The changes, in the view of some Braves’ officials, amount to nothing more than a minor restructuring of the front office. Different roles for some. Different titles but the same roles for others. Promotions in some cases, too.
Others within the organization, however, perceive the moves as the first step in a larger battle for the soul of the franchise, a highly sensitive dance between the Braves’ glorious past and promising future.
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“It’s a power struggle over who is running the club,” one team official said. “Is John Schuerholz running the club or are John Hart and John Coppolella running it?”
Hart, the team’s president of baseball operations, and Coppolella, the general manager, vehemently dispute that view, sources say. Schuerholz, the vice chairman who recently was inducted into the Hall of Fame, hired both executives, speaks with them regularly and participates in meetings. Now 76, he was the Braves’ GM from 1990 to 2007, presiding over the team’s run of 14 straight division titles, and team president from 2007 to 2016.
The team’s front-office changes include promotions of Dom Chiti to farm director and Dave Wallace to director of pitching, according to sources; Dave Trembley no longer will serve as both farm director and minor-league field coordinator, becoming just field coordinator instead. Special assistants to the GM Roy Clark and Rick Williams and director of baseball operations Billy Ryan will receive new titles, sources said.
One thing appears certain: Tension is mounting within the Braves’ organization. The team is on pace to win 72 games, just four more than last season in a year in which club officials anticipated taking a bigger step forward.
The Braves’ future remains bright; Baseball America ranks their farm system as the best in the game. Most clubs make changes in baseball operations at this time of year, and one Braves official described the team’s moves as simply “rearranging furniture, not throwing anything away.”
Some in the organization, however, view the front-office changes as an attempt to stifle dissent, portraying Coppolella as increasingly testy with certain subordinates. Others view the changes as Hart and Coppolella “testing the waters” for additional moves with the major-league staff at a later time.
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The Braves have yet to exercise manager Brian Snitker’s option for 2018. Additionally, bench coach Terry Pendleton and first-base coach Eddie Perez are throwbacks to the Schuerholz era.
Hart is in the final year of his contract but is expected to return. Coppolella is under contract through 2019, and the Braves plan to hire another top executive to work under him, sources said.
Adding to the palace intrigue: Schuerholz’s son, Jonathan, is the Braves’ assistant farm director and eventually could assume a larger role.
Both Hart and Coppolella declined comment and John Schuerholz did not respond to a request for comment.
“It’s about time something like this happens,” a second club official said, referring to the pending changes in the organization and others that might follow. “It’s not pretty. But it has to be done.”
Among the changes:
*Trembley will return to the role of field coordinator that he held with the Braves in 2011 and ’12 and is comfortable resuming, according to sources. Chiti will replace Trembley as farm director, and Wallace will replace Chiti as director of pitching.
*Clark will be reassigned, becoming a senior advisor on amateur scouting, and will perform essentially the same duties while working in his area of expertise, according to Braves officials.
Clark, who did not respond to a request for comment, worked for the Braves from 1989 to 2009, then left for the Nationals before returning in ’14. Schuerholz mentioned Clark’s contributions in his Hall of Fame speech.
*Williams will also be reassigned, becoming a major-league scout, and his duties will also remain largely unchanged, Braves officials said.
*Ryan, the Braves’ director of baseball operations, will become a special assistant to the GM.
Ryan previously managed the day-to-day functions of the club’s baseball operation while overseeing the Braves’ professional scouting department, according to the team’s media guide, and he also designed and oversaw the development of Tomahawk, the team’s proprietary baseball operations analytics platform.
Ryan and Williams both declined comment.
(AP Photo)
