Inside the ‘aggressive’ Tarik Skubal trade: How the Dodgers landed the deadline’s big prize
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LOS ANGELES — On Sunday night, Tarik Skubal stood in the dugout, wearing Dodger blue. He hugged Dave Roberts, his new manager, and he smiled. Less than 24 hours earlier, a blockbuster trade sent Skubal to Los Angeles, where he will now take his place among its lavish collection of stars.
The reigning back-to-back American League Cy Young Award winner was the deadline’s biggest prize. The reigning back-to-back World Series winners are a juggernaut. Skubal was the only player Los Angeles targeted ahead of Monday’s deadline. The whole thing — the trade on Saturday night, the scene that followed Sunday — it all felt inevitable.
Right?
“There’s nothing that we did that no one else couldn’t have done,” Roberts said Sunday.
But could have done and would have done are different, and while rival teams found themselves on one side of that equation once more, the Dodgers once again demonstrated their comfort with being on the other.
Tarik Skubal was the American League Cy Young Award winner in 2024 and 2025. (Luke Hales / Getty Images)
The Dodgers pried Skubal and his remarkable changeup away from the Detroit Tigers with a package that included two of the top 70 prospects in the sport — outfielder Zyhir Hope and right-hander River Ryan. They also sent Brady Smith, a well-regarded right-hander, to Detroit. That return was in line with expectations, given Skubal’s status as a free-agent-to-be this winter.
“I think (it’s) the benefit of having a lot of really talented players,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said Sunday, shortly after the trade was made official. “We had a lot of guys that they liked.”
In truth, not even the Dodgers were sold on their chances ahead of the Saturday night trade. Friedman prefers to refrain from these types of deadline megadeals, citing the substantial premium to acquire key players this time of year. But if Friedman was going to change his calculus, it was going to be for Skubal only.
“We were of the mind to be aggressive for one player this deadline,” Friedman said. “Fortunately, we were able to line up.”
The Dodgers adopted a more expansive approach this deadline, placing even more value on the opinions of their pro scouts and internal talent evaluators. The vast majority of executives flew to Los Angeles ahead of their all-hands meetings on Friday morning. The group was beginning to wrap up their meeting Saturday evening when the Tigers called, saying they wanted to get the deal done that night.
The Dodgers compiled a few potential packages, resulting in an end vote. Ultimately, the package of Hope, Ryan and Smith became the offer. The Dodgers could do nothing else but wait.
“I wasn’t that confident,” Friedman said. “I had no idea and was trying to emotionally hedge. I wasn’t getting too high or too low on it until we actually found out.”
Andy McCullough helps you process the Skubal trade
Andy McCullough
By the middle of L.A.’s game that night, a 3-2 loss to the Boston Red Sox, Friedman and Scott Harris, the Tigers’ president of baseball operations, had a deal. It seemed, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who spoke anonymously due to the sensitive nature of the information, the Tigers simply believed the Dodgers had the most to offer.
“I felt like we were being really aggressive and that we put some really talented players on the table, so I felt like that gave us a really good chance,” Friedman said.
It is hard to match a farm system like the one Los Angeles has cultivated, one that is consistently regarded as top five in the sport. It is built to absorb deals such as this — and it is a testament to the organization’s pro scouting and player development departments, which the team continues to heavily invest in.
“Our scouting staff, our player development staff, our front office, analytics group, all of our different departments have their fingerprints all over this,” Friedman said. “To put us in position to not only be competitive here but also to have a really strong farm system, which then puts us in position to be able to have these types of conversations.”
The Tigers spent minimal time negotiating with the Tampa Bay Rays, with their sights seemingly set on that Dodgers’ system, according to league sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity for their candor on the negotiations.
The Milwaukee Brewers, too, have an enviable farm system. But they have historically never been the type of club to act aggressively at the deadline on a rental. So Milwaukee — well-run and rolling this season, with an eye toward October baseball — moves on without adding Skubal in early August.
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The Philadelphia Phillies were always considered long shots to land Skubal, though veteran executive Dave Dombrowski loves to hunt stars. He has a good preexisting relationship with Harris; they have come together on several trades in the last four years. And the two men will often talk baseball, even if it’s not trade-related.
The Phillies and Tigers, according to league sources, discussed Skubal in broad strokes. But it is possible the Phillies never made a formal offer.
Hope, according to several rival evaluators, would have rated as the best or second-best prospect in the Phillies’ system. The Phillies have been willing to discuss many of their top prospects in trade talks, but not in exchange for a rental player.
The Chicago Cubs were among the teams to check in on Skubal as they pursued pitching help — which they got Sunday afternoon in trading for Toronto’s Kevin Gausman. But club officials anticipated that, in terms of young talent to offer, another organization would be better positioned, as well as more motivated to trade for a rental starter of this caliber.
The Cubs also seemed to quickly realize that the price was going to reach a level they wouldn’t be comfortable going to. Considering their place in the standings, giving up a prospect who they valued highly was just not something they’d do for a rental, even one as highly thought of as Skubal.
It’s unclear how far the New York Yankees got with the Tigers in talks with Skubal, though it is believed they were in touch with each other in recent days.
One team decision-maker pointed to how Skubal — and starting pitching, in general — “wasn’t quite an area of need” for the Yankees, whose offense has been in the dumps of late.
“Obviously, Skubal seemed like he was available the last few days,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Not shocked. We know the system the Dodgers had.”
— Matt Gelb, Cody Stavenhagen, Brendan Kuty, Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma contributed to this report.
