What was announced on December 4 became official for Atlanta on Thursday. Rick Kranitz is now officially the Atlanta Braves new pitching coach.
Kranitz comes with a lengthy list of accolades and stops around the big leagues. The 60-year-old earned Baseball America’s Major League Coach of the Year award after mentoring the nearly all-rookie rotation to a record-setting performance, with four pitchers reaching the 10-win plateau. While those four rookies — Josh Johnson, Ricky Nolasco, Scott Olsen, and Anibal Sanchez — haven’t gone on to Hall of Fame careers, they all became household names, with Sanchez having a solid bounce back season with the Braves in 2018.