Winter Meetings Preview: John Hart Speaks
By Jeff Schafer
The 113th annual Major League Baseball Winter Meetings will be held in San Diego for the first time in nearly three decades. The meetings will be held on December 7th through December 11th at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. This will be the largest gathering of baseball executives in the world and looks to be a very busy one for the Atlanta Braves.
The Braves will be in many discussions about two of their players while trying to fill their own gaps in the roster. Justin Upton and Evan Gattis will continue to stay on the “trade block” as we head into Monday morning. Many teams have already made the call for these players but the Braves have continued to say “it’s not enough”.
Atlanta has already had a handful of stories this offseason. After the firing of former GM, Frank Wren, and the promotion of Hart to President of Baseball Operations, the Braves sent Jason Heyward to the St. Louis Cardinals in return for pitcher Shelby Miller.
Hart told David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution…
“We came (into the offseason) looking to add some pitching to our club, and that’s hopefully what we’ve done,” Hart said. “And to do it we had to trade one of our outfielders that we like in Heyward. It was a good baseball deal, we solved a pitching hole we had, and gave ourselves something for the future. We’ve also added a bullpen guy (free agent Jim Johnson) and (reliever Michael) Kohn as well; we like him quite a bit. So we’ve been focusing on the pitching.”
Pitching, pitching and more pitching…that is a part of “The Braves Way” and what Hart will strive for this offseason.
Signings and trades have happened already and we haven’t even gotten to the Winter Meetings. Now what…
“Now our focus with our big-league club is we’d like to add another starter, second base is an area that we’re looking at, and possibly a backup catcher,” Hart said. “If we’re able to solve those three areas, I think we can get to spring training and field a complete club. But it may not happen at these meetings; it may not happen until we get out of Florida, until early April.”
Hart has already told the media that he would be OK with keeping Upton and Gattis. Do we here at Tomahawk Take think that is a realistic statement? I think it’s part true, part false. I think Hart would be alright keeping one of these guys but not both.
Meaning we’ll probably see moves made shortly…stay tuned to Tomahawk Take as we look at the good, bad and ugly of the Winter Meetings.