Let’s remember: real journalists report facts.
The ultimate outcome—flowing from those facts—is often conjecture. It’s something different, that is, the likelihood of Y happening because of the fact of X.
Buster is reporting the X fact that Cubs are willing to discuss Bryant with other clubs in a way different than ever before. As he says, nobody has yet refuted that factual assertion.
Buster probably doesn’t know from his sources, as a factual matter, the likelihood of the Y outcome. Yes, he could have said in the story “extremely unlikely” or “very unlikely” or whatever, but he probably doesn’t have the facts here on that point one way or the other. As you say, his sources don’t know that likelihood of Y and so there’s nothing to report on that issue as a factual matter.
In some other trade stories generally, you might see the likely outcome reported. Why? Because there are facts to draw that conclusion. Club A is close to trading Player B. But, here, no facts on that, so the Buster story is limited to the fact Cubs are willing to discuss in a way different than before. That’s the story.
As to the headline, “willing to discuss” from the story would have been better than “open to”—-it’s pretty close but not identical. Former is a bit softer. Don’t know how ESPN works, but in newspaper business the story writer doesn’t write the headline.... but the story is the story.
Bottom line is that the specific fact that Buster reported is, I think, newsworthy. If we want to know the degree of likelihood of a partcular outcome, we’ll have to wait to see if more facts emerge....or not.