At this point, it is common knowledge that the Los Angeles Dodgers are among the teams in the mix to land Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal, and now, his availability has been made as official as can be.
The most connected and reputable MLB insider, Jeff Passan, has made it clear that the Tigers, who have been hovering around the American League Wild Card despite their middling play, will end up dealing Skubal.
“Yeah, Tarik Skubal is going to be traded,” Passan said outright in a segment on SportsCenter.
“The Tigers haven’t gone to teams that are interested in him and said as much at this point, but the expectation is that’s going to happen within the next day or two, and frankly everyone has been expecting it when you see how the Tigers have played recently.”
For a long time, as the Tigers have started to surge back into the playoff picture as a fringe team, reports would alternate every day about whether Detroit would trade the face of its franchise.
However, as the season has stagnated and the club faces losing its best player for nothing in free agency, where they cannot afford his price tag, the Tigers are back in a corner now.
“They understood that they needed to go on a really big run in order to have Tarik Skubal stick around, and they didn’t do it,” Passan explained
“They’re taking a healthy view of this. They understand that they have a lot of engaged teams right now.”
Where does this leave the Dodgers?
Rarely do the Dodgers ever get really aggressive at the deadline, especially since they do their shopping in the winter.
But with a three-peat on the line, LA is positioned to use their massive pool of assets to strike big in the trade market, taking the biggest finish away from other contenders and giving the team insurance in case of an injury.
Passan has labeled the Dodgers as the “favorites” to land Skubal, something he has reiterated over the past week as the MLB world looks at what LA is going to do with the two-time Cy Young winner.
With Skubal on the market, the actual gauge of his value and the interest level will become quite clear, along with the prospect price as well.
The Dodgers need to decide whether a trade is worth it sooner rather than later, especially since the Tigers won’t wait around unless they pull the trigger.
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