Eric Young Sr., Eric Young Sr.

When you consider everything, why not Eric Young Sr. as the next manager of the Atlanta Braves?

Yeah, it should be Eric Young Sr., known as E.Y. and the owner of the most perfectly groomed beard in Major League Baseball.

Given Young’s resume (and his splendid connection to somebody with the Braves named Ronald Acuna Jr.), he would keep the bottom line vibrant for a franchise ranked eighth by Forbes in team valuations at $3 billion.

“Being a manager would be the ultimate accomplishment,” Young once told me, reflecting on a Major League career with 15 years as a productive hitter (.283 lifetime average and six seasons with 40 or more stolen bases) and 14 years after that as an effective coach of baserunning and outfield play for four teams.

Young’s coaching stops included the Braves for six seasons through 2023, which was when Acuna won National League Most Valuable Player honors.

If you look closely, Young’s fingerprints are all over the plaque.

“Eric was the guy. Eric was the main guy who worked with Ronald,” Ron Washington told me, and Washington left the Braves as third base coach and infield guru after that 2023 season to become the manager of the Los Angeles Angels. He took Young with him as his third base coach before Young switched to first base to fill a need for the franchise.

Not coincidentally, the Angels soared after that.

Young told me in the past, “I’ve been preparing myself for an opportunity to manage one day. I’ve learned from a lot of managers as a player, coach and analyst for ESPN, so if an opening occurs, I hope I’m considered.”

That opening is coming.

Brian Snitker is the Braves’ current manager, but his contract of $4 million per year expires at the end of what has evolved into a brutal season for a team he took to the NL Championship Series twice and a 2021 World Series title during seven consecutive trips to the playoffs through 2024. He also won 2018 NL Manager of the Year honors within his decade in charge of the Braves.

Even so, I reported last month during my weekly appearance on Atlanta’s WSB-TV Sports Zone Sunday show that Snitker suggested to me that he won’t manage the Braves or anybody else in 2026 or beyond.

“This season has worn me out,” Snitker told me, long before media reports surfaced this week about his retirement plans during a Braves’ season of significant injuries, underperforming players and MLB-leading losses in one-run games.

The Braves mostly have been crushed lately.

Even though the San Francisco Giants were reeling entering Atlanta this week, they left with back-to-back victories of 9-0 and 9-3. The Braves dropped to a season-low 13 games below .500 at 44-57 and fell 14 games behind first place in the National League East and 10 1/2 games from the NL’s last Wild Card spot.

Snitker turns 70 in October, and for perspective, Baseball Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox was so revered by fans and officials of the Braves that he has a statue outside of Truist Park.

Cox was gently pushed into retirement after the 2010 season.

He was 68, two years younger than Snitker.

To replace Snitker, who will remain with the Braves in some capacity after nearly 50 years with the franchise, team bosses want somebody who can handle a roster filled with established players.

That bolds well on the surface for Walt Weiss, the Braves’ bench coach since 2017, and Skip Schumaker, a former NL Manager of the Year. Unlike Young, they are among the rumored choices in national circles to follow Snitker.

Weiss, 61, managed the Colorado Rockies for four years through 1997, but his record was less than mediocre (283-365). As for Schumaker, 45, he managed just shy of two years with the Miami Marlins before he and ownership decided to part ways prior to the end of the 2024 season.

There also are other managerial possibilities, and they have Braves ties.

Mark DeRosa, 50, charmed fans and bosses as a Braves player from 1998 through 2004, and he managed Team USA during the 2023 World Baseball Classic to the championship game before losing.

He’ll return in that role for 2026.

Then there is David Ross, 48, another former Braves player (2009-2012) with an engaging personality, and he managed the Chicago Cubs from 2020-2023 while producing meager results (262-284).

Eric Young Sr.

At 58, that’s the guy.

We’re back to Acuna.

This is Acuna’s eighth season in the Major Leagues, and he already has five All-Star Game appearances, three Silver Slugger Awards and those NL MVP honors. He told me Washington and Young did as much as anybody to turn him into a superstar among superstars.

Young appreciated Acuna’s praise.

“If young players have confidence, you can push them to another level,” Young told me during his Braves days about Acuna. “If I have to work on the confidence and on the skill work at the same time, that’s going to take a little longer, but I realized this kid had a lot of confidence, and that was before we even got on the field.

“Now, once we got out there, starting when I began working with him in the outfield, you could see the talent, and it’s like, there’s no question this guy’s going to be special.”

Young was omniscient.

Here’s another thing: The Braves were founded in 1871, and they are the longest continuously operating franchise in the Major Leagues. This is their 60th season in Atlanta, the home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Not only that, but the Braves’ metropolitan area features the second-largest population of African Americans in the country at 2.3 million behind only New York’s 3.8 million.

The Braves of Boston, Milwaukee and even Atlanta have never had an African American manager.

Young would be the first.

So, here’s the bigger thing: If the Braves hire Young, he would join Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Will Venable of the Chicago White Sox and Washington as the only African American managers in the Major Leagues, and Hank Aaron would smile even more Up There.

I know.

Courtesy of our nearly 40-year relationship, I was closer to Aaron than any reporter in history. He spent much of his life after slamming 755 as a baseball executive often using me to express his desire for the Major Leagues to have significantly more African American players and managers.

Aaron did so until his death in January 2021, and he was a baseball executive for 45 years with what team?

Well, it was the team that featured Aaron as its Baseball Hall of Fame player for 21 seasons. It was the team that honors him every year with events. It was the team with his statue inside its ballpark. It was the team that would do his legacy proud by hiring Eric Young Sr. as manager next season.

Yup, the Braves.