Hart: Atlanta Braves Barely Exchanged Names

President of Baseball operations for the Atlanta Braves says speculation the Braves were hard in after Chris Sale is overstating things; the Braves barley exchanged names.

Contrary to reports – mostly by reporters who visit Atlanta under duress – the Atlanta Braves aren’t “aggressively swapping offers” nor are they in a group “trying hardest” to land Chris Sale unless that group isn’t trying very hard.

Atlanta Braves Doing Due Diligence – Not In Pursuit

There are several truisms of hot stove league news, the most important of those to remember is that sports reporters have deadlines and must file stories. Following on from that is the desire by many to first rather than absolutely accurate. They must also produce story-lines that generate web page visits that in turn generate revenue.

If you’ve ever played telephone you’ll and knowing those things it’s easy to understand how a few words  from a “source” become hot pursuit.

• A source tells a sports writer that the Braves have been in touch with the White Sox a couple of times and Sale’s name came up.
• The writer hears Braves, Sale, multiple times and thinks that means they are really interested there must be more he/she/they can’t tell me.
• Said sports writer Tweets about this. Another writers see it ask their source who says yea the Braves called
• The other writer thinks – wow I have two sources this must be real
• Suddenly the Braves are named by multiple sources and trying hard to land Sale

I’ve said multiple times since this started that it makes no sense to undo all that’s been done to this point; empty the minors for one player when the team isn’t ready to contend.  Sometimes I get things right.