The John Hart Plan
By Fred Owens
John Hart’s plan to rebuild reconfigure restructure retool the Braves included trading for Juan Uribe and adding seemingly every rehabbing TJ arm in the country. It is confusing so let’s look at the John Hart Plan.
The John Hart Plan
Since he took over Hart has said the Braves haven’t given up on the season while at the same time making few moves that could be seen as helping them challenge this year. Recently he’s said in interviews “we know who we are.” This has the fan base confused and while that’s not exactly the intended result he isn’t too upset that it happened. Let me turn on the spin demystifier 2015 and see if I can clarify what that means. Actually Walt Jocketty said part of it pretty well talking about the Reds’ plan for year.
"“Our plan is to be competitive as we can for as long as we can. . ."
That’s really every GM’s plan every year. For the Braves and Hart the rest of the statement they haven’t verbalized is, without doing anything stupid in a losing cause that cripples us in the long term. What does that mean?
History will not repeat itself.
At the trade deadline in 2007 John Schuerholtz traded a package of players for Mark Teixeira and Ron Mahay because at that time the Braves were within striking distance of the postseason. He knew that he needed a starter as well as a bat and a reliever. He couldn’t find a suitable arm that fit the budget so he decided to add one good bat and reinforce the bullpen hoping that could get them October. has a chance.
Teixeira did as advertised. In 2007 he posted a 1.020 OPS for the Braves with a .404 on base and .615 slugging that included 17 home runs, 9 doubles and a triple in 208 AB. That translated to 10 RC/G and a 2.0 rWAR. Mahay pitched to a 2.25 ERA and a 0.8rWAR in 28 IP. The Braves fell short because the starting pitching didn’t hold up. Even though the trade worked better than he could have hoped, he couldn’t provide the complete answer and since that time has been ridiculed for wasting the future. The John Hart Plan does not include a similar mistake.
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