Jeff Passan’s latest reporting on the Tarik Skubal sweepstakes gives a clearer look at how the Detroit Tigers ended up choosing the Los Angeles Dodgers’ offer - and it also sharpens the picture of where the Milwaukee Brewers stood in the chase.
According to Passan, Detroit moved on Aug. 1, two days before the deadline, and asked interested teams for their best and final offers. No prolonged back-and-forth.
No drawn-out haggling over details. The Tigers collected the packages, met internally, and picked the one they liked most.
That winner was the Dodgers’ group of outfielder Zyhir Hope, right-hander Brady Smith and right-hander River Ryan. Passan spends more time on Ryan, calling him the “fulcrum” of the deal.
Ryan’s appeal is obvious enough: he’s a top-flight prospect. But there’s a catch, too, since he has an injury history and will turn 28 in mid-August.
For Brewers fans hoping for a fresh twist, Passan’s story doesn’t exactly deliver a new bombshell. It lines up with earlier reporting from Adam McCalvy of MLB.com, who said Milwaukee’s offer included Brewers No. 2 prospect Luis Peña and two other players.
McCalvy also noted that all three were hitters and that two were top-100 prospects. Meanwhile, Logan Henderson, Cooper Pratt, Luis Lara and No. 1 prospect Jesús Made were all off-limits.
That leaves the two most likely names for the other top-100 prospect in the Brewers’ package as infielder Jett Williams and outfielder Josh Adamczewski.
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic added more detail, reporting that Milwaukee put multiple proposals on the table. One included Peña and Alexander Frias, who was later traded to the St.
Louis Cardinals for Dustin May. Another featured Williams and Peña.
The broader sense from both Passan and Rosenthal is that Detroit wasn’t locked into demanding a controllable starting pitcher or any one specific position. Instead, the Tigers asked for the best version of each team’s offer and then weighed them against one another.
Passan also points to something the Dodgers can lean on that other clubs can’t: a deadline edge built on not needing every prospect to turn into a core regular. That kind of flexibility matters when the market gets tight and the prices climb.
Rosenthal, meanwhile, suggested Milwaukee may have had a path to the deal if it had pushed even harder. He wrote that if the Brewers had offered Peña and top prospect Jesús Made, the trade likely would have been completed. He also said Milwaukee viewed May and Kevin Gausman, who was traded from Toronto to the New York Mets, as the only pitchers besides Skubal they believed could be trusted in a playoff setting.
Rosenthal closed with a pointed question about Milwaukee’s approach: “The lingering question, however, is whether the Brewers, in this particular case, could have been more aggressive,” he said. “The way teams resist trading prospects, it’s almost as if they assume every one of them will become a star.
The hit rate on such players isn’t nearly that good. And when a team’s system is as deep as the Brewers’, the risk of being caught short on young talent isn’t as great.”
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