Julian Rip Joins Braves’ Organization, But Not as a Player

On his LinkedIn account, former Dutch hoofdklasse player Julian Rip announced he will join the organization of the Atlanta Braves. In the blog post below, you can read in what capacity.

Julian Rip was always one of the talented young players in Dutch baseball. Eventually, he went to the USA to try his luck as he committed to USC Upstate.

In 2014, Julian broke into the Dutch hoofdklasse with UVV from Utrecht. In his first two seasons, his playing time was limited to only four games per season. Eventually, in 2016, he played twenty-six games in which he batted .269.

In 2019, he made the step to USC Upstate, where he also followed the study that brings him the job with the Braves. In the past two years, Julian was the Graduate Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Spartans, from 2019 through 2021, he played for the team as well.

But through his LinkedIn account, Julian announced he has accepted a job as MiLB Strength and Conditioning Coach with the Atlanta Braves. This means that he will be stationed at the Augusta GreenJackets in North Augusta. He will be responsible for the strength and condition training of the players of the single A farm team of the Braves.

In a chat through Facebook Messenger, Julian stated he had applied for the job and after three rounds of talks, he was the lucky one.

Before joining the Augusta GreenJackets, Julian will attend Spring Training in Florida.

Julian will be responsible for the strength and conditioning of the players, for their strength program in the weight room, for warm-ups, and recovery, and also for load management.
This load management is a way to analyze the workload of the players to see how they feel, how they develop, and to make sure they are ready to play the next game. In other words, he keeps an eye on the players, to see if they don’t do too much so they can recover in time.

For Julian, this is a great adventure. Too bad he will be lost for Dutch baseball. He stated he agrees about this but that he wanted to focus on his social career. We all know that in Dutch baseball, there is not much money to be earned, so his decision to join the Braves’ organization is quite understandable.

I’d like to thank Julian for answering my questions and I wish him good luck in his new position.