Winners and Losers of Blockbuster Tarik Skubal to Dodgers Trade
The Los Angeles Dodgers were already the unstoppable force at the center of Major League Baseball, and now they have arguably the best pitcher in the world.
That's right. "Tarik Skubal, Los Angeles Dodger" is happening, and the implications for baseball's present and future are massive.
As ESPN's Jeff Passan was first to report, the Dodgers acquired the two-time Cy Young Award winner from the Detroit Tigers on Saturday night. The Tigers are getting three players in return, including outfield prospect Zyhir Hope.
Winners? Losers? This deal has plenty of both, so let's break them down.
Winner: Los Angeles Dodgers
1 of 8
Short Version: Duh.
According to FanGraphs, the Dodgers had a 25.7 percent chance of winning the World Series on Thursday. It's now a 30.5 percent chance.
That is both utterly ridiculous and just really, really hard to argue with. This is a team that is top-five in the league in runs scored, and now they can look forward to October with the following playoff rotation in mind:
- Game 1: Tarik Skubal
- Game 2: Yoshinobu Yamamoto
- Game 3: Either Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow or Shohei Ohtani
That's just obscene, and that much more so knowing that there might not be any room for Justin Wrobleski. You know, the guy who just pulled a Pedro Martรญnezย by punching out five batters in the All-Star Game.
Though the Dodgers feel inevitable right now, the thing to remember is that nothing is inevitable in baseball. If Miguel Rojas doesn't hit one of the most unlikely home runs in MLB history last October, we're not even talking about a three-peat right now.
Still, the Dodgers really do feel inevitable, don't they?
Loser: Shohei Ohtani's Return to the Mound?
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Short Version: You wonder if the Dodgers will want to risk it now.
As easy as it is to pencil Shohei Ohtani in as part of the Dodgers' eventual playoff rotationโฆ well, are we really sure about that?
Due to separate aches in his left knee and right biceps, the four-time MVP hasn't pitched since July 3. And the last time he tried to throw didn't go so well.
"I think the last 'pen that he had, there was a little bit of regression," Roberts said on Thursday, per Max Ralph of MLB.com. "We want to make sure that doesn't happen again."
The last thing the Dodgers want is Ohtani suffering even worse injuries that would impact not just the rest of 2026, but some portion of 2027. And if they can line up Tarik Skubal, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow for the playoffs, there just isn't a good excuse for the team to push its luck.
Look, nobody's going to make the mistake of insinuating that Ohtani is done pitching for good. That possibility has seemingly been on the table before, but he just keeps returning to the mound anyway.
But if he must focus on hitting for at least the rest of 2026, that's not the worst thing. It could lead to improvement on what's been a somewhat down season, as he "only" has a .939 OPS and 24 home runs.
Winner: Tarik Skubal
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Short Version: And not just for the rest of 2026.
POV: You're Tarik Skubal, and you just went from a fourth-place team to a first-place team with eyes on yet another World Series title.
It isn't necessarily what the 29-year-old lefty wanted to happen before Monday's trade deadline. He was actually pretty outspoken about wanting to stay with the Tigers so that he could win a World Series for Detroit. Admirable stuff, really.
Still, you wonder if reality dawned on him during the last start he made for the Tigers on Wednesday. He staked Detroit to a 7-0 lead over the Baltimore Orioles. The Tigers ended up losing anyway, dropping their record to 51-58.
To go from that to joining the Dodgers is a classic "From the outhouse to the penthouse" reversal of Skubal's fortunes. The World Series action he craves is now well within reach. It's just the setting that has changed.
Naturally, winning a World Series with the Dodgers would boost Skubal's free-agent valuation, which might already be in the $400 million range. He's also now ineligible for a qualifying offer, which also helps.
Heck, Scott Boras won't even need to drop any puns to hype up Skubal's free agency. He likely will anyway, mind you, but still.
Loser: Detroit Tigers
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Short Version: Really? That's all you could get?
For Detroit, the full return for Skubal is these three players:
- OF Zyhir Hope
- RHP River Ryan
- RHP Brady Smith
If you want to be charitable, it's not a terrible return. B/R's Joel Reuter has Hope ranked as the No. 43 prospect in the league. Ryan was the Dodgers' No. 7 prospect for MLB Pipeline, with Smith checking in at No. 17 on the same list. So, that's three real prospects for a pending free agent on a $32 million salary.
But between you and me, dare I say I would have wanted more for Skubal if I were the Tigers' president of baseball operations, Scott Harris?
He certainly would have been within his rights to demand a bigger haul for a pitcher of Skubal's caliber. And to be fair, we don't know that he didn't. If the real story is that other teams just wouldn't up the ante, well, that's a "them" problem as much as it is a Tigers problem.
