11-21-18

HOUSTON – Former University of North Georgia baseball player and coach Troy Snitker was promoted Wednesday to be one of the hitting coaches for the Houston Astros Major League Baseball team. Snitker had previously been the hitting coach for the Double-A Corpus Christi Hooks in the Astros organization.

“I am very proud of the success that Troy has had,” said UNG head baseball coach Tom Cantrell. “After giving his time to our program, both as a player and a coach, I am excited to see his hard work pay off by being promoted to the Astros coaching staff.”

Snitker played three seasons at North Georgia compiling a career .313 batting average with 23 doubles, 12 home runs and 84 RBI’s. In 2011, Snitker picked off 11 base runners and threw out another 25 would be base stealers and was named to the Peach Belt All Conference second team. That same year, Snitker was drafted in the 19th round (596th overall) by the Atlanta Braves. 

In his professional career, Snitker played for the Gulf Coast Braves, Danville Braves, Rome Braves and Lynchburg Hillcats. He also spent some time in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization and finished with the Maryland Blue Crabs in the Atlantic League. 

Snitker rejoined the program in 2014 as a graduate assistant, helping propel the Nighthawks to the 2015 PBC Championship and NCAA Southeast Region championship game. 

“[Troy] Snitker, we felt was a very influential, rising coach through our system,” Astros manager AJ Hinch said. “It’s been a quick rise through the system for him. A lot of our players who went on rehab last year raved about him, our [player development] people raved about him and he gets a great opportunity to come help us.”

This is Snitker’s fourth season in the Astros organization.