The Dodgers Got Tarik Skubal

If Shohei Ohtani doesn’t return to the pitcher’s mound for the Los Angeles Dodgers this season, they’ve got themselves a hell of a replacement. Late Saturday night, the back-to-back defending world champions made the biggest trade deadline move possible, acquiring back-to-back AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers in exchange for three prospects.

This trade helps a strong team grow even stronger, and their 10-game lead in the NL West already makes the Dodgers the presumptive winners of that division yet again. If their starting rotation was looking a little thin with the injuries to Ohtani, Blake Snell, and Tyler Glasnow, it doesn’t anymore. The thrill of imagining Skubal and Yoshinobu Yamamoto starting the first two games of a playoff series is exactly the feeling that contending teams should want to spark in their fans when they bring on a new guy at the deadline.

While MLB continues its campaign to get people mad at the Dodgers for spending money and winning, a half-season of Skubal’s services was clearly within the budget of the league’s other franchises, too—even the ones that keep payrolls low. The Dodgers will spend $9.5 million on his contract before he enters free agency, and they haven’t parted with any irreplaceable players. From this deal, the Tigers will add a pretty obscure single-A hurler; a 27-year-old pitcher in AAA named River Ryan that some folks seem to like; and, the best of the bunch according to MLB Pipeline, 21-year-old AA outfielder Zyhir Hope.