The Dodgers just did what the Dodgers do: they went and got the best player on the trade market.
Tarik Skubal is the latest star to land in Los Angeles, joining a run of major additions over the past 32 months that already includes Shohei Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki, Tanner Scott, Edwin Diaz and Kyle Tucker. It’s the kind of haul that makes people immediately point to the sport’s economic imbalance.
But this one is about more than payroll. It is also a reminder of how dangerous the Dodgers have become at building and using talent.
The Tigers came away with what they could from the 10 starts Skubal had left before he reaches free agency, where he is expected to land a record-setting deal, likely with the Dodgers on a short-term, high AAV contract. Detroit shopped him throughout the league and decided Los Angeles had the best offer, even though the package barely makes a dent in the prospect stockpile the Dodgers are carrying.
Los Angeles sent out two former 11th-round picks acquired in low-level deals and the 95th pick in its 2023 draft, and turned that into a two-time AL Cy Young Award winner. That’s the real story here: nobody does a better job of finding talent late in the draft or in other organizations. Andrew Friedman’s group has had its misses - including early trades of Oneil Cruz and Yordan Alvarez - but for years now the Dodgers have paired financial muscle with sharp prospect management.
That point goes back to the way Friedman sold Ohtani on the organization when Ohtani was a free agent. Ohtani wanted a team that would win consistently, and Friedman explained why the Dodgers’ player pipeline mattered so much.
“The system is designed for us to be at the bottom in terms of farm system rankings,” Friedman told him. “Picking at the end of the draft ...
Having less amount of international money ... Always being competitive and so therefore not really being able to trade off players as they’re nearing free agency ...
And yet, we're in the top three, top five, every year.”
Friedman also talked to Ohtani about “cohesiveness and collaboration” and “the stability and the continuity of our group,” ideas that speak as much to the development machine as they do to money.
Now the defending standard-bearer in the sport has another weapon. A postseason rotation with Skubal, Ohtani, Snell and Yamamoto is a terrifying thought, and the Dodgers still have Glasnow, Emmet Sheehan and Justin Wrobleski as depth starters or bullpen pieces.
There are fair questions if you want to nit-pick. The Tigers went 3-3 in the postseason with Skubal on the mound, and he was 0-2 in elimination games.
His career ERA after the sixth inning sits at 4.60, and since reaching the majors in 2020 he has thrown 100 pitches in a game only 14 times, fewer than Dean Kremer, Andrew Heaney, Chris Flexen and Taj Bradley over that same span. The Dodgers know all of that.
They will not be asking him to throw eight innings. Six will do.
This trade was driven more by prospect capital than by money, even if money is never far from the Dodgers’ success. They came close to getting knocked out in both of the last two postseasons, with the Padres letting them off the hook in the 2024 NLDS and the Blue Jays doing the same in Game 7 of the 2025 World Series.
But look at the pitchers they used in that Game 7: Ohtani, Glasnow, Snell and Yamamoto. Those four arms cost $1.277 billion.
Now Skubal is part of the group, too. The Dodgers are older in some places, but they are taking the best version of their modern dynasty into the playoffs.
In Other News...
Cubs Skubal Pursuit Exposed One Problem Chicago Couldnt Escape
Tarik Skubals move to the Dodgers on Saturday night offered another reminder of how thin the margin can be when a star pitcher comes available. Los Angeles got the deal done with a package that sent former Cubs prospect Zyhir Hope, along with pitching prospects River Ryan and Brady Smith, to the Tigers, and it quickly became clear why the market pushed this into a different tier than a typical deadline-style chase.
For Chicago, the bigger story is what it says about the limits of a pursuit that never quite had enough room to grow. Matching that kind of offer would have required the Cubs to part with significant major league talent and add more from a system that already had to be carefully protected, which helps explain why they stayed out of the final push. The result left the club watching a frontline arm land elsewhere while the cost of doing business kept climbing past the point Chicago was willing to go. [Read more 🡒]
Cubs Finally Moved Jameson Taillon And The Return Says Plenty
Jameson Taillon is on the move, and the Cubs have finally turned a veteran arm into something usable for the stretch run. Toronto landed the pitcher from Chicago, while the Cubs cleared a spot on the 40-man roster by shifting utility player Lenyn Sosa to the 60-day injured list.
What Chicago is getting back is not the kind of headline return that changes the conversation by itself, but it does speak to how the front office handled the deal. The Cubs are also taking on part of Taillons remaining salary, a reminder that this was as much about reshaping the roster and payroll as it was about the name going out the door. [Read more 🡒]
Cubs Deadline Pitching Hunt Just Took A Surprising Seattle Turn
The Cubs search for rotation help has already taken an unexpected route across the country, with Seattle suddenly sitting at the center of the deadline conversation. The White Soxs acquisition of Luis Castillo from the Mariners changed the pitching market in a hurry, and for Chicago it only sharpened the focus on what still needs to happen before the deadline. The Cubs have been expected to chase multiple arms, and the price for any starter who can help now appears to be rising fast.
Seattles involvement could matter even more from the Cubs perspective because George Kirby remains in play, and Chicago has been linked to him as well as Emerson Hancock. Kirby would be the kind of bigger swing that can reshape a clubs October outlook, but any discussion around him is complicated by what the Mariners are looking for in return. For the Cubs, the next move is less about whether they want to add pitching and more about how aggressive theyre willing to be to get the right one. [Read more 🡒]