The Los Angeles Dodgers' desire to add starting pitching at the trade deadline isn't a secret.
Virtually all of the speculations about how they'd operate in the lead-up to the July 30th trade deadline tabbed them as a team that would aggressively pursue top-end help for their starting rotation.
It has made sense, too. They had as many as seven starting pitchers on the Injured List and a couple of others in Triple-A Oklahoma City struggling to find their stuff. Now they're starting to get some depth back in the rotation as players have gotten healthy.
Los Angeles added reliever Michael Kopech and a pair of utility-men in Tommy Edman and Amed Rosario. Their options in the starting pitching market are running thin, but there's one more monster swing they could take.
Mark Feinsand at MLB.com noted the Dodgers and Baltimore Orioles were two teams figured "to be the two most serious suitors" for Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal.
Skubal, 27, has been superb in his fourth full Major League season. He's leading the league with a 2.35 ERA and a 179 ERA+, which are both career-best marks for the southpaw.
It's hard to imagine Detroit wanting to unload Skubal for anything less than a king's ransom as well as the ransoms of several other noblemen. He's still young and under team control through the 2026 season. Perhaps the Tigers have no designs of re-signing Skubal long-term, but they could wait until the winter to try and get more teams in the mix if they are keen on dealing him at some point.
Los Angeles could conceivably make the massive offer the Tigers are looking for. They have the prospects and young Major League Baseball talent to do it, and the need atop their starting rotation. Adding Skubal to the Tyler Glasnow-Gavin Stone one-two punch would make LA an extremely tough out in a playoff series. And if any team is all-in every year, it's the Dodgers, who have the resources to quickly replenish their farm system.
One problem is that Stone would likely be the player Detroit circles as a 'must-have' in the deal, and removing Stone to add Skubal puts LA in a similar spot where they can't feel great about their starting pitching depth, even if Skubal is a sizable upgrade over Stone.
The other problem is the Orioles are similarly in win-now mode. Perhaps even more so, and their ability to put together a Godfather offer is better than LA's. They boast three of the top 15 prospects in baseball according to MLB.com with Jackson Holliday (No. 1), Samuel Basallo (No. 12), and Coby Mayo (No. 15). The Dodgers don't have a player on the top-100 list until No. 46 where Dalton Rushing resides.
Skubal in Dodger Blue is a fun idea and there's little doubt that LA has been in contact with Detroit about hammering out such a deal. In reality, if they're suitors alongside the Orioles and the Tigers are selling to the highest bidder, the Dodgers just don't have the horses to keep up in that race if Baltimore wants to win it.
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