Tarik Skubal traded to the Dodgers

Most of us woke up to the news that Tarik Skubal had been traded from the Detroit Tigers to the Los Angeles Dodgers.  On the surface this is not surprising but certainly will not sit well with baseball fans around the country.

The two-time Cy Young winner is being added to a team that already has a loaded pitching staff and the best record in baseball, not to mention the largest payroll in Major League Baseball by 43 million dollars. There are two main things that everyone is talking about.  Did the Tigers get enough for Skubal and the impending CBA negations, and the perception this will have on that.  

The Detroit Tigers were in a very difficult position.  They had one of the best arms in the game, but could not sign Skubal long term.  So they had two options, keep him for the rest of the season and get nothing, or trade him now and not walk away empty handed.  This gave them almost no leverage in the situation, other than, it is Tarik Skubal.  In the end they essentially got back one very big prospect in Zyhir Hope.  There has been a lot of talk about River Ryan but he is 28 years old on the 17th and has had multiple arm surgeries, it would be difficult to call him a prospect at this point.  Hope seems to be the best prospect the Tigers could capitalize on, so they took it and will hope that he turns into an all-star caliber player.  

The fallout from Skubal ending up on the Dodgers remains to be seen, but you can bet that the other 29 teams are