Atlanta Braves President Alex Anthopoulos interrupts and goes off on reporter
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Atlanta Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos spoke with Nick Cellini and Chris Dimino of 680 The Fan this afternoon. The veteran executive made clear he's operating with a buyer's mentality six weeks before the trade deadline.
He was even more forceful in pushing back against the idea that they'd consider trading away key players, at least barring a terrible stretch of play in July.
Anthopoulos interrupted a question about other clubs potentially attempting to pry defending Cy Young winner Chris Sale out of Atlanta.
«No, zero. I've seen the speculation. It's completely ridiculous to me. We are not selling, especially someone that has club control beyond the current year,» he said. «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."
"Will. Not. Happen. 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.»
The Braves are currently seven games below .500. They're 12 back of the Mets in the division and 6.5 out in the Wild Card race with five teams to jump.
They've got their work cut out for them in getting to October for an eighth straight season, but that remains the focus for the front office.
They're far enough behind New York and Philly that it's difficult to see them winning the NL East, but they could theoretically pull back into the race if they go on a tear over the next two weeks.
They'll also take on St. Louis, one of the teams above them in the Wild Card standings, in their final series before the All-Star Break.
While those will be tough sets, they have softer matchups against a few teams toward the bottom of the American League standings (the Angels, Orioles and A's) in the first two weeks of July.
In the meantime, they're evidently searching for a short-term boost. In this morning's radio interview (which Atlanta fans will want to give a full listen), Anthopoulos identified the offense as the team's biggest disappointment to date.
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JUIN 18 | 159 ANSWERS Atlanta Braves President Alex Anthopoulos interrupts and goes off on reporter Do you think Alex Anthopoulos is a better President of Baseball Operations than Mark Shapiro? | ||
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