{"id":422047,"date":"2026-08-02T22:24:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T22:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/422047\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T22:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T22:24:13","slug":"l-a-is-americas-team-but-tarik-skubal-shouldve-gone-to-the-brewers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/422047\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A. is America’s team, but Tarik Skubal should’ve gone to the Brewers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The manager of the team that most needed Tarik Skubal<\/a> sat in his office Sunday at Angel Stadium<\/a>. The Milwaukee Brewers, the team that opened play Sunday with the best record in the major leagues, did not get Skubal.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers<\/a> did. Of course they did<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cL.A. is America\u2019s team,\u201d Brewers manager Pat Murphy said.<\/p>\n

Not based on the cries from across America, from fans outraged that the Dodgers helped themselves<\/a> to the best available talent yet again to baseball insiders mystified that the Detroit Tigers could not land a better return for Skubal than the three prospects the Dodgers swapped, or at least taken a couple more days to pursue a better return.<\/p>\n

\u201cWas I rooting for the Dodgers to get Skubal? Personally, no,\u201d Angels<\/a> pitcher Brent Suter said. \u201cI was hoping another team that hadn\u2019t won the World Series the past couple of years was going to get him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suter pitched for the Brewers for seven years.<\/p>\n

\"Pitcher <\/p>\n

Pitcher Tarik Skubal walks to the dugout during a matchup between the Tigers and the Orioles Wednesday in Detroit.<\/p>\n

(Paul Sancya \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a loaded farm system,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought they were going to get him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The road to the World Series runs through Los Angeles. The Brewers also posted the best record in the majors last year, then the Dodgers swept them in the National League Championship Series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In last year\u2019s NLCS, the Brewers started an opener twice, Freddy Peralta once and Jos\u00e9 Quintana once. In a five- or seven-game series this October, the Brewers could have started Jacob Misiorowski twice and Skubal twice.<\/p>\n

That could have mitigated the Dodgers\u2019 huge advantage in slugging. The Dodgers have seven players in double digits in home runs. The Brewers have four.<\/p>\n

But any and all statistics obscure the larger point: If you\u2019re a Brewers fan, when is your year?<\/p>\n

The Brewers never have won a World Series. They are in line for their eighth playoff appearance in nine years.<\/p>\n

Sustainable success is nice, and difficult to achieve. Much credit to the Brewers, who play in baseball\u2019s smallest market.<\/p>\n

But the point of the game is to win the World Series. If you\u2019re not going all in when you have the best record in the majors for the second consecutive year, when are you going all in?<\/p>\n

If not now, when?<\/p>\n

\u201cI know we made our efforts, too,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cI trust the way we operate. I understand the way we operate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Milwaukee <\/p>\n

Milwaukee Brewers infield players celebrate after defeating the Angels Saturday at Angel Stadium.<\/p>\n

(William Liang \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

This is all the more maddening in Milwaukee because, in 2008, the Brewers tried their best. That July, they traded four prospects for Hall of Fame pitcher CC Sabathia. Only one, outfielder Michael Brantley, developed into a productive major leaguer. That\u2019s the norm, not the exception, in multiprospect trade packages.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, the Brewers lost in the first round of the playoffs, and Sabathia did not survive the fourth inning of his lone postseason start. Then he signed with the New York Yankees. So what? The Brewers went for it, and their fans believed.<\/p>\n

After the trade for Skubal, Fangraphs increased the Dodgers\u2019 chance to win the World Series from 25% to 31%. That still means a two out of three chance the Dodgers do not win.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s an amazing player,\u201d Suter said, \u201cbut it doesn\u2019t mean a guaranteed World Series. It doesn\u2019t guarantee anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

I could not believe the number of fans that reached out to say small-market teams could not match the Dodgers\u2019 proposal because they had little chance to re-sign Skubal as a free agent.<\/p>\n

Again, so what? We\u2019re playing to win the World Series, not the Baseball America prospect rankings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Brewers, with small-market resources, touted former Angels infielder Luis Rengifo as a significant winter free-agent signing. The Dodgers countered with Edwin D\u00edaz and Kyle Tucker<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cL.A. is America\u2019s team and has all the big names,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cNow they just added to that, with maybe the best pitcher in the game, certainly one of the greats in this era.\u201d <\/p>\n

If the Brewers and Dodgers meet again in October, Murphy will only be too happy to tell us who the underdog is.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be David and Goliath,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cWe haven\u2019t earned that right yet. We haven\u2019t got there yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we get there, I\u2019m sure the narrative will be pretty similar: the haves and the have-nots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murphy wanted to make one thing perfectly clear: Fans across America might despise the Dodgers, but he does not.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got a bunch of great dudes,\u201d he said. \u201cFreddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, Teoscar [Hern\u00e1ndez]. I don\u2019t know [Shohei] Ohtani. He doesn\u2019t even know who I am. But I feel like Ohtani is a great dude. I can just tell by his presence.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can you not love [Max] Muncy? Doc [manager Dave Roberts] is my good friend. [Coach Dino] Ebel, we\u2019ve got his whole family playing for the Brewers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Brewers made first-round picks of Ebel\u2019s sons Brady and Trey over the past two years, paying $5.55 million in signing bonuses. The Ebel boys are top prospects. They can look forward to a long stay in Milwaukee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The manager of the team that most needed Tarik Skubal sat in his office Sunday at Angel Stadium.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7625,2136,4117,320,426,168506,11154,2303,48,52,51,47,50,49,168507,44435,13315,18471,427,4470,72],"class_list":["post-422047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-america","tag-brewer","tag-brewers","tag-chance","tag-dodgers","tag-ebel","tag-fan","tag-l-a","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-major-last-year","tag-murphy","tag-prospect","tag-tarik-skubal","tag-team","tag-world-series","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}