I've Finally Decided On My Top Managerial Candidate for the Atlanta Braves

Tigers bench coach George Lombard has a lot of the intangible qualities that are a hallmark of great managers

This is going to come off as a bit self-aggrandizing, but I’ve had a lot of people ask who I want the Atlanta Braves to hire. As an independent who covers the organization to the best of my abilities, I guess my perspective is a bit different and unique from most of the career beat writers who are working for established, legacy outlets, so that’s why they want to know.

If I had my choice, the Atlanta Braves would hire George Lombard as their next manager. Let’s talk about why.

What you need to know about George Lombard

George Paul Lombard Sr. is a former MLB outfielder and current coach, most recently with the Detroit Tigers. The 50-year-old is an Atlanta native, having been born in Atlanta, attending The Lovett School¹ in his youth, and being drafted by his hometown Braves in the 2nd round of the 1994 MLB Draft.

So, if you wanted Braves ties, go ahead and check that box.

Lombard debuted for Atlanta in 1998 and got into 39 games over the next three seasons as a bench corner outfielder, finishing with a .157 average before being traded to the Detroit Tigers. He was in and out of the major leagues after that, spending time with six different organizations before finally retiring in 2009.

He almost immediately went into coaching, spending 2010 with the Short Season A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox and moving throughout their system before taking a job as Atlanta’s minor league field coordinator in September 2015. After less than three months on the job, however, Lombard left Atlanta for a major league opportunity - first base coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He spent five seasons in LA before moving to Detroit as the bench coach, a position he’s held for five seasons.

What he has that makes him unique as a candidate

I believe that Lombard is as well-suited as any candidate on the market to connect with the players he’d be asked to lead.

First, he understands their struggles - he’s a career .220 hitter with eight home runs and 23 stolen bases in his career, accumulated over 144 games spread across six different (and non-consecutive) major league seasons. He knows that this game is hard.

That sounds like a joke, but it matters. Baseball is a sport built around failure - if a batter is able to get a hit four times out of ten, he’s bound to be a Hall of Famer. Just doing it three times out of ten is enough to lead all of baseball in batting average. This man struck out 28.6% of the time in an era of baseball that had a 16.7% strikeout rate; he understands failure.

But he’s also looked for ways to better connect with modern players. He speaks fluent Spanish, a trait that’s incredibly beneficial when you consider that just under 30% of 2025 Opening Day rosters were from Latin America and predominantly native Spanish speakers, per Major League Baseball.

Just to clarify, I’m not saying speaking Spanish is a requirement - Brian Snitker didn’t, and he received plenty of praise from players like Ozzie Albies and Marcell Ozuna. A small part of me always wondered, though, if those relationships could have been better if other players were able to converse with Snit in either their native Spanish or without a translator serving as a go-between.²

But Lombard’s done more than just learn Spanish to better connect with players. As the grandson of a Harvard Business School senior associate dean and cousin of a current Yale University professor, Lombard knew he needed more education. He graduated with a degree in psychology in December 2015, just weeks after accepting a job offer from the Dodgers.

As the son of a civil rights organizer who worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 60s and 70s (the FBI dossier on Posy Lombard is 313 pages), Lombard has made a practice of intentionally reaching out and connecting with different groups during his baseball career, bridging the gap with his knowledge and life experience. There are several stories out there about his work at this inside the Dodgers organization during the spring and summer of 2020.

Where he checks the same boxes as most candidates

With the caveat that we don’t entirely know how Lombard feels about analytics from an ‘observable experience’ perspective, I don’t have a bad feeling on this one. Lombard’s worked for some organizations that are not only deeply versed in analytics but are some of the league’s leaders in their development and application.

The Los Angeles Dodgers continue to be the class of baseball in almost every respect, including their embrace of analytics. Per an independent report from Amrit Vignesh, the Dodgers are estimated to have one of MLB’s largest research and development staffs in all of baseball, numbering 35 when the MLB average is thought to be in the low 20s. The Tigers are right below LA with 34, per Vignesh’s investigation.³

It’s safe to assume that Lombard is at least open to getting that data and finding ways to optimize what he wants to do, given the fact that he’s now spent ten seasons with some of the most analytically versed clubs in the league.

Anthopoulos also emphasized the need for a healthy partnership with the new manager, as he doesn’t want to dictate roster or lineup moves to the dugout. He’s at least a bit familiar with Lombard - they both worked for Los Angeles for 2016 and 2017, before Anthopoulos left to come to Atlanta as the new general manager.

Reinforcing that comfort is the fact that Lombard’s boss in Detroit, manager A.J. Hinch, worked for the mid-2010s Houston Astros at the same time as several prominent Braves front office members, including Mike Fast (Senior VP of baseball development), Pete Putilla (current assistant GM), and Ronit Shah (Vice President of Amateur Scouting).

Doing the background work shouldn’t be hard, is what I’m saying.

Where Lombard is lacking

The biggest flaw in his profile, and it’s not a minor one, is a lack of experience as a Major League manager. Several of the other names rumored to be potential candidates, including David Ross and Walt Weiss, have multiple seasons of managerial experience in the bigs under their belts.

Alex Anthopoulos wasn’t too concerned about that, though, when we spoke two weeks ago:

While it’s true that prior managerial experience is not a prerequisite to being a successful manager - both Stephen Vogt (Guardians) and Aaron Boone (Yankees) are in their first coaching jobs - it does feel like that helps. Just pointing out the two major success stories without acknowledging the guys who have struggled in their first chance at the big chair is textbook survivorship bias. I’ve maintained the position that trying to catch the Vogt lightning in a bottle again is a tall task, but building a strong and experienced staff around a first-time manager can help mitigate some of those risks.

How much does this really matter?

I’m (apparently controversially) of the opinion that the manager doesn’t win or lose games, for the most part. My expectation is that the manager directly swings two or three contests a year, mostly on either nailing or failing the bullpen decisions, but that collective player performance is by far the biggest factor towards a team’s success or failure.

That being said, there are a lot of ways that the manager can help those players perform.

Arguably, the biggest job of a modern MLB manager is keeping the vibes of a club on track. Pushing guys when they need it, offering praise (publicly) or criticism (privately), and keeping everyone focused on the larger goal of winning a World Series.

I think being young enough to be in tune with a modern clubhouse, as well as being both bilingual and well-versed in psychology, can help Lombard achieve those goals.

And while there are several likely candidates I think would work out just fine in the big chair in Atlanta, George Lombard Sr. would get my vote.

1. Former Braves GM John Schuerholz sent his kids to this same school, with his son Jon being drafted in 1999’s 37th round but eschewing going pro to attend nearby Auburn…where Atlanta then took him again, this time in 2002’s 8th round.

2. Shoutout Franco Garcia. Absolutely the best - I will always ride for that guy.

3. Since this is a Braves newsletter, Atlanta is towards the bottom of this list with just 12, although sources I’ve spoken to tell me that the number is much closer to the average. The Braves just aren’t very forthcoming with publicly disclosing their job titles, etc so that an accurate count can be identified.