It's 100% possible they're speculating/assuming.
Tough to see Jason go - especially to the team that I despise the most. Seems like the move had to be made though, and the pieces coming back to Atlanta aren't too shabby.
I would like to think Hart would go back to JHey and try. But he didn't.
JHey said he heard the rumors. If he wanted to be a Brave he could have called Hart.
We can disagree, but maybe Hart thinks he is a 15 million dollar a year player. And if Jhey is looking for 25 (and that apparently is not an unreasonable ask) then why mess with it?
It was posted above already:
“He wanted a two-year deal and wasn’t interested in a long-term extension unless the dollars were maybe beyond where the club certainly wanted to go. We had a strong feeling he was going to go on the market. That’s what he wanted to do. We wanted to protect ourselves and position ourselves better. If we elect, next year, to be one of 30 [teams] that compete for Jason on the market then that’s what we’ll do.”
So basically Hart is spinning Jason wanting to get to get through his arbitration years as not wanting to sign a long term extension. Apparently he should of gone to them with that first because our FO is fairly obtuse and not capable of negotiating with Jason Heyward. Pretty much lets us know that they don't value Heyward.