Latest On Braves’ Deadline Approach

The Braves have been in a downward spiral for much of the season. They’ve shown signs of life at various points, but those brief flashes were quickly stamped out by repeated injuries to star players. Atlanta lost Reynaldo Lopez to arthroscopic shoulder surgery in mid-April and was without both Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuña Jr. to begin the season. That All-Star duo has since returned, but over the past month the Braves have lost Chris Sale (fractured ribs), Spencer Schwellenbach (fractured elbow) and AJ Smith-Shawver (Tommy John surgery). Setup man Joe Jimenez underwent knee surgery in the offseason and is likely to miss the entire year as well.

On top of that brutal slate of pitching injuries, the Braves have seen several key players take major steps back in performance. Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II have been two of baseball’s least-productive hitters. Closer Raisel Iglesias, fresh off a career-best year in 2024, is having a career-worst season in 2025 — although he’s recently rattled off 10 2/3 shutout innings with a 15-to-1 K/BB ratio, so perhaps he’s coming around. Austin Riley and Marcell Ozuna are both hitting better than the league-average hitter but worse than their career norms. Jurickson Profar missed 80 games due to a PED suspension.

The result is a 40-52 team that sits 13.5 games out of the division lead and 10 games back in the Wild Card hunt. FanGraphs gives Atlanta a 3.7% chance of making the postseason, which feels charitable for a club that presently has three healthy starters (Strider, Grant Holmes and Bryce Elder). The Braves rushed prospect Didier Fuentes to the majors just three days after his 20th birthday and despite having just 26 1/3 innings above A-ball under his belt. Predictably, it has not gone well (13.85 ERA in four starts).

The stage is set for Atlanta to operate in an unfamiliar manner this deadline, playing the role of a seller. President of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos emphatically denounced the notion of even considering a trade of Sale last month, just prior to the left-hander’s injury. Anthopoulos called any speculation regarding a Sale trade “completely ridiculous” in an appearance on 680 The Fan in Atlanta.

“I never make definitive statements unless I’m going to stick to them,” he said at the time. “Once you make definitive statements and then you go back on them, you’re a liar and you’re done. [A trade of Sale] Will. Not. Happen. Bold, italicize it, caps.”

Even with the tumult that’s followed those statements — which predated not only Sale’s injury but also the Schwellenbach injury — the thinking doesn’t appear to have changed. Robert Murray of FanSided reports that the Braves have not discussed Sale in any trade talks and, furthermore, do not intend to listen on any player who’s controlled beyond the 2025 season.

[Related: Atlanta Braves Trade Deadline Outlook]

If that’s indeed the case, the Braves will be in for a quiet deadline. Atlanta only has three true free agents at season’s end: Iglesias, Ozuna and right-hander Rafael Montero. Any of the three could hold appeal on the market.

Iglesias, as noted, has had an uneven season but turned a corner of late. He’s sitting on a 4.67 ERA overall, but that’s a function of the 35-year-old’s 6.75 ERA through early June. Even as Iglesias struggled to those ugly results, however, he posted strong strikeout and walk rates. He was dogged by a .348 average on balls in play and a sky-high 21.9% homer-to-flyball rate along the way, but metrics like SIERA (3.34) still pegged him as a quality reliever and hinted at positive regression. Iglesias hasn’t markedly changed up his pitch selection, but he’s now missing far more bats in the zone and has recorded a colossal 20.7% swinging-strike rate over the course of his current hot streak.

That’s probably enough to drum up legitimate trade interest, especially when considering his track record. The right-hander has a 2.96 ERA and 233 saves in a career that spans more than a decade. From 2020-24, he posted an ERA of 2.74 or better each season, combining for a 2.44 mark with a 31.6% strikeout rate and 5.4% walk rate. This year’s $16MM salary is steep, but there will “only” be $5.333MM of that sum left come deadline day. (As of this writing, it’s $6.795MM.)

As for the 34-year-old Ozuna, he’s having a solid season at the plate but isn’t hitting anywhere near his 2023-24 levels. This year’s .236/.363/.385 slash is 14% better than league-average in the estimation of wRC+, a far cry from the 48% gap between Ozuna and the average MLB hitter in ’23-’24. Ozuna’s bat speed has dipped by 1.5 mph since 2023, per Statcast, dropping him from the 86th percentile of big league hitters to the 73rd. This year’s 42% ground-ball rate is his highest mark since 2019, while his 13.3% homer-to-flyball rate is his lowest since 2021.

Ozuna is also just swinging far, far less than in recent seasons. He offered at nearly 48% of the pitches he saw in 2023-24 but has swung at just 39.4% of the pitches he’s seen so far in 2025. That’s led to a major jump in walk rate, with the slugger sitting on a career-high 16.4% mark, but that selectivity has resulted in a dip in power output — both on a rate basis and in terms of totality.

While Iglesias has been rebuilding trade value as the summer wears on, Ozuna has been doing the opposite. He’s mired in one of the worst slumps of his career, hitting just .161/.254/.250 over his past 143 plate appearances dating back to early June. He’s still walked at a 10.5% clip along the way and has a roughly average strikeout rate (22.4%), but he’s hitting even more grounders in that stretch and has seen his quality of contact decline. Ozuna is making the same $16MM as Iglesias this season.

The only other pure rental on Atlanta’s roster is the 34-year-old Montero. The Braves surprisingly bailed the Astros out of nearly $3MM of Montero’s ill-fated three-year, $34.5MM contract when they acquired him early this season. He’s pitched decently, logging a 3.86 ERA in 28 innings but walking 12.8% of the batters he’s faced since being traded. He’s had better command recently, issuing just four walks to his past 74 hitters faced, however. With Houston on the hook for the majority of this year’s $11.5MM salary, Montero could hold appeal to teams looking for affordable bullpen help but unwilling to sacrifice top-end prospects to acquire it.

Other clubs will surely try to test the Braves’ resolve when it comes to dealing players controlled beyond the current season. Catcher Sean Murphy has been oft-speculated as a possible trade candidate thanks to the emergence of rookie catcher Drake Baldwin, though Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic recently reported that any such trade is likelier to occur in the offseason. Murphy is signed through 2028 and will be paid $15MM in each of the next three seasons.

Atlanta also has a pair of quality relievers with limited club control remaining in lefty Aaron Bummer (signed for next year at $9.5MM) and righty Pierce Johnson ($7MM club option for 2026). Both are having very strong seasons and will draw interest. Relievers are notoriously volatile, which could tempt Atlanta if another club presents a compelling offer. David O’Brien of The Athletic wrote this morning that the Braves could listen on Johnson, who has a 2.76 ERA, a 27.9% strikeout rate, a 7% walk rate and a 39% grounder rate in 32 2/3 innings. He’s picked up six holds and a save on the season.

There are perhaps larger-scale decisions coming down the pipe with regard to Albies — a former All-Star and Silver Slugger winner who’s batting just .221/.292/.320 in 391 plate appearances. His incredibly affordable club options for the 2026-27 seasons — $7MM apiece — make him a compelling rebound/change-of-scenery candidate.

It’d be tough for the Braves to decline his 2026 option, as it comes with a hearty $4MM buyout, rendering Albies a net $3MM decision. Even if the Braves hope to move on, it’s easy to imagine another club being interested in buying low at that price on what would be Albies’ age-29 and age-30 seasons. MLBTR readers were recently split nearly evenly in a poll on Albies’ future, with 54% saying the Braves should hold and hope for a rebound while 46% indicated that they should trade him, either now or in the offseason.