{"id":62483,"date":"2025-06-19T08:34:36","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T08:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=62483"},"modified":"2025-06-19T08:34:36","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T08:34:36","slug":"braves-top-exec-alex-anthopoulos-breaks-silence-on-chris-sale-trade-possibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=62483","title":{"rendered":"Braves Top Exec Alex Anthopoulos Breaks Silence on Chris Sale Trade Possibility"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"post-featured-container-id\">\n<div id=\"post-featured\">\n<div>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Chris-Sale-Trade.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 95vw, 780px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Chris-Sale-Trade.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780 780w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Chris-Sale-Trade.jpg?quality=15&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1100 1100w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Chris-Sale-Trade.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1350 1350w\" alt=\"Braves Top Exec Alex Anthopoulos Breaks Silence on Chris Sale Trade Possibility\" width=\"780\" height=\"439\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Getty<\/p>\n<p>Cy Young winner Chris Sale will remain an Atlanta Brave, says the team&#8217;s top baseball exec.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale threw his best game of the 2025 season on Wednesday, as the Atlanta Braves shut out the reeling New York Mets 5-0. Sale lasted 8 2\/3 innings, just one out short of his first complete game shutout since June 5, 2019 \u2014 more than six years ago.<\/p>\n<p>On that date, Sale was pitching for the Boston Red Sox when he went the full nine to blank the Kansas City Royals 8-0.<\/p>\n<p>If the Braves are hoping to showcase Sale for an upcoming trade they could not have asked for a better outing. Sale punched out seven while allowing just five hits and a single walk on his way to handing Atlanta\u2019s NL East division rivals a fifth straight loss.<\/p>\n<h2>Braves Could Still be Sellers at the Deadline<\/h2>\n<p>The 33-39 Braves, however, remain 11 games in back of the division-leading Mets, and six games out of the third and final Wild Card spot in the National League. They have now won six of their last eight games, turning their fortunes back around after a seven-game losing streak that saw them drop to 10 games under .500 \u2014 just three weeks after they rose above the break-even mark for the first time all season.<\/p>\n<p>Despite their solid run over the past week, Atlanta\u2019s struggles have led baseball experts and observers to believe the Braves \u2014 who finished second in the NL East last year after six straight seasons at the top \u2014 will be sellers at the trade deadline, unloading some of their high-salaried players with the hope of receiving prospects in return.<\/p>\n<p>At the top of the list of those big-ticket trade candidates \u2014 Sale himself, who has been the subject of trade rumors and speculation for weeks with teams ranging from the New York Yankees to the Detroit Tigers to the Red Sox, the team that traded Sale to Atlanta less than two years ago, proposed as destinations for the 36-year-old southpaw.<\/p>\n<p>But all of those rumors are \u201cridiculous.\u201d And that\u2019s not a random opinion, coming as it does from the man who would have to make the decision to trade Sale, Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos.<\/p>\n<h2>Anthopoulos Adamantly Rules Out Sale Trade<\/h2>\n<p>Anthopoulos, who has presided over the Braves\u2019 entire six-year run of NL East pennant-winning seasons as well as assembling the roster that won the 2021 World Series, finally weighed in on the widespread Sale trade rumors in an interview with Atlanta radio station 680 The Fan \u2014 and he took the opportunity to shut down those rumors completely.<\/p>\n<div id=\"7f67b8fad0e7a4e0242a1053bf52d39a\">\n<div>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos on @680TheFan this morning on @CelliniNick &amp; @chrisdimino<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udd39 \u201cWe are not selling\u201d<br \/>\n\ud83d\udd39 \u201cWant to be in a position to add\u201d<br \/>\n\ud83d\udd39 Offense has been \u201cmost disappointing\u201d<br \/>\n\ud83d\udd39 On trading Chris Sale: \u201cWill not happen\u201d<br \/>\n\ud83d\udd39 Jurickson Profar will get a second chance<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve seen the speculation. It\u2019s completely ridiculous to me. We are not selling, especially someone that has club control beyond the current year,\u201d Anthopoulus said in the radio interview. \u201cWill not happen. I never make definitive statements unless I\u2019m going to stick to them. Once you make definitive statements and then you go back on them, you\u2019re a liar and you\u2019re done.<\/p>\n<p>But even though the Braves\u2019 top baseball exec was adamant about not \u201cselling\u201d on Sale, adding \u201cWill. Not. Happen. Bold, italicize it, caps,\u201d Anthopoulus did appear to leave a very slight crack in the door for a Sale trade.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou get to the end of July and things are completely changed, I guess we would reevaluate,\u201d the 48-year-old baseball executive said. \u201cBut you\u2019d have to be extreme. We\u2019re built to win. Our expectations are to win. Our expectations are to go for it the entire time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sale signed a two-year, $38 million contract with the Braves after being traded from the Red Sox. The contract comes with a club option after the current season, so in theory the Braves could simply decline to exercise it and allow Sale to become a free agent. Otherwise, the 15-year veteran and eight-time All-Star would not hit the open market until after the 2026 season.<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Vankin JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist and writer who now covers baseball and other sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering Japan Pro Baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin<\/p>\n<h2>More Heavy on Braves<\/h2>\n<p>Loading more stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Atlanta Braves top baseball executive has finally spoken out on the widespread speculation that Chris Sale is on the trade block.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":62484,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Braves Top Exec Alex Anthopoulos Breaks Silence on Chris Sale Trade Possibility - NEWS USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=62483\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Braves Top Exec Alex Anthopoulos Breaks Silence on Chris Sale Trade Possibility - 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