The Atlanta Braves officially announced the hiring of John Coppolella as the team’s next general manager on Thursday.
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When the Braves dismissed Frank Wren as their GM on September 21, 2014, they opted not to fill his position immediately. Coppolella and Hart had split GM duties.
The Braves will formally announce this decision Thursday afternoon with a press conference. The 2015 season was his third as assistant general manager after being promoted to that role in October 2012.
“After watching John Coppolella do most of the heavy lifting that encompassed the massive reconstruction process their organization has undergone over the past year, the Braves will reward him by naming him their general manager”, Bowman wrote. He has been rated as a rising star in executive ranks for several years by industry insiders and baseball publications including Baseball America.Coppolella is completing his ninth season with the Braves and third as assistant GM. While John Hart will remain at the head of the front office as the president of baseball operations, Coppolella will officially assume the role that he has informally held since last season.
Coppollella did much of the legwork to arrange the trades that sent Jason Heyward, Justin Upton, Evan Gattis and Craig Kimbrel elsewhere and the mega deal that brought Hector Olivera from the Dodgers to the Braves on July 30. Say what you will about the moves, but Hart and Coppolella have been anything but timid. It’s their worst season in almost a quarter-century, since the Braves finished 63-97 in 1990 – before their famous worst-to-first season of 1991 that began their unprecedented run of 14 consecutive division titles. Either way, this is a solid move for the Braves.
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Coppolella, 37, seemed to be a hot commodity as the Milwaukee Brewers and Seattle Mariners expressed interest in his services last month as they searched for their general manager.
