about consistency and attention to detail. Washington set a certain standard of living each day by doing anything it takes to be great.
Tuiasosopo’s servant attitude blends well with the Braves’ culture. “Nobody’s ego is too big here,” he said. “It’s all about doing whatever you can to help the team win.” One night, the hero might be Matt Olson or Acuña, but another night, it could be someone else. As talented as they are, the Braves are a team effort.
Snitker loved calling up Tuiasosopo to be his third base coach. “He’s got a long time to go in this game,” Snitker said. Tuiasosopo may be only getting started.
But his call to the majors is fitting. In a way, it’s full circle.
He still remembers when Seattle called him up in 2008. His parents were outside the clubhouse when he received the news.
His journey eventually took him to Gwinnett, where he had the pleasure of telling players that the big-league team needed them.
“To me, those are the special moments because you can tell how much this means to people and how much it means to these guys,” he said. “And so, to me, those are the special moments that only I get to share with that player at that moment, when they’re tearing up, and you know that they’re about to go call their spouse or their mom and dad.”
And this winter, Tuiasosopo earned the second call-up of his baseball life.
“Knowing that I’m on that plane ride to Philly (for opening day),” he said, “it’s gonna be a lot of fun and an exciting moment.”
