Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos Preparing to Buy Ahead of 2025 Trade Deadline: ‘We are not Selling’
Don’t count on the Atlanta Braves becoming sellers ahead of the July 31st trade deadline.
It’s certainly been a tough season for the Braves, who enter Thursday’s slate six games below .500 at 33-39, sitting 5.5 games out of the final NL wild-card seed – currently held by the San Diego Padres. But they aren’t waving the white flag just yet.
According to FanGraphs, Atlanta has a 37.6 percent chance of making the playoffs in 2025, with 90 games still to play. And that figure could increase dramatically by finishing June on a high note.
Still, the Braves have a difficult road ahead of them to extend their postseason streak to nine straight seasons. But as of now, general manager and president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos has zero intentions of selling at next month’s deadline, squashing any trade rumours surrounding Chris Sale.
“I’ve seen the speculation. It’s completely ridiculous to me,” Anthopoulos told 680 The Fan on Wednesday. “We are not selling, especially someone who has club control beyond the current year. Will not happen. I never make definitive statements unless I’m going to stick to them. Once you make definitive statements and then you go back on them, you’re a liar and you’re done.”
Sale is in the final season of a two-year, $38-million contract signed prior to the 2024 campaign. But his deal includes a $18-million club option for ‘26, which, at this rate, seems like a slam dunk to be exercised.
The 36-year-old southpaw has continued to turn back the clock since arriving in Atlanta. After capturing last season’s NL Cy Young Award – the first of his career, amazingly – he’s picked up exactly where he left off thus far, pitching to a 2.52 ERA and 2.64 FIP with 114 strikeouts in 15 starts this season.
“Will. Not. Happen. Bold, italicize it, caps,” Anthopoulos on the notion of trading Sale. “So much so that I’m trying to make a trade now – it’s very hard to make a trade in June – just to signal to everybody that we will not sell. [If] you get to the end of July and things are completely changed, I guess we would re-evaluate, but you’d have to be extreme. We’re built to win. Our expectations are to win. Our expectations are to go for it the entire time.”
While the Braves have arguably been baseball’s biggest disappointment this season, their roster is currently built to win now. It also doesn’t feature many obvious trade chips, even if Anthopoulos had no choice but to consider selling.
Of the club’s pending free agents, designated hitter Marcell Ozuna – in the final season of a five-year, $80-million contract – would likely be the only rental who’d garner considerable interest via trade. Reliever Pierce Johnson could be another potential trade candidate, although his contract includes a $7-million club option for next season.
Outside of those two, chances are it’d likely be a fairly quiet deadline for the Braves if they ultimately fall out of contention and become sellers. But knowing Anthopoulos, he’ll surely exhaust all other options before heading down that road.
-Thomas Hall
Twitter: @Hall_Thomas_
Photo: Thomson200. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.