Braves News: Impressive Prospect in Arizona, Chipper Jones As Hitting Coach, and WARNings In The Battery Atlanta

Here's some of the news and notes you might have missed from this week

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Running wild in Arizona

The Braves sent a surprisingly pedigreed contingent to the Arizona Fall League, led by starters Drue Hackenberg and Luke Sinnard and third baseman Nacho Alvarez Jr., but it’s outfielder Patrick Clohisy that’s getting the most headlines from the desert so far.

Despite being sent to the desert with an edict to tap into more extra-base power, it’s Clohisy’s legs that are garnering the attention. The 23-year-old leads the AFL with seven steals after the season’s first week, three more than vaunted Enrique Bradfield of the Baltimore Orioles, who was lauded at draft time for his 80-grade speed.

It’s a continuation of an electric minor league season, one that saw Clohisy swipe 79 bags across two levels of Atlanta’s system, the third-highest total in all of Minor League Baseball. “I learned a lot through talking to coaches and just kind of picking their minds,” Clohisy told MLB.com’s Jesse Borek this week. “Just trusting myself – trusting the reads, trusting my speed and really not holding back. Always trying to be aggressive and never taking my foot off the gas.”

That aggressiveness and raw speed show up in his outfield defense as well, with the youngster frequently being highlighted for impressive catches on social media. “I think it’s one of the best parts of my game and it’s something I work on every day, and I do take pride in it, stealing outs,” Clohisy said. “It adds up in the game, and then when hopefully you get the opportunity to keep moving up, you know that’s gonna matter when you’re out there.”

Clohisy hit .254 in 131 minor league games for Atlanta this year, including .270 with 13 multi-hit games and a .711 OPS for Double-A Columbus in the season’s final 39 games.

Here’s a clip of MLB.com’s interview with Clohisy, conducted earlier this week in Glendale, Arizona.

Chipper will coach, but not manage

Hall of Famer and franchise legend Chipper Jones has softened his infamous hard-line stance on being a full-time coach that he discussed during the All-Star Break.

Speaking to reporters around the Futures Game, where Chipper was manager of the National League’s prospect squad, Chipper admitted that he did not have the “complete commitment” required to take a full-time coaching role.

“I’ve still got three boys at home and seven boys in total,” Jones said. “They keep me plenty busy. You have to be completely committed to be a coach or a manager. And I just don’t know that I could serve the spot as well as I should, because I’m, quite frankly, being pulled in more important directions.”

But speaking to 680 The Fan last week, Chipper admitted that his family has given their blessing if he wants to become a full-time coach…it just won’t be the manager. “I do not wish to manage, at all,” but he’s open to being an assistant coach. “I have the feeling that I could be a very, very good hitting coach.”

The evidence we have backs up Chipper’s assertion. He’s on the record as having helped hitting coach Tim Hyers get Michael Harris II going at the plate right before the All-Star Break, while I frequently go back and listen to Chipper discuss working with Austin Riley during the 2022 season. In an 85-second clip, Chipper is able to eloquently explain how he got Riley to “change his sights” to cure his vulnerability to sliders down and away.

The next manager would be better off for finding a way to keep Jones involved in the day-to-day of Atlanta’s hitters. We discussed the logistics of that on a recent episode of Braves Today.

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WARNings in The Battery Atlanta

Comcast, a prominent tenant of The Battery Atlanta located just outside the 1st base gate of Truist Park, is shedding some jobs from its tower overlooking the ballpark. Per Atlanta Business Chronicle, Comcast has filed notices of 240 pending job cuts at the location, estimated to hold 884 employees.

The notices, filed to comply with the Worker Adjustment and Retaining Notification (WARN) Act, explain that the company’s Central division, one of two headquartered in this office, will be disbanded and folded into other existing divisions at the start of 2026. The job losses are evenly spread across several roles, including public relations, finance, data analytics, regulatory affairs, and more.

Comcast senior vice president of government affairs Michael Mitchell, quoted in the WARN notice, explained that the losses to the region are being limited to just those displaced employees. “These changes will not impact Comcast’s continuing technology and infrastructure investments in Georgia and the Greater Atlanta area.” The company’s Big South region, also housed in the same office and covering a large portion of the Southeast (outside of Florida), will remain in place.

It’s going to be interesting to see how economic changes and the different approach to non-retail Commercial Real Estate after the 2020 pandemic could impact the profitability of The Battery Atlanta. Wholly owned by Atlanta Braves Holdings ($BATRA), the real estate holdings contributed $25.1M to the team’s bottom line in the 2nd quarter of 2025. Any sort of givebacks or renegotiations of leases won’t be recognized in the results shared on BATRA’s next earnings call, scheduled for November 5th, but could potentially impact the upward growth of mixed-use development earnings we’ve seen over the last few quarters.

(And yes, we’re already signed up for that call. Be on the lookout for a newsletter breaking down everything you need to know about BATRA’s revenue after that earnings call. Here is Q2’s breakdown.)

Atlanta's Struggles on The Field Haven't Tanked $BATRA Revenues — Yet

A surprising shortstop fallback option

Both Braves fans and the front office are waiting with baited breath to find out if shortstop Ha-Seong Kim, who was added on waivers late in the season, will pick up his $16M player option for the 2026 season. But given the barren state of the free agent market at the position, many, including MLB.com’s Mark Bowman, expect Kim to decline the option and head to free agency.

CJ Nitkowski of FanDuel Sports Network and Sirius XM Radio has a surprising fallback option: Texas Rangers shortstop Corey Seager. In a recent episode of his podcast “The Drive In”, Nitkowski discussed fallback options for the Braves and brought up a potential trade for Seager.

“Seems to me like he’d be a perfect fit here in Atlanta. […] Why do I think about Corey Seager as a possibility? Remember when (manager) Bruce Bochy wasn’t brought back, there was some talk about ‘financial uncertainty’ with the Texas Rangers. Maybe Corey Seager is available.”

Listen, Braves Today is not going to get in the business of relaying every single dumb trade rumor that comes across the internet. But when it’s from someone like Nitkowski, who came to Atlanta after seven years of award-winning work on the Texas Rangers television broadcasts, I found it at least worth mentioning.

If you want to know more about the potential trade and some of the (complicated) logistics, here’s an excerpt from Thursday’s Braves Today podcast where we discussed the rumor and the obstacles to getting a deal across the finish line.