TODAY: The report is not accurate, Schuerholz tells David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Though he did not provide details as to where things stand, the club president said: “at best the article was not accurate with either the facts or the assumptions.”
YESTERDAY: John Hart has declined the chance to take over full-time as the Braves GM, Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports reports. For the time being, he will stay in the temporary GM seat before shifting to an advisory role with the organization when a permanent solution is arrived upon.
The club is “focused” on assistant GM John Coppolella and Royals GM Dayton Moore, says Passan, though at this point there has been no correspondence with Moore. Atlanta is unsure whether he would be interested in leaving Kansas City, for obvious reasons. One other name that has been discussed internally, per Passan, is recently-resigned Rockies GM Dan O’Dowd.
The team will wait to take action until after the Royals’ postseason run is over, according to Passan, which would appear to indicate very strong interest in Moore. At this point, it would appear that whoever takes over may not have the chance to make several key decisions (e.g., whether to issue Ervin Santana a qualifying offer), or may need to make them on a fairly short timeline.
Hart, a veteran executive who first joined Atlanta as a senior adviser, was said to be mulling the offer but leaning towards declining the full-time gig and its many responsibilities. He figures to remain an important figure in the organization, along with president John Schuerholz and former GM and manager Bobby Cox.
It remains unclear whether the Braves will ultimately open a full-blown hiring process, as did the Padres and Diamondbacks, for example. They could instead follow one of the paths taken recently by the Dodgers (making a targeted external hire) and Rockies (promoting from within).
Just say no to O’Dowd.
O’Dowd worked for Hart in Cleveland.
Didn’t Hart already decline when he was offered it right after Wren got fired?
So what you’re saying is there’s hope whoever we bring in will decide it won’t be a good idea to let Fredi continue to manage.
There is a sliver of hope Braves fans. There is a sliver of hope. Here’s to hiring a GM who doesn’t agree with Fredi being here.
No, there’s no hope. The decision has been made, he’s coming back for another season. The new GM won’t be allowed to make that call, and in any event the only people they’re considering for the job are people they know and like and who will presumably be in lockstep with them regarding Fredi anyway.
Hopefully the Braves will offered the GM job to Tom Hart, benign the son of John Hart he is going to be a great GM.
Don’t underestimate the O’Dowd rumor. I believe there are some Rockies expatriates within the Braves organization.
Throw out Coppolella’s name and you have two fantastic candidates. A guy in Moore (a milquetoast Schuerholz sycophant) who KC fans would still happily run out of town regardless of what they’re doing in the playoffs and a guy in O’Dowd who has overseen the Rockies recent nosedive and was moments away from a termination.
God forbid John Schuerholz and Bobby Cox do what the Diamondbacks/Padres did and go with a far and wide search. They might actually find a qualified candidate who has a fresh perspective and 21st century mindset instead of the outdated, country club, hire your closest friends mentality entrenched in the Braves FO.
You’re hired.
Bobby Cox for GM
Maybe he’d hire himself as manager again too.
Did you seriously just describe someone as a milquetoast sycophant in a comment on a baseball blog?
Baseball is itself a tight circle, so it’s not likely that any team gets too wild with their searches.
What are you even talking about? You talk about why people don’t like Moore & O’ Dowd, then suggest they would be great candidates for Braves GM. Coppolella’s clearly the best candidate here, although sure, taking a little more time to interview more candidates wouldn’t be the worst thing….say like hiring Dan O’ Dowd…
Are you familiar with Coppolella?
The only people in KC that want to run Moore out of town are our very vocal blogging community who worship the SABR community and are pretty confident they would be better GM’s than most of MLB. The fact that Moore took this organization from where it was to a probable world series is pretty close to a miracle
Yes, the Royals are on the opposite end of the spectrum from the stat community. The Giants as well.
I think how much a team does or doesnt use stats is all perception, and media narrative. no one really knows unless you are in the room, and none of us are. Either way lets assume thats true. The Giants and Royals prove one way is no better than the other. There is more than one way to skin a cat as they say
I might not be in the room, but Brian Saben and Dayton Morre have spoken about not being engrossed with stats – in fact, Saben is on record as saying he has no use for them.
Just sayin’
Exactly. The media doesn’t even know a whole lot more than regular people do
Stats or no stats…its the funded teams at advantage, especially now that virtually every market tries to incorporate some kind of analysis.
No, the Phillies are.
If the Royals win five more games this October, Dayton Moore is going to be the king of Kansas City. Yes, he’s made some mistakes along the way, but he’s also done what he said he would do.
There was a time when some of those people in the “SABR community” would have been better GM’s than a lot of MLB, but the establishment has caught up to advanced metrics. And in his own way, Moore has done exactly what the Moneyball crowd did–he’s taken skills that are undervalued in the marketplace right now (defense and baserunning), and he’s built a winning team around that.
Sabremetrics places a high emphasis on defense. Without advanced metrics, there’s really no case for Alex Gordon’s MVP candidacy. That 6.6 WAR looks a lot better than his .266 batting average…
People really do have a tendency to take advanced stats wrong….they typically show that what a casual observer would assess as a good player is actually a good player. Where they have helped are the margins. It’s destroyed the notion of a hollow .300 avg. But… taken in a small sample almost any serious strategy can be effective.
I still believe they need to consider moving on from Ned Yost. He singlehandedly made their season interesting by costing the division title and that ludicrous play in bullpen call.
With all the playoff revenue they’ll get plus an invigorated fanbase, Moore will have a very fun offseason. Why would he want to leave that to deal with the Braves?
Media speculation
Perhaps it’ll give them the assets to resign Shields…but I still question where Glass allows the money to go. Part of me pictures him out wallet shopping now.
NO’Dowd!
It’d be awesome if we could steal Moore, but I don’t see it happening. He built that club from nothing into a legitimate Series contender this year.
“At best the article was inaccurate..” That’s quite a slap to a journalist.