Atlanta Braves New Prez Of Operations, John Hart Speaks

The Atlanta Braves went to social media around 11:30am this morning to announce that John Hart has accepted a three year deal dating to the 2017 season to be the new President, Baseball Operations for the Braves.  By 12:30pm, Hart and John Schierholtz were back in front of the navy blue backdrop with the Braves logos to make the announcement official to the media.

As Fred posted earlier today, Hart will be in the role of President, Baseball Operations and John Coppolella will serve as his right hand man but no other plans to add on any other baseball operations staff members.

On the podium, Hart spoke to the reporters BUT delivered a message specifically to the fans of the Atlanta Braves….

"To the fans that are out there, you want to expect that everybody that is associated with your team, with the Braves, is going to wake up every morning and everything that they are going to be doing during that day is going to be trying to make that team and that organization better.  That’s a pledge of mine, that I’m clearly here to make.  And I think it is for everybody that’s in the front office."

We’ve heard it since September 22nd (when the Braves fired Frank Wren), the Braves want to get back to “The Braves Way” and Hart seems very content to stay with this viewpoint.

Right now, we can only trust Hart, Schierholtz and everyone in the front office that they can turn this team around at the MLB level and minor leagues.

Hart went on at the press conference and seemed to imply that the Braves will be busy this offseason…

"I think if you examine our ball club, the question are going to be ‘what are you going to do with the club?’ and ‘what’s going to happen?’  Look, there’s a lot of teams out there now that are going to have a little more economics.  Maybe they’re going to jump out there and they’re going to make some mistakes.  There are going to be some clubs right now that are going to make some really good decision.  We want to be one of those clubs that makes the really good decisions in our player moves, our player acquisitions and what we do with our players."

Hart continues to stress on the commitment to winning and turning the page of a underachieving 2014 Braves season.

One other item that came out of the press conference is that the Braves front office and Manager Fredi Gonzalez are close to finalizing the coaching staff.  Though we’ve seen few rumors, we could possibly see our new hitting coach soon.