The Dodgers didn’t just make the headline move of the 2026 MLB trade deadline - they made the one that felt inevitable. Los Angeles finally shut down the Tarik Skubal rumors by sending Zyhir Hope, River Ryan and Brady Smith to the Tigers in exchange for the two-time Cy Young Award winner.
On paper, that is a hefty package. In practice, it barely dents a Dodgers farm system that keeps churning out talent. Even with two top-100 prospects headed to Detroit, the return still looks light for one of the best pitchers in the sport.
And if you’re Detroit, the early read on Hope is not exactly calming.
Hope has played 11 games for the Tigers’ Double-A affiliate and has only seven hits. He’s batting .159 with 16 strikeouts in 50 plate appearances, a sharp drop from the .293 average and .899 OPS he posted at Double-A Tulsa.
What makes that start sting a little more is that the skid didn’t begin before the deal. Hope was actually rolling at the end of his time in the Dodgers’ system, slashing .333/.382/.608 with four home runs over his final 12 games. In his last game with Tulsa, he went 3-for-5 with two home runs.
That said, a trade can jolt a player in all kinds of ways, and the sample here is still tiny. Connor Muldowney of Motor City Bengals said it is "way too early" to panic, and pointed out that Hope has a track record of shaking off rough August stretches.
Muldowney wrote that Hope has been a steady hitter since signing his first deal with the Cubs in 2023, then noted how he opened August in 2025 hitless through six games, going 0-for-20 with nine strikeouts before settling in and hitting .240 for the rest of the month with a home run and 11 RBI. He also cited a rough stretch in August of 2024, when Hope went 1-for-21.
Still, the bigger worry for Tigers fans isn’t just the slow start. It’s the Dodgers’ long-running habit of dealing away hitting prospects and watching the other side get the short end.
Yes, the obvious counterexamples are always there. Los Angeles traded Yordan Alvarez and O’Neil Cruz. But Alvarez had not played a game in the Dodgers organization before being moved, and Cruz was only a mid-tier prospect who has not turned into a consistent big-league hitter, sitting at a career .747 OPS.
The more relevant examples are the ones that involve bigger names and more hype.
At the 2017 deadline, the Dodgers sent Willie Calhoun to Texas in the Yu Darvish deal, and Calhoun never became much for the Rangers, finishing with a negative WAR in 253 games over six seasons before becoming a journeyman. Two years later, Los Angeles made another rental move for Manny Machado, with Yusniel Diaz headlining the package. Diaz’s offense cratered in the Baltimore system, and he still has just one career MLB plate appearance, when he struck out in 2022.
Then came the 2020 deal for Mookie Betts, where Alex Verdugo, Jeter Downs and Connor Wong were part of the return. Verdugo was already in the majors and had success early in Boston before fading fast and exiting the league. Downs, a top-100 prospect, managed a minus-0.6 WAR in 14 career games with the Red Sox.
The 2021 deadline blockbuster for Trea Turner and Max Scherzer brought back Keibert Ruiz and Josiah Gray, and even that package felt underwhelming in the end. Ruiz has been serviceable, Gray never became the top arm he was supposed to be, and the return never quite matched the scale of the deal.
Miguel Vargas is the one young bat who breaks the pattern, but he had already gotten a taste of the big leagues before being dealt to Chicago. Hope hasn’t had that experience, and that’s exactly why this feels familiar. When the Dodgers trade away a top hitting prospect with no MLB track record, the history says it rarely ends well for the other side.
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The Dodgers rise came after adding Tarik Skubal and continuing to lean on the kind of player development that has become one of the clubs defining strengths. It also serves as a reminder that these rankings are about more than brand name or reputation. While the Tigers still have plenty of talent and even more Top 100 prospects than they did to open the season, Los Angeles has separated itself by building a pipeline that feels as sustainable as it does star-driven. [Read more 🡒]
Tarik Skubals Next Deal May End One Tigers Dream
Tarik Skubals looming trip to free agency is already shaping up to be one of the biggest pitching stories of the offseason, and the Dodgers are right in the middle of it. The left-hander is projected to land a deal north of $300 million, and MLB insider Bob Nightengale has pegged Los Angeles and the New York Mets as the only clubs likely to make serious runs at him when the market opens.
For the Dodgers, that puts them in position to chase a pitcher with ace-level stuff and rare leverage, even as Skubal has left open the idea of a return to the Detroit Tigers. Still, unless Detroit can somehow come close to his asking price, that possibility looks remote, which means one of the games most intriguing pitching pursuits may come down to a bidding fight the Tigers were never built to win. [Read more 🡒]