John Hart, John Schuerholz

John Hart talks to reporters after being named Atlanta's president of baseball operations on Oct. 23. Braves President John Schuerholz is in the background.

(John Bazemore/Associated Press)

PHOENIX, Ariz. – John Hart walked into the interview room at the general managers meetings Tuesday at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel and the room momentarily slipped into a time warp.

Hart, the man who steered the Indians to World Series appearances in 1995 and 1997 as general manager, is back. He recently signed a three-year deal with Atlanta as president of baseball operations.

He has returned to wheeling and dealing, but first he had to get something straight. The Braves are not trading their entire roster. There have been multiple media reports that most of the roster is "in play,' including B.J. Upton, Justin Upton, Jason Heyward and Evan Gattis.

"We're not trading our entire team," said Hart. "This is the general managers meetings. We haven't even had any conversations with anybody. All of a sudden I'm trading my whole team."

Hart did make it clear the Braves are looking for starting pitching after Ervin Santana, Aaron Harang and Gavin Floyd turned free agent. The Braves offered Santana a $15.3 million qualifying offer, but he rejected it.

"We're going in with the idea of finding some starting pitching," said Hart. "That's the hole on this team right now. We've lost close to 400 innings out of the rotation and we have a hole at the upper levels of our system. We don't have any young starting pitching ready for the big leagues."

The Indians do have starting pitching and Hart says he talked to them briefly.

"I've had really brief conversations with Chris (Antonetti)," said Hart. "They're looking for some pop in their lineup. They're not looking to move any of their young starting pitching.

"As we sit here today I don't know if there's a great fit there, but I think there's some mutual interest in certain players. It's just about whether you can make something like that work."

The Indians rotation goes seven deep with Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer, T.J. House, Danny Salazar, Josh Tomlin and Zach McAllister. Carrasco, Bauer and McAllister are out of options.

In the mix: Tribe bullpen coach Kevin Cash is still in the running for Tampa Bay's manager's job. The Rays are still interviewing candidates.

Cash interviewed for the Texas manager's job earlier in the off-season, but the Rangers hired Jeff Banister from the Pirates.

"When Kevin interviewed for Texas, we prepared a list of candidates to replace him," said Antonetti. "Some were internal, some external. We're looking at that same list now."

GM Terry Ryan interviewed Sandy Alomar, Indians first base coach, as a managerial candidate after Ron Gardenhire was fired. Ryan last week hired Twins Hall of Famer Paul Molitor, but Alomar made an impression.

"I didn't know Sandy Alomar so I was glad I had a chance to sit down and talk to him," said Ryan. "I was very impressed. He had ideas. He had a path. He knew our team and he knew the AL Central and that was good.

"He was very impressive. He's going to get a chance to manage."

No bid: The Indians reportedly did not make a bid on South Korean left-hander Kwang-Hyun Kim. Ken Rosenthal of Fox-Sports reported that San Diego's $2 million bid was the highest.

It's unclear if Kim will sign with San Diego because his team, Sk Wyverns, could back out of the deal. They were expecting a bid of $10 million when they posted Kim.

The Indians reportedly didn't make a bid because they were worried about Kim's left shoulder.