Big Bear Nolan's Blog

If your a big baseball fan like me, by now (9:52 am CT on Sunday, August 2nd as I am typing this) you probably heard the news that Detroit Tigers ace in Tarik Skubal was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Now while to most that is unsurprising, what is surprising is the package that Detroit took.

The Dodgers sent OF Zyhir Hope (LAD’s No. 5 prospect), RHP River Ryan (LAD’s No. 7 prospect), and RHP Brady Smith (LAD’s No. 17 prospect) to Detroit for Skubal. I think it is important to note that while Hope and Ryan have a lot of promise, Hope is still in double A, Smith is only in high A, and Ryan is a 30 year old pitching prospect. So yea a big thing everyone is asking is “that’s all it took?”, yes… yes it is.

I am a Dodgers fan so maybe I’m not the best person to talk about this. But you can’t blame the Dodgers for doing this, they didn’t even need to open their checkbook for him. It was simply just trading prospects for the hottest pitcher on the trade market. If someone is to blame, blame all the other big market teams and other contending teams for this.

One of the teams I have seen catch a lot of flak for this is the Milwaukee Brewers. Since they are arguably the Dodgers biggest competitor in not only in the Skubal sweepstakes, but most importantly are the biggest competitor in the NL race there was some pressure on them to do something they rarely do. And that was to have the guts to give up prospects in the top farm system in baseball for the hottest trade asset. Like in the past, the Brewers couldn’t give up their prospects and let their biggest competitor grab Skubal.

Look, I have seen things about how expensive the Tigers ask from Milwaukee was. And while Detroit could have asked for more from Los Angeles. You know, Brewers, sometimes you just got to take the risk and give up your prospects. Skubal could bust and the prospects could work out, that is definitely a possibility, but also the other way around can happen. It’s not just the Brewers too, the Dodgers expose the other big market teams in how they’re ran. The Mets for example have a top 5 payroll in the sport but are well out of the postseason picture, part of that is the players they get.

Look, Los Angeles definitely has a lot that they can work with that other teams don’t. But these other teams have the ability to punch back and they chose not to or chose a way that is unsuccessful. Unfortunately this move puts baseball closer to the impending doomsday that is the 2027 lockout but the whole sport, not just the Dodgers is at fault for this.