{"id":422197,"date":"2026-08-03T01:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T01:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/422197\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T01:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T01:44:12","slug":"inside-the-aggressive-push-dodgers-made-to-acquire-tarik-skubal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/422197\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the aggressive push Dodgers made to acquire Tarik Skubal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dodgers<\/a> president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman<\/a> felt good enough about his trade discussions with the Detroit Tigers for two-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal<\/a> that he gave manager Dave Roberts<\/a> a positive update shortly before the team\u2019s game against the Red Sox<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard that it was pretty much done,\u201d Roberts recounted Sunday afternoon. \u201cBut there\u2019s obviously things that have to go on with medical, so it wasn\u2019t actually even finalized. I just heard that it was pretty much close.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friedman, however, wasn\u2019t ready to exhale until he got final word from the Tigers during the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no idea and was trying to emotionally hedge,\u201d he said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t getting too high or too low on it until we actually found out.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was, it turned out, no need to stress. On Saturday, the Dodgers agreed to trade three prospects \u2014 outfielder Zyhir Hope<\/a> (No. 25 on MLB Pipeline\u2019s top 100), right-handed pitcher River Ryan<\/a> (No. 68) and right-hander Brady Smith<\/a> \u2014 to the Tigers for one of the best starters in baseball.<\/p>\n

The teams officially announced the trade<\/a> Sunday.<\/p>\n

Even as the Dodgers signaled a potentially low-key trade deadline in the lead-up \u2014 \u201cwe try to do everything we can to avoid not having to do something,\u201d Friedman said last week \u2014 many rival executives and scouts had come to see the Dodgers landing Skubal as practically inevitable.<\/p>\n

Of course, the World Series favorites didn\u2019t need to acquire Skubal. But if they wanted him, they\u2019d get him.<\/p>\n

And they did.<\/p>\n

\u201cFriday it started picking up a little bit,\u201d Friedman said. \u201cBut [Saturday] it was much more aggressive back and forth and a lot of different conversations. Obviously being on our side, you didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were of the mind to be aggressive for one player this deadline, and fortunately we were able to line up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Andrew <\/p>\n

Andrew Friedman, Dodgers president of baseball operations, speaks to reporters on Jan. 21.<\/p>\n

(Damian Dovarganes \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Two aspects of the trade did, however, take the industry by surprise: the timing and the return.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously they felt good going through it,\u201d Friedman said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skubal joins Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a>, Blake Snell<\/a>, Tyler Glasnow<\/a> and Shohei Ohtani<\/a> as postseason rotation options, creating an enviable surplus if all five are healthy in October.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s arguably the best rotation of all time \u2014 as if it wasn\u2019t before as well,\u201d catcher Dalton Rushing<\/a> said. \u201cHope he\u2019s ready to win a ring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Said veteran utility player Miguel Rojas: \u201cIt\u2019s a statement from this organization to the rest of the league and the world that they\u2019re not just satisfied with what happened the last couple years. \u2026 It\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Tarik <\/p>\n

Tarik Skubal delivers for the Detroit Tigers against the Kansas City Royals on July 24.<\/p>\n

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

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\u2019t even need an IL stint.<\/p>\n

Ohtani\u2019s nagging knee problem creates the most uncertainty. Ohtani hasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re as confident as we can be that he\u2019s going to be back and he\u2019s going to start throwing soon and building back up,\u201d Friedman said. \u201cYou can never perfectly predict the future but if you said, \u2018Hey, place a bet on it,\u2019 I would be very confident placing it that he would be back pitching.\u201d<\/p>\n

With this much time off, however, Ohtani will need to build back up to a starter\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a plan to build him up slowly, methodically,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cAnd that would have happened if this trade would have happened or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

And the Dodgers aren\u2019t necessarily done dealing. As of Sunday afternoon, they still were engaged on \u201ca number of different conversations on a number of different fronts,\u201d Friedman said.<\/p>\n

When asked if the Dodgers could still add to the major-league roster, however, Friedman said that was \u201cless likely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNever say never,\u201d he said. \u201cFortunately, we don\u2019t have that acute need that we have to do this or our team is in real danger.\u201d<\/p>\n

He did, however, mention the Dodgers\u2019 lack of an acute need before acquiring Skubal too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman felt good enough about his trade discussions with the Detroit Tigers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[432,4419,1496,426,4259,168546,48,52,51,5562,47,50,49,18158,424,595,422,18471,427,168545,8652],"class_list":["post-422197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-blake-snell","tag-chicago","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-dodgers","tag-friedman","tag-good-starter","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-last-week","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-no","tag-roberts","tag-saturday","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-tarik-skubal","tag-team","tag-trade-discussion","tag-tyler-glasnow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422197","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=422197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}