Braves Turn Heads With Inactive Final Day Before MLB Trade Deadline

Ozuna and Iglesias will be unrestricted free agents this winter. Without moving on from them Thursday, they are set to play meaningless baseball the final two months of this season and then walk for nothing in November.

Ozuna possessed 10-5 rights, which meant he had the ability to veto any trade the Braves tried to make with him before the deadline.

But based on the report (in the tweets above) from MLB.com's Mark Bowman, that wasn't an issue. According to Bowman, the Braves didn't receive an offer they liked for Ozuna.

Regardless, analysts from The Athletic were surprised and didn't really like what the Braves did at the trade deadline either. The Athletic's Jim Bowden awarded the Braves a D grade for their trade deadline.

"The Braves didn’t make any significant trades to improve their team for 2026 and beyond," Bowden wrote. "They were unable to trade DH Marcell Ozuna, who has 10-and-5 rights, and despite the strong market for relievers, they ended up retaining Raisel Iglesias.

"They were able to add three veteran pitchers to help them get through the regular season and avoid rushing pitching prospects to majors if their staff suffers even more injuries in August or September. However, it was disappointing that the Braves couldn’t make any moves to begin to improve their 2026 team."

Other analysts from The Athletic ranked the Braves' deadline in the "snoozer" tier.

"Not much has gone right for the Braves this year. And not much happened for them at the deadline. Alex Anthopoulos is one of the most aggressive movers and shakers in the sport," The Athletic's Andy McCullough wrote. "But he mostly sat this one out. It was probably not easy to build up a market for Marcell Ozuna.

"More puzzling was the inability to find some sort of return for closer Raisel Iglesias, even given his struggles this season. Hard to rip the Braves for that, though."

Neither Ozuna nor Iglesias were having good seasons. That's part of why the Braves are where they are in the standings.

But even trading them for pennies on the dollar seemed like a better decision than allowing them to reach free agency after a lost season.

Justin Toscano, formerly the Braves beat writer from The AJC, had his own theory for why the team stayed pat at the deadline.

MLB teams can still execute trades even after the July 31 deadline, but they have to be completed through waivers. That's more difficult to do but an option if the Braves decide to dump Ozuna or Iglesias.

The MLB's waiver trade deadline is August 31.