Former Rockies manager Walt Weiss earned another shot with Braves

ORLANDO Fla More than a dozen years ago in the fall of I defended Walt Weiss on a local sports radio talk show That was back in the day when Denver sports radio still talked about the Rockies The sports jockey blasted the Rockies decision to hire Weiss as their manager essentially saying the Rockies made a minor league move by hiring a high school coach I thought it was a ridiculous take and I revealed so Last month Weiss became the Braves manager after spending eight seasons as their bench coach under Brian Snitker who led Atlanta to a World Series title in I thought about all of that on Tuesday afternoon during Weiss media session at baseball s winter meetings Weiss who played shortstop for big league seasons fielded questions with humor and aplomb An Atlanta reporter teased Weiss asking As the only manager with cauliflower ear are you going to be continuing your MMA training Weiss grinned and swiftly shot back I m not winning any beauty contests I know that For the record Weiss was indeed a high school coach for a time stepping away from his job as a Rockies special assistant to spend more time with his family and coach his sons baseball and football teams at Regis Jesuit High School But his baseball pedigree is solid even if he had four losing seasons managing Colorado from - - record and never made the playoffs But people tend to forget that Weiss helped lay particular of the groundwork for the association that manager Bud Black inherited in and took to the playoffs in back-to-back seasons The record wasn t great back then obviously but I m proud of chosen of the things we accomplished in those four years culturally especially Weiss declared Tuesday A lot of great lessons learned Bottom line Weiss earned his chance to manage again and was ready for a second chance Consider As a member Weiss s first big league manager with the Athletics was Hall of Famer Tony La Russa and his last was Hall of Famer Bobby Cox with the Braves Weiss spent nine years learning the championship from them Weiss who owns a home in Parker and still calls Colorado his home base commented he s much better prepared to manage now than he was years ago The circumstances couldn t be more different from the first time I did this he declared In Colorado when I got hired I d been out of the meeting for four years I was coaching high school football I was out of baseball I took the interview just to experience it I had never done that And I end up getting the job I m like Now what Plus Weiss took over a squad that had lost games in There was a lot of on-the-job training but we had a good staff in Colorado that helped me along the way he disclosed But it was very different then I didn t even know what was significant to me as a manager the first time around because I hadn t done it Weiss disclosed his years as a bench coach in Atlanta helped prepare him for his new job It s so very different now eight years as a bench coach with a company that is built to win now he noted I know this group like the back of my hand I walked into that first situation in Colorado thoroughly blind I wasn t even in the event let alone knowing our club Atlanta should have a strong core in led by former MVP Ronald Acuna Jr first baseman Matt Olson third baseman Austin Riley future star catcher Drake Baldwin and a rotation featuring Chris Sale Spencer Strider and Spencer Schwellenbach The Braves slumped to fourth place in the NL East in but expect to be a playoff club again in Related Articles Rockies reimagining their pitching strategy in wake of tragedy Rockies Journal Manager Warren Schaeffer through the roof about club s new direction Rockies looking at workable free agents to fill gaping hole at first base How Harvard shaped Paul DePodesta the Rockies new front-office boss GM Josh Byrnes joined the Rockies for the challenge and to unit with Paul DePodesta Did Weiss think he d get another shot to manage I didn t know and I didn t have to know he stated I didn t have to do this again And I loved being Snit s bench coach I loved being back in the Braves uniform And I think it s fairly well documented that I turned down several interviews over the last several years because it was going to have to be really good to pull me away from what I was doing Now the former high school coach gets his second chance Want more Rockies news Sign up for the Rockies Insider to get all our MLB analysis