The established formula for winning the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s Manager of the Year Award is a regular-season result that greatly exceeds preseason expectation. Brian Snitker and Bob Melvin fit that formula perfectly in 2018, which made the announcement Tuesday night that they were selected as their respective leagues’ top skippers relatively unsurprising.

As the Braves prepare to open the National League Division Series against the Dodgers on Thursday night, it’s incredible to think about where Snitker was from a mental perspective just more than a year ago, when his battles with Atlanta’s former general manager, John Coppolella, and former president of baseball operations, John Hart, had brought Snitker to the brink of giving up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“I didn’t want to leave,” Snitker said. “I thought for a while, ‘Well, I might have to,’ but I didn’t want to. There are some times with your personal beliefs and who you are that you’ve got to stick up for yourself, too. I don’t know if I’ve done that enough for me. But I knew it was about me and my family.”

While Snitker sat in his Miami-area hotel room during the morning hours of Oct. 1, 2017, he was stewing about the night before. Coppolella was upset about the manager’s decision to stick with Matt Kemp as a pinch-hitter, instead of inserting left-handed-hitting Matt Adams when the Marlins brought in right-hander Brad Ziegler with the bases loaded and one out in the ninth inning of a game that had no postseason implications.

Snitker called a clubhouse employee back in Atlanta. His instructions were simple: “Pack my things, I’m not coming back.” There were only two games left to play, and he had no desire to continue working with Coppolella, who would have likely lobbied for a managerial change had his life not been turned upside down by the end of that same weekend.