Editor’s note: This is the latest in a series of stories previewing the 2024 Atlanta Braves. The AJC will look into the keys for the team this season and hear from several of the top players as the countdown to Thursday’s season opener continues.
NORTH PORT, Fla. — One of Brian Snitker’s favorite lines is something that perfectly describes this special run for his Braves. It is the final sentence in the quote below.
“There were no expectations when I first got here,” Snitker, the Braves’ manager, said last year. “You come to the ballpark and you hope that you can win. And then there was a time when I remember I came to the ballpark and you expected to win. … I’d much rather have that than the other, where we were putting out signs on the interstate to try and get players in here.”
The Braves, at one point, needed to (figuratively) put those signs on the interstate to attract talent. Now, they are a juggernaut. During this run, tons of different players have come and gone.
Only three have seen it all: Max Fried, Ozzie Albies and A.J. Minter.
They are the only players from the 2017 Braves who remain on the team. They were on the last Braves group that did not win the National League East – though they were not in the major leagues for most of the season.
Since the 2017 season, when those three debuted on different days in August, the Braves have won six consecutive NL East titles. They are the favorites to win it for the seventh year in a row.
“This is all I know,” Minter said of all the winning.
“You take a lot of pride in it,” Fried said. “You know how hard it is to win.”
Fried, Albies and Minter have interesting perspectives because they’ve seen it all in this organization. They were in the minors for the rebuild and in the majors for the rebirth. They are three reasons why the Braves exited the rebuild and began ascending.
In 2017, the Braves finished 72-90. Now, it would be unfathomable for them to post such a record. Times have changed, as Snitker always notes when he talks about those signs on the interstate. These Braves now have World Series expectations.
Three originals have seen the entire rise.
“Oh, it means a lot,” Albies said of being one of three guys left from that 2017 group. “I was in it every single day, and to see the team grow and become better and better, it’s everything.”
This is a story about the Braves’ special run, told through the eyes of the three who have witnessed all of it.
‘Growing together’ in the minors, with an emphasis on winning
In 2016, Minter went to Low-A Rome for his first assignment. His first roommate in professional baseball: Fried, who let Minter put down an air mattress on his living-room floor. At the time, Fried was living with Ray-Patrick Didder and Luke Dykstra.
“Fortunately, I was only there for two weeks, then I got called up to High-A,” Minter said.
Minter ditched the blow-up mattress and began his climb up the organizational ladder. He left behind a stacked Low-A club that eventually won the South Atlantic League title.
Those Rome Braves fielded Fried, Ronald Acuña Jr., Austin Riley and Michael Soroka. Rome served as one example of the prospect push at the time. The big-league team took its licks, but hope awaited in the minors.
“And there was also an emphasis on playing together and winning,” Fried said. “And the player-development staff when I was in the minor leagues made it very clear that ‘This crop of players is who we envision coming up through the system and winning.’ And they prioritized and said that: ‘You guys being able to win, play together and focus on that, it’s important.’ And it was definitely a point of emphasis. … There was a pride of, ‘We wanna win. We wanna be able to prove that we can do it and get to the highest that we possibly could at the level that we were at.’” (That year, Fried said, most of those Rome’s players spent the entire season at Low-A. Few got sent up and down.)
Perhaps this emphasis – on winning above all – is one reason the Braves have matured into a club that wins in so many ways. Over their impressive run, the Braves have notched many crazy victories.
Those minor-league stories also illustrate this: These guys have played together for a long time. That counts for something.
“Growing together, playing together always goes far in the season, and you can win championships,” Albies said. “If there is a player that only wants to be good for himself, it’s not gonna work. You gotta play as a team to win as a team. That’s the only way you win. You play as a team, you win as a team.”
In the minors, Fried said, the Braves had prospects who still possessed a bit of a high school mindset – in a good way. They cared about winning over individual statistics.
“Everyone was just trying to get their feet wet in pro ball,” Fried said. “But the point of emphasis was, ‘We want to be able to win games, and we want to be able to do that at a high level.’ I think on top of that, we just had a lot of really great people that truly did support and like one another. Instead of feeling you’re competing against another guy and they’re taking your job, it felt like you guys were on the same team and competing against each other in a competitive environment to make each other better, knowing that eventually the goal is for everyone to kind of have those positions in the big leagues, and then we can kind of do that as a group rather than feeling like it’s dog eat dog.”
‘A new era of Braves baseball’
To this day, Fried can remember a narrative surrounding the start of the 2017 season. The Braves moved into Truist Park that year, and it had, Fried said, “some sort of symbolism – a symbolic narrative of, we’re changing what had happened before and entering a new era of Braves baseball.” The Braves may not have won much that year, but they had momentum.
In August 2017, Fried, Albies and Minter earned their first tastes of the big leagues. “Obviously, it was a dream come true for all of us,” Albies said. And then the season ended.
