Atlanta Braves find themselves in unfamiliar territory as we approach this year's trade deadline. For the last eight seasons, the Braves, being in playoff contention every year since 2018, have been perennial buyers towards the end of July.
In fact, in the last eight years, the only season where it would have been feasible to sell, Alex Anthopoulos and the front office decided to trade for four outfielders, leading to the franchise's first World Series victory in 26 years.
However, with the Braves all but out of contention in 2025, we'd thought it would be a good reminder of what happened last time the Braves were sellers.
Looking back at the Braves' 2017 trade deadline
Going into the beginning of July, the Atlanta Braves were three games under .500. They won the first two games of the month to get to one game under .500, but would lose seven out of the next 12 to fall right back to three games under .500.
By the time the Braves went on a west coast trip, the Braves had decision to make on pending free agents Jaime Garcia and Brandon Phillips. Atlanta also looked to potentially add a controllable starter as well, as they were heavily linked to Sonny Gray.
Aside from those two players, however, the 2017 Braves were in a similar position as the 2025 Braves, with most of their team looking to be fixtures for the future and very few expiring contracts.
On July 24th, two days after he hit an improbable grand slam against the Dodgers, the Braves shipped starting pitcher Jaime Garcia and catcher Anthony Recker to the Twins in exchange for Huascar Ynoa, who was the 22nd-ranked prospect in the Twins organization.
At the time, Garcia had a 4.30 ERA in 113 innings pitched, which was serviceable, but was certainly not an ace teams were clamoring for.
Ynoa eventually debuted for the Braves two years later and had a surpisingly stellar first half in 2021, before he punched a bench in Milwaukee and was never the same.
Atlanta held onto Brandon Phillips despite calling up Ozzie Albies the day after the trade deadline, perhaps hoping to make an unlikely but magical late second half run. The club eventually did deal him a month later, however, shipping the veteran to the Angels for Tony Sanchez. Sanchez got one at bat for the Braves and never played another inning in MLB again.
While it might be discouraging to hear, this year's trade deadline might be similar to the 2017 deadline, where the Braves get a lottery ticket, but not much else for their expiring contracts. Thankfully, like the 2017 Braves, the team still has the pieces in place to compete next season.