Inside the aggressive push Dodgers made to acquire Tarik Skubal
Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman felt good enough about his trade discussions with the Detroit Tigers for two-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal that he gave manager Dave Roberts a positive update shortly before the team’s game against the Red Sox on Saturday.
“I heard that it was pretty much done,” Roberts recounted Sunday afternoon. “But there’s obviously things that have to go on with medical, so it wasn’t actually even finalized. I just heard that it was pretty much close.”
Friedman, however, wasn’t ready to exhale until he got final word from the Tigers during the game.
“I had no idea and was trying to emotionally hedge,” he said. “I wasn’t getting too high or too low on it until we actually found out.”
There was, it turned out, no need to stress. On Saturday, the Dodgers agreed to trade three prospects — outfielder Zyhir Hope (No. 25 on MLB Pipeline’s top 100), right-handed pitcher River Ryan (No. 68) and right-hander Brady Smith — to the Tigers for one of the best starters in baseball.
The teams officially announced the trade Sunday.
Even as the Dodgers signaled a potentially low-key trade deadline in the lead-up — “we try to do everything we can to avoid not having to do something,” Friedman said last week — many rival executives and scouts had come to see the Dodgers landing Skubal as practically inevitable.
Of course, the World Series favorites didn’t need to acquire Skubal. But if they wanted him, they’d get him.
And they did.
“Friday it started picking up a little bit,” Friedman said. “But [Saturday] it was much more aggressive back and forth and a lot of different conversations. Obviously being on our side, you didn’t really know how long the process was gonna go, whether it was gonna go into Sunday, into Monday. But obviously we were of the mind to be aggressive and try to get a deal done.
“We were of the mind to be aggressive for one player this deadline, and fortunately we were able to line up.”
Andrew Friedman, Dodgers president of baseball operations, speaks to reporters on Jan. 21.
(Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)
Two aspects of the trade did, however, take the industry by surprise: the timing and the return.
The Dodgers pulled off the trade without disrupting their major-league squad. Ryan, who made four major-league starts in 2024, has the stuff to compete in the majors, but health has kept him from another call-up.
“Obviously they felt good going through it,” Friedman said. “We gave up a lot of talent. Those guys are really good, and have a chance to be really good major-league players. But with where our core is, this moment in time, it was something that we felt like, erring on the side of aggressive made the most sense right now.”
Skubal joins Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Shohei Ohtani as postseason rotation options, creating an enviable surplus if all five are healthy in October.
“I think it’s arguably the best rotation of all time — as if it wasn’t before as well,” catcher Dalton Rushing said. “Hope he’s ready to win a ring.”
Said veteran utility player Miguel Rojas: “It’s a statement from this organization to the rest of the league and the world that they’re not just satisfied with what happened the last couple years. … It’s kind of like a pressed button for us to kind of continue to go and not let the rest of the league catch up to our standards.”
Of course, health is never guaranteed. Skubal and Snell have undergone surgeries to remove loose bodies from their pitching elbows. Skubal has made nine appearances since, and Snell is scheduled to make one more rehab start before being activated off the injured list.
Glasnow, on the verge of a rehab assignment, has been sidelined for nearly three months with back spasms, an injury the Dodgers initially hoped wouldn’t even need an IL stint.
Ohtani’s nagging knee problem creates the most uncertainty. Ohtani hasn’t pitched in nearly a month, despite receiving an Orthovisc injection to lubricate the joint. He could restart playing catch this week in Chicago, Roberts said.
“We’re as confident as we can be that he’s going to be back and he’s going to start throwing soon and building back up,” Friedman said. “You can never perfectly predict the future but if you said, ‘Hey, place a bet on it,’ I would be very confident placing it that he would be back pitching.”
Pitcher Tarik Skubal is congratulated by teammates after playing in his final game with the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday against the Baltimore Orioles.
(Paul Sancya / Associated Press)
With this much time off, however, Ohtani will need to build back up to a starter’s workload without the benefit of a rehab assignment, similar to what he did last season. The timing of his return to the mound will dictate how long the build-up will be.
“We have a plan to build him up slowly, methodically,” Roberts said. “And that would have happened if this trade would have happened or not.”
In the meantime, the Dodgers are filling his spot in the rotation with the best possible option. Skubal is scheduled to make his Dodgers debut Tuesday against the Cubs in Chicago.
And the Dodgers aren’t necessarily done dealing. As of Sunday afternoon, they still were engaged on “a number of different conversations on a number of different fronts,” Friedman said.
When asked if the Dodgers could still add to the major-league roster, however, Friedman said that was “less likely.”
“Never say never,” he said. “Fortunately, we don’t have that acute need that we have to do this or our team is in real danger.”
He did, however, mention the Dodgers’ lack of an acute need before acquiring Skubal too.
