The Atlanta Braves are way further out of the playoff race than anyone would’ve expected.
Technically, a hot streak could change that, but it’s certainly an uphill climb.
That has invited trade speculation, but president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos went on local radio station 680 The Fan on Wednesday to push back against those.
Anthopoulos spoke specifically about the idea of trading away Chris Sale.
“I’ve seen the speculation,” Anthopoulos said. “It’s completely ridiculous to me. We are not selling, especially someone that 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.”
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That’s pretty emphatic, but Anthopoulos wasn’t done.
“Will. Not. Happen,” he emphasized. “Bold, italicize it, caps. 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 reevaluate, 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.”
Sale has been one of the bright spots in a rough season.
He threw a gem on Wednesday night against the Mets, too, going 8.2 shutout innings with seven strikeouts to lower his ERA to 2.52.
Sounds like he’ll get the chance to keep doing that in a Braves uniform.
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