Well, not really new. Anyone who follows Braves baseball knows former Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez. Gonzalez was hired on Monday, June 2 as their new third base coach. Wait a minute you might ask, Braves already have a third base coach? But yes, they did. But Braves General Manager Alex Anthopoulos demoted current third base coach Matt Tuiasosopo to be the minor league infield coordinator for the Braves organization.
There have been more than a handful of calls where Tuiasosopo waved a runner home and that runner was called out by a wide margin. The last bad call sending the runner home was last Friday night at home in the first inning when 1B Matt Olson hits a single to right where Tuiasosopo waved RF Ronald Acuna home from second base. Acuna would have been thrown out by a mile, but scored because the ball got away from Boston’s catcher.
You can’t have stuff like this happing in the big leagues. This is where the learning happens in the minors. Yes, we are all human and make mistakes, but there has been at least five instances where the runner should have held at third base, but Tuiasosopo sent runner anyway.
Now to the new third base coach. I like Gonzalez, and didn’t like seeing him get fired after starting the 2016 season 9-28, but it had to be done, the record was just not good. Gonzalez managed the Braves from 2011-2016 and that’s when Braves skipper Brian Snitker took over. Anthopoulos mentioned by no means is this going to be a dual managerial role with Snitker. Snitker is the manager and Gonzalez is the third base coach. Time will only tell.
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