The Atlanta Braves named John Hart president of baseball operations, the team announced on Thursday.
Braves name John Hart president of baseball operations
Atlanta will go forward with Hart and John Coppolella performing GM duties, eliminating the need for another executive at that level.
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Hart joined the Braves in November of 2013 as a senior advisor and was named interim general manager on Sept. 27, 2014, after the club removed Frank Wren from his duties as GM. Hart reportedly turned down an offer to become the team’s GM earlier this month, but will now perform those duties and others, team president John Schuerholz said in a press conference Thursday.
“[Hart] will have many responsibilities that a general manager of a team would have,” Schuerholz explained. “By his side, his right hand man will be [longtime assistant GM] John Coppolella. They will work in unison to continue to move this organization forward as they have done over the last three weeks and continue to grow.”
"We have no plans at the moment to add another person in our baseball operations organization," Schuerholtz added, perhaps putting an official end to previous speculation involving Royals GM Dayton Moore and former Rockies GM Dan O'Dowd.
Hart said the first order of business is to search for what he feels are the right types of personnel.
“I like players that care more about winning than anything else,” Hart said. “It’s a team game, and it is about winning. We want to make sure we have those kinds of players.”
Hart previously served as GM for the Cleveland Indians and Texas Rangers. While in Cleveland, Hart's teams won six division titles and appeared in two World Series. He didn't have quite as much success in Texas, missing out on the postseason in all four years of his tenure.
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