What does Tarik Skubal to the Dodgers mean for the MLB?
Disclaimer: Like many students who attend this school, I am a Dodgers fan. However, the purpose of this article is to inform readers about the effects of the Tarik Skubal trade without contributing any bias.
There is always a random baseball fan in a small-market city that wishes their team could sign or trade for the biggest names in the sport. Pittsburgh Pirates fans wish their owner, Bob Nutting, would spend more to try and actually build a World Series contender. Miami Marlins fans rarely buy their favorite players’ jerseys because they fear that they will leave the team in free agency. Here in Los Angeles, you have the high-spending Dodgers (and the Angels down in Anaheim, who sadly wasted the prime years of Mike Trout). On August 1, 2026, two days before the MLB trade deadline on the 3rd, the Dodgers traded for the premier crown jewel on the trade block: former Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal.
Who is Tarik Skubal, and why did the Dodgers trade for him?
Widely considered as one of the best pitchers in the world over the past two years, Tarik Skubal is a two-time AL Cy Young winner (best pitcher in the American League); 2024 AL Pitching Triple Crown winner (led the AL in wins, strikeouts, and earned run average); two-time All-Star; and two-time AL ERA leader. Yes, that’s a lot of achievements for one guy, and it was a no-brainer that he was the top prize available during this year’s trade deadline. Teams like the Brewers, Rays, and Yankees were in contention to trade for him as August 3rd got closer. But in the end, it was the team everyone expected who ultimately had the last laugh in the sweepstakes: the Dodgers.
A trio of prospects consisting of outfielder Zyhir Hope and two pitchers in River Ryan and Brady Smith were all the Dodgers needed to give up to trade for Skubal. After the trade occurred, people online were ranting about how they thought the Tigers got fleeced. This is because LA boasts one of the two best farm systems in all of baseball along with the Milwaukee Brewers, and baseball media was all about how the package was unusually thin for an elite starting ace like Tarik Skubal. After all, with the state of the Dodgers’ farm system, the Tigers could’ve easily asked for more prospects as LA had eight prospects in MLB’s Top 100 list. At the end of the day, the trade that the baseball world predicted came true, and the Dodgers added another frontline starter to a roster that already has Blake Snell, another two-time Cy Young award winner. Oh, and the reigning World Series MVP, Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Did I forget about two-way player Shohei Ohtani, universally recognized as the best MLB star to currently walk the earth? What about the “Monster of the Reiwa Era” in Roki Sasaki? And 6’8” All-Star Tyler Glasnow who just surpassed 1,000 career strikeouts in May? Yes, the Dodgers roster is stacked, and that’s just the rotation. Skubal is widely considered the final missing piece in the Dodgers’ quest for a three-peat as they try and go for a third consecutive World Series ring, which leads me to the next point in this article.
How has the Skubal trade altered the current MLB landscape?
When you look at the Dodgers’ roster now, it looks more like an All-Star team than an MLB team. Yes, we go to school in Eagle Rock, many of us Eagles are Dodgers fans, and the stadium is a 10-minute drive from here without traffic. But what about everybody else? People that just support their local team and want a fair chance to win a World Series? While Skubal to the Dodgers was a trade rather than another instance of LA using their money to sign the best available free agent, people still found it unfair how a large-market team like the Dodgers somehow ended up with all the best players.
Sure, Skubal is technically a rental starting pitcher for Los Angeles, as he will enter free agency at the start of the 2026 MLB offseason, which could be a factor in why the package Detroit received was regarded as underwhelming. However, the Dodgers are the heavy favorites to sign him again come this winter. Other teams like the Yankees and highly underperforming Mets do have the financial capital to sign him. However, the Dodgers’ proven winning culture is highly appetizing to top-tier talent like Skubal and it only helps that LA was his initial preferred long-term destination despite reminiscing about Detroit and how it would be nice to re-sign there in the offseason.
There is this saying that starting pitching is the key to success in the postseason. Managers of MLB teams optimize common strategy such as using your best starter to set the tone for a Game 1. This helps significantly, especially in volatile rounds like the best-of-five Division Series or the chaotic three-game Wild Card matchups. A pitcher like Skubal or Yamamoto could be the main difference in a short series - though baseball is highly unpredictable. Despite multiple stories of underdogs such as the 2019 Washington Nationals winning the World Series routinely making headlines, it is always better to be safe than sorry and build the best possible roster. “But it’s unfair that my team has a nobody pitcher who has 0 accolades while the Dodgers have Yamamoto, Snell, Skubal and dozens of All-Stars in their lineup!”
The biggest story of the 2026 MLB offseason
Yes, it may be unfair. But on December 1, 2026, the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is set to expire. The CBA is simply a contract between the league and the MLB Players’ Association, covering important things such as salaries, taxes, and more. When this expires, the league will undergo a lockout, meaning all offseason trades and free agent signings will come to a halt until a new deal is reached. The main story of the offseason is that the league is trying to propose a salary cap in order to stop teams like the Dodgers from spending their money. Talks between MLB and its players resulting in an outcome of that caliber could result in a flurry of roster moves across the league.
Yes, that could result in the Dodgers moving out of the bidding for a highly-priced free agent in the future, including a potential re-signing of Skubal. One of the main reasons a salary cap could be implemented is to make the league more balanced by giving small-market teams a better chance to sign the best players. As mentioned earlier, Skubal going to LA doesn’t have much to do with money unlike the signings of Kyle Tucker and Edwin Diaz during the 2025-26 offseason, though the trade itself magnified the idea of big-market teams having an advantage when it comes to building the best MLB team as Skubal contributed to the already star-studded roster. People are right when saying that the conception of teams like the Dodgers and Yankees having nearly infinite money comes down to where they are located. The reality is that playing in cities like LA, New York or even Philadelphia are much more attractive to players than going somewhere like Tampa Bay or Kansas City, unless the player has a connection to a small-market town. Other factors include TV-sponsored deals and brand sponsorships in addition to a team’s winning culture. For example, in 2013, the Dodgers signed a massive 25-year, $8.35 billion contract with Time Warner Cable (now Spectrum) to create SportsNet LA, the platform where all Dodger games are broadcasted. Since Shohei Ohtani joined the Dodgers in 2024, multiple sponsorships involving Japanese companies have heavily driven increased ticket sales at Dodger Stadium. In fact, the presence of Japanese culture surrounding the team caused the stadium’s name to be changed to Uniqlo Field at Dodger Stadium earlier this year, sponsored by the Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo. Despite the huge amounts of cash the Dodgers organization is receiving, a salary cap could change their and the other 29 teams’ strategies in the future.
Will Skubal make an impact on the postseason?
In conclusion, Tarik Skubal going to the Dodgers raises a ton of questions when it comes to the fairness of building an MLB roster despite the move not involving any sort of finances. Whether Skubal makes a difference in the teams’ postseason run or not, the offseason lockout is extremely likely to happen if a deal between the league and its players isn’t reached by December 1st. The trade between the Dodgers and Tigers may be the most important on paper, but many other deadline acquisitions could have a significant impact during the playoffs. Starting pitchers like Kevin Gausman, who got traded to the Cubs from the Blue Jays, may be beneficial to the Cubs’ postseason hopes. Valuable hitters like the Phillies’ contact machine Luis Arrarez and Red Sox catcher Adley Rutschman may boost their respective teams’ offenses as they try to win the World Series as well.
The postseason is just around a week away from the time of writing this article. To fans of each playoff contender, may the best team win in October!
Comments