The Brewers fan base has spoken, and the wishlist at the deadline starts with a name that would make just about any front office sit up straight: Tarik Skubal.
In a recent forum poll, Brewers supporters weighed in on the trade targets they’d most like Milwaukee to chase, and Skubal led the way with 11 mentions. That’s not exactly a shock.
Pitchers this dominant almost never hit the market, and Skubal has been operating at a level that makes the whole exercise feel a little wild. He’s the defending AL Cy Young winner, actually the defending two straight American League Cy Young Awards, and even though the bone chips in his elbow and the surgery that followed may keep him from making it three in a row, he remains one of the five best pitchers in baseball right now.
The Tigers left-hander brings the full ace package. He can run a four-seamer and sinker up near 100 mph, then turn around and bury hitters with a slider and changeup that qualify as elite.
He’ll even sprinkle in a curveball now and then just to keep batters from getting too comfortable. The control is just as nasty as the stuff - he’s been the stingiest starter in the league when it comes to walks.
If you’re looking for the kind of arm that can tilt October, this is the guy. The only problem is Detroit.
The Tigers have been stuck in a season that keeps slipping out of their hands, and it would take a pretty extreme level of stubbornness for Scott Harris to hang on to Skubal and risk losing him in free agency for nothing more than draft-pick compensation.
Joe Ryan came next with nine mentions, and he fits the kind of profile teams always talk themselves into when the deadline gets close: reliable, tough to square up, and good enough to matter in October. There’s no hard proof that starting pitching suddenly becomes more valuable in the postseason, but that never stops clubs from hunting for arms like Ryan. He’s on track for what would be his second straight All-Star nod, and after a minor elbow scare in early May, he’s stayed on schedule every turn through the rotation.
Ryan doesn’t overpower hitters with sheer velocity, but he makes up for it with variety. He works with two different fastball shapes, multiple breaking balls, and the occasional splitter that can really bother lefties.
The strikeouts have always been there because of the way his pitches move in different directions, and he’s also been excellent at getting hitters to chase, which keeps the walks down. This season, he’s also cleaned up one of the issues that had followed him before: the home run problem.
Minnesota still hasn’t done enough to stay afloat as a rebuilding team, and everyone around the situation knows the Twins would rather trade him now than wait until winter or next summer, when the return would be worse and the price of keeping him would keep climbing. The one caution flag is his second-half track record, which has often faded a bit, but if he gets through the All-Star break in good shape, he’ll be one of the biggest names available.
Adrian Morejón drew eight mentions, and he looks like the sort of deadline piece contenders love to scoop up. He’s a classic rental, on a one-year, $3.9 million deal in his final arbitration season, with free agency coming this winter.
The surface numbers are solid enough - a 3.33 ERA - but the underlying work says he’s been even better. His 2.55 xERA, 27.6 K% and 5.9 BB% point to a pitcher missing bats and limiting damage, and his 34.6% whiff rate is a career best.
The contact profile is strong too. Morejón has allowed just a 2.1% barrel rate and carries a .249 xwOBA, while getting ground balls at a 62.1% clip.
His sinker is averaging 99.4 mph, nearly two ticks up from last year, which only adds to the appeal. Left-handed, affordable, and expiring - that’s the kind of combination that tends to get attention fast.
Clay Holmes rounded out the list with five mentions. On paper, he’s a rental too, even if the contract structure is a little more complicated.
He signed a three-year, $38 million deal in December 2024, but it includes an opt-out after this season and a $12 million player option for 2027. Given the market, he’s likely to opt out.
Holmes has built a long track record as a sinker-heavy ground-ball pitcher, with a career 3.53 ERA across 555.2 innings, a 22.4 K% and a 9.9 BB%. His career .297 xwOBA sits close to his .289 actual wOBA, and the batted-ball profile is exactly what teams want from this type of arm: a 62.1% ground-ball rate, a 5.0% barrel rate and a 48.2% topped-contact rate. He’s currently on a rehab assignment after suffering a fractured fibula in May, so any team interested in him is betting on the body of work, not a fresh run on an MLB mound.
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Tarik Skubal sits at the center of the conversation because a pitcher of his caliber would instantly reshape a rotation that has been thinned by injuries. Detroit would not move an arm like that cheaply, and the asking price figures to start with controllable starting pitching plus more beyond it, which is why this feels less like a rumor mill item and more like the beginning of a real test for Milwaukees willingness to pay up. [Read more 🡒]