Tarik Skubal is now a Los Angeles Dodger, and the reaction around baseball sounded less like surprise and more like panic.
One National League executive told USA TODAY Sports’ Bob Nightengale, "This is a sad day for a lot of us," while adding, "The Dodgers have Skubal now, and they’re going to have him in the future."
Another executive went even further: "No use playing the rest of the year. It’s over,"
That outrage, though, lands in the wrong place.
If the Dodgers keep finding ways to land the biggest names, they’re only part of the story. The real question is why nobody else stepped in and stopped this from happening.
Why didn’t the Milwaukee Brewers make the move? Why not the Tampa Bay Rays?
The Chicago Cubs? The Detroit Tigers didn’t have to trade Skubal, either, even if there’s at least some understanding for why they did.
It’s easy to point at Los Angeles and its endless resources, the payroll, the more than $1 billion in deferred money, and the familiar sense that the Dodgers always end up in the middle of the action when a star becomes available. But this one was different.
All it took was three prospects - only two of them ranked in the top 100 - for Los Angeles to get the deal done. The best of the group was the fifth-ranked player in the Dodgers’ farm system.
Sure, different teams have different financial realities, and some clubs have to think harder about whether they can keep a player like Skubal before giving up young talent for what amounts to a half-season rental. But eventually, that’s the moment when a contender has to push in its chips and go for it.
That’s the uncomfortable truth of the system MLB owners agreed to. Fans who want championships shouldn’t have to settle for the easy storyline about greedy billionaires and the Dodgers’ spending. Too often, the focus on Los Angeles lets other teams off the hook for not doing everything possible to win.
If no other contender was willing to top LA’s relatively modest package for the back-to-back AL Cy Young winner, then the frustration should be aimed at those teams, not the Dodgers.
The same argument runs through the rest of the roster-building conversation. The Angels let Shohei Ohtani walk.
The Braves let Freddie Freeman leave. The Red Sox chose not to pay Mookie Betts.
Los Angeles didn’t become this kind of force on its own; it benefited from other teams deciding they wouldn’t make the same financial commitment.
Sunday also brought another notable move, with the Washington Nationals sending first baseman Luis García Jr. to the New York Yankees. García is in the middle of a career year, and Andrew Joseph said Washington may have settled for too little in return.
"It’s always difficult to judge prospect returns, but the Nationals probably could have held out for a top prospect among the potential suitors. Cebert and Grable should both develop into contributing pitchers, but they’re likely a couple years away. The haul is a bit underwhelming once you consider what an extra year of García could bring to teams."
Andrew also graded the deal for both clubs.
Elsewhere, Jeff Smith offered a list of some of the best fantasy football team names for 2026, Charles Curtis graded the Blue Jays-Cubs trade for starting pitcher Kevin Gausman, and Cory Woodroof called Spider-Man: Brand New Day "a boring swing-and-miss." Amtrak also made a playful pitch to LeBron James for his trip from New York to Philadelphia.
In Other News...
Nationals Deadline Plan Could Turn On Two Core Infield Decisions
The Nationals approach to the trade deadline may hinge less on the standings than on how they sort out the middle infield. Washington has been weighing what to do with several movable pieces, and the picture that has emerged points to a roster that could be trimmed in a few spots while still keeping some of its young core intact. Foster Griffin has also come up in the mix as a possible trade candidate, part of the kind of deadline maneuvering teams use when they are trying to balance short-term needs with long-term value.
At the center of it all is the infield conversation, where the clubs decisions could shape both the deadline return and the opening they create elsewhere on the roster. There is already plenty of speculation around potential additions, including a reliever such as Sam Bachman, but the bigger question for Washington is which familiar names it is willing to move and which ones it decides are too important to part with. [Read more 🡒]
Nationals Just Made A Rebuild Bet Fans Will Want To See
The Nationals kept working the margins of their rebuild by dealing first baseman Luis Garca Jr. to the Yankees, parting with a player who had put together a power breakout this season and still would have remained under team control through 2027. For a club still sorting through its long-term core, it is the kind of move that signals Washington is willing to convert short-term value into a broader pitching haul.
In return, the Nationals are adding right-handers Ben Grable, Yovanny Cruz, Jack Cebert and Jacob Bird, a mix that blends major-league relief depth with lower-level upside. The question now is how much of that group can help beyond just adding depth, and whether this is one of those deals that looks ordinary on the day it happens before a clearer payoff emerges later. [Read more 🡒]
Red Sox Eye One More Deadline Move To Fix A Lingering Problem
The Nationals have already done business with Boston twice in the past nine months, sending pitcher Jake Bennett and infielder Curtis Mead to the Red Sox as the clubs kept finding common ground. Now the two sides could be circling each other again, with Boston still looking to patch a lingering issue as the deadline approaches and Washington owning one of the more intriguing infield pieces on the market.
Luis Garcia Jr. is drawing attention because of the season he has put together, and the Red Sox appear to be one of the teams monitoring that fit. Any conversation would likely be shaped by the kind of names Boston would have to part with, with Jarren Duran or Patrick Sandoval among the possibilities mentioned in reports, but nothing has been finalized and the next move remains unresolved. [Read more 🡒]