Los Angeles Dodgers free agent Tarik Skubal is set to begin free-agent meetings next week, according to multiple reports.
Skubal meetings begin in California
Jon Heyman of the New York Post broke the news first regarding Tarik Skubal’s free-agent meetings.
Skubal will be meeting with the New York Mets at some point next week during the start of his meetings, per Heyman, which will feature owner Steve Cohen and president of baseball operations David Sterns.
The meetings will be taking place in California, oddly enough, where he has called home over the last few months with the Dodgers.
With him taking meetings already, it follows the reported timeline of Skubal signing before Dec. 1st, when the MLB lockout is set to kick in.
It does mean that a deal will not materialize over the General Managers’ Meetings in Las Vegas, which conclude on Thursday, Nov. 12th.
Where the Dodgers stand
There are no reports of a meeting between the Dodgers and Skubal, and frankly, they do not need one. The Dodgers have already shown what they offer on an organizational level.
He spent three full months with the team, which served as a free-agent audition for both sides.
The Dodgers will seemingly let all of the teams make their pitch before making the final call on whether they want to make a competitive offer.
The San Diego Padres are another team in the mix, though they are seen as having an outside shot of matching the Dodgers’ and Mets’ offer if both teams max out their resources.
The field for Skubal is expected to be quite vast, but in the end, it will come down to who can offer top dollar, since that is what makes agent Scott Broas jump at a deal.
