Braves insider questions if Walt Weiss was GM Alex Anthopoulos’ first choice after long delay originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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The Atlanta Braves have spent the past month searching for their next manager after Brian Snitker announced he would not be returning in 2026. Earlier this week, the Braves hired Walt Weiss as their new manager.

“The Atlanta Braves hired Walt Weiss as manager Monday, turning to their longtime bench coach in hopes of a turnaround after they missed the playoffs for the first time in seven years. Weiss, 61, managed the Colorado Rockies from 2013 to 2016, going 283-365 and never finishing higher than third place. He inherits a talented Braves team that finished 76-86 and was ravaged by injuries,” ESPN’s Jeff Passan wrote.

GM Alex Anthopoulos chose to make another in-house hire, continuing a trend the organization has followed for some time. However, many expected Anthopoulos might break from that pattern with his next hire.

“This I think represents (president of baseball ops and general manager) Alex Anthopoulos’ first opportunity to kind of look at it through his lens for what he wants and what he values in the manager. And I think Brian Snitker embodied a lot of those qualities, but they were kind of thrown together, at least to start with. They just built a great partnership. So I think with that in mind, there’s really no impetus to just keep it status quo or keep it with somebody who was under the Bobby Cox coaching tree,” Braves reporter Grant McAuley said.

For this reason, Braves reporter Mark Bowman questioned why it took so long to make the promotion.

“I respect Anthopoulos saying it takes a long time to do due diligence when selecting a manager. But it’s still hard to understand why it took a month to make an internal hire when we all assumed this season would be Snit’s last,” Bowman said.

While there is no direct evidence, Bowman is certainly raising questions about whether Weiss was the first choice. It doesn’t fully make sense to wait until the end of the World Series, especially with Dodgers bench coach Danny Lehmann being considered a favorite at one point.

It’s possible Lehmann didn’t want to become the Braves’ choice, or that Anthopoulos’ interest shifted over the weekend. Whatever the case, it doesn’t appear that Weiss was the first choice.

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