Regardless, the Tigers can look back and see a tragedy in retrospect. They made two playoff runs with the best pitcher in baseball in 2024 and 2025, yet couldn't make it past the Division Series either time.
Loser: Milwaukee Brewers (among other teams)
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Short Version: Go ahead and let the bad guys win, why don't you.
Tarik Skubal should be a Milwaukee Brewer right now.
Of all the things the Brewers could have done to angle for revenge on the Dodgers for their defeat in last year's NLCS, pairing Skubal with Jacob Misiorowski was the best possible play. And theirย fifth-ranked farm systemย had enough talent to get it done. Per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, Milwaukee was even willing to absorb Skubal's salary.
So, what happened? Cold feet? Brain fog? Dropped call? Rupture in the spacetime continuum?
One supposes it doesn't matter, as all possible explanations ultimately come back to the same reality: The Brewers had their shot and missed it.
This goes for other hypothetical Skubal suitors as well, of course. The Tampa Bay Rays could have done a deal. Ditto for the Atlanta Braves and maybe the Chicago Cubs. The Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees, too.
All of them were already looking up at the Dodgers, and all of them must now find ways to close an even larger gap. Don't weep for them. They brought it on themselves.
Winner: MLB History Happening in Real Time
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Short Version: Nobody's going to forget the Dodgers of the mid-2020s.
What's that one meme? I feel bad for baseball, but this is tremendous content?
As much as one can lamentโand don't worry, we willโwhat the Dodgers' ever-increasing dominance means for Major League Baseball, it's ultimately thanks to them that nobody will soon forget what baseball was like in the mid-2020s.
The most recent analogue for the Dodgers of today is the New York Yankees of the late 1990s and early 2000s. There was a lot going on those days, but it wasn't just the three straight World Series titles (1998, 1999, 2000) that made the Yankees feel like the sport's center of gravity. They acted literally like a center of gravity, sucking up both stars and attention at every turn.
You can make the case that the Dodgers are not only doing what those Yankees did, but better. Even before what is currently an unbroken run of World Series championships since 2024, they also won the World Series in 2020 and have ultimately won 15 more playoff games than any other team dating back to 2013.
If anything, this must have been what it was like to behold the Yankees when they played in the World Series more often than not between the 1930s and 1960s. It was their league, and they must have known that future generations would look back in awe at what they did.
Winner: Just the 1 Fanbase
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Short Version: Dodgers fans are happy. Everyone else? Not so much.
Please try to contain your surprise at this, but Dodgers fans are pretty hyped right now. Tarik Skubal is one of theirs now, just as many foretold.
As for the other 29 MLB fanbases, here's the plot twist: What we have here is actually a backdoor "Loser" slide.
At this point, non-Dodgers fans are far beyond merely having Dodgers fatigue. The general sentiment is more like Dodgers outrage. Unless you're on their side, it's just plain hard to watch them keep doing everything they want to do and not only keep avoiding consequences, but keep getting rewarded.
This might be where the comparison to the Yankees teams of the mid-20th century is really instructive. All that happened before the draft. Before free agency. The Yankees basically had free rein to use their resources as they saw fit. And as their resources grew and grew and grew, it became increasingly impossible for other teams to compete with them.
The current reality of the Dodgers is a bit more complicated. But the vibe is the same, and only one fanbase is grooving to it.
Loser: The Last Shred of Hope for the 2027 Seasonโฆ?
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Short Version: It feels that way, doesn't it?
Should we all be pouring one out for the 2027 MLB season? Is it already over?
It was only a couple of weeks ago that we found out there are owners in MLB who are prepared to cancel games in 2027 if the players insist on refusing a salary cap. The Dodgers were at the heart of the matter even then, as their total payroll commitments (around $500 million) were five times as high as some of the other teams around the league.
And now they have the best pitcher in baseball, whose $32 million salary is mere pennies by their standards.
Let's not ignore the nuance here, folks. The Dodgers didn't buy Tarik Skubal. They traded for him, and they were able to do that because they have MLB's No. 1 farm system. And they have said system even despite yearly draft and international signing constraints that come from so much winning. They're just good at this.
All the same, the Skubal trade is another data point suggesting that the Dodgers see their budget as being truly limitless. And as fair as it is to grouse about other owners not spending enough, the reality is that the Dodgers are playing a different game when it comes to payroll.
The only way it's going to stop is if the rules change. And given the Dodgers' influence and the players' treatment of a salary cap as a third rail, that outcome feels so far away it's out of reach altogether.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
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