In Orlando, Florida, the next spring, Albies said, the Braves saw all of the other prospects. One of them: Acuña, the supremely talented outfielder who, years later, won the National League MVP Award. But in the spring of 2018, the Braves could see it. They had talent. Their vision was beginning to play out in front of their eyes.
And now, they had Alex Anthopoulos, the new general manager tasked with guiding the club out of its rebuild. Anthopoulos, formerly with the Dodgers and Blue Jays, began laying the foundation – and it was noticeable.
“You could just tell that there was this new energy around the fan base,” Minter said. “We were doing so poorly the past (few) years, and this was like, ‘OK, this is where the tide’s turning. And (we’re going to have) a winning mentality, where we’re gonna become buyers instead of sellers. And this is a time where we’re gonna compete.’”
When discussing what changed when Anthopoulos took the job, Fried mentioned the optimism and energy, but also pointed to a critical improvement: The Braves began embracing analytics more than they had under the previous regime.
“I would say that we were more so a quote-unquote ‘old-school organization’ when teams were leaning into the analytics and pitch design, or just using a lot of the technology that you have out here (at the spring training facility),” Fried said. “We didn’t really have any of that. We didn’t really have very much input or knowledge or technology when it comes to scouting reports, just things to that nature – where it was a little bit more old-school, use your eyes, some video and stuff. But I know that the integration of analytics and the embracing of that, I think, was a big kind of shift where we almost felt like we were in the dark and then we kind of got brought into the light, and we were able to kind of compete and have that with the other organizations that were really doing well.”
The Braves had no idea what they were missing until they had it. “Absolutely,” Fried said. Fried even noticed how the analytics focus extended into the minor leagues. If he was in the minors but knew he had a spot start in a few days, he could begin preparing.
But even as they began incorporating analytics into their process, the Braves still employed baseball men on Snitker’s staff. Walt Weiss. Rick Kranitz. Sal Fasano. Kevin Seitzer. Ron Washington. Eric Young Sr. The last two now are in Anaheim.
All understand how difficult the game is, and what players need. They can relate to these guys.
“I think it’s imperative,” Fried said of having baseball lifers on the coaching staff. “At the end of the day, it’s an extremely hard job and it’s taxing, and when you have coaches and people that are in the fight with you but also know exactly what you’re going through and what it’s like to step between those lines, just kind of the appreciation and knowing how hard it is, it allows you to relate and kind of take what they have and their feedback – (their feedback) really hits.”
Heading into the 2018 season, no one – well, no one outside of Atlanta – believed the Braves could win the NL East. The Nationals had the most talent in the division.
But Anthopoulos had just taken over. He kept Snitker, and filled out the coaching staff.
“And there was definitely,” Fried said, “a feeling and a shift of, ‘We have big plans. We have big aspirations.’”
Then they proved it: They surprised everyone by winning the division in 2018.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
‘Keep the standards up’
Years ago, Freddie Freeman, Nick Markakis, Tyler Flowers and Julio Teheran were a handful of the veterans who helped set the standard for the young players.
“They really had a knack and a knowledge of what it takes to be professional and to be consistent, and to go out there and win baseball games,” Fried said. “There was a lot of no nonsense, no excuses. It’s all about getting it done.”
And now, Fried, Albies and Minter are veterans who have carried on these lessons. Fried and Minter could be in their final seasons as Braves. Albies is signed through at least 2025, with two club options on his contract after that.
They came up in an organization that employed Hank Aaron, Chipper Jones, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz and Tom Glavine. Those Hall of Famers helped pave the way for those coming after them. And from 1991-2005, the Braves won 14 consecutive division titles.
In the Braves organization, they take their history seriously.
“It was a lot of bringing up of, ‘This is the Atlanta Braves way. We do things differently and we take pride in the little things,’” Minter said. “It’s just a credit to all the Hall of Famers we have. We’re not gonna be disrespectful. Just the upbringing in the minor leagues, we were just different. We still are. We still have that mentality, and we play for those guys that played before us. So, that’s the answer to why we have so much culture and history in this organization. I think that’s what drives us to keep continuing to be great.”
Added Fried on following the greatness of the ‘90s: “I think you feel a duty to be able to come in and take what you’ve been given, which was a really good situation, and you don’t want to fumble that opportunity. Kind of keep the standards up to what they’re supposed to be. … It’s something that when it’s your time to take hold of it, that it’s not an opportunity that you want to let pass by.”
Six division titles and a World Series ring later, they’re grateful for it all.
“It is special, because I know how not every player gets to win a division, go to the postseason,” Minter said. “I know it’s very special to be a part of, and I’m not taking it for granted. But at the same time, I’m not complacent. I want to keep up with this. This is a special time to be an Atlanta Brave, and I just want to take advantage of it as best I can.”
