The Los Angeles Dodgers acquired Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers in a deadline deal that sent outfielder Zyhir Hope and right-handers River Ryan and Brady Smith to Detroit, according to ESPN. Skubal is the reigning back-to-back American League Cy Young Award winner, the report said.
ESPN analysts reacted to the return as surprisingly modest. Alden Gonzalez wrote that while Hope and Ryan are highly regarded — ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel ranked them as the Dodgers’ fifth- and eighth-best prospects in July — the package still represented a win for Detroit given Skubal’s impending free-agent status. Gonzalez added that both prospects should figure prominently in the Tigers’ future, according to ESPN.
The move further fortifies a rotation that already ranked among the majors’ best. According to ESPN, the Dodgers led the majors in ERA and in run differential before the trade, and had projected starters that included Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Shohei Ohtani. Gonzalez noted the addition of Skubal raises questions about roster construction and who may be left out of a deep starting staff, per ESPN.
Jesse Rogers of ESPN questioned whether a meaningful bidding war ever materialized for Skubal, noting surprise that teams such as Milwaukee or Atlanta did not offer a larger package. Rogers suggested the Brewers in particular could have used Skubal’s impact in October and might have had the assets to make a different deal without surrendering top prospect Jesus Made, according to ESPN.
ESPN writers placed the trade in historical context. Gonzalez compared it to the July 31, 1998, Randy Johnson deal in which Seattle sent Johnson to Houston for Freddy Garcia and Carlos Guillen; Johnson dominated down the stretch for the Astros. Rogers likened the Skubal move to Justin Verlander’s 2017 trade to Detroit as a rough precedent, according to ESPN.
