ORLANDO, Fla. — More than a dozen years ago, in the fall of 2013, 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 said 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 2021. I thought about all of that on Tuesday afternoon during Weiss’ media session at baseball’s winter meetings. Weiss, who played shortstop for 14 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 quickly 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 2013-16 (283-365 record) and never made the playoffs. But people tend to forget that Weiss helped lay some of the groundwork for the team that manager Bud Black inherited in 2017 and took to the playoffs in back-to-back seasons. “The record wasn’t great back then, obviously, but I’m proud of some of the things we accomplished in those four years — culturally, especially,” Weiss said 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 player, 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 game from them. Weiss, who owns a home in Parker and still calls Colorado his “home base,” said he’s much better prepared to manage now than he was 13 years ago. “The circumstances couldn’t be more different from the first time I did this,” he said. “In Colorado, when I got hired, I’d been out of the game 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 team that had lost 98 games in 2012. “There was a lot of on-the-job training, but we had a good staff in Colorado that helped me along the way,” he said. “But it was very different then. I didn’t even know what was important to me as a manager the first time around because I hadn’t done it.” Weiss said 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 team that is built to win now,” he said. “I know this team like the back of my hand. I walked into that first situation in Colorado completely blind. I wasn’t even in the game, let alone knowing our team.” Atlanta should have a strong core in 2026, 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 2025, but expect to be a playoff team again in ’26. Related Articles Rockies ‘reimagining’ their pitching strategy in wake of 2025 disaster Rockies Journal: Manager Warren Schaeffer ‘through the roof’ about team’s new direction Rockies looking at possible 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 team 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 said. “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 some 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. ...read more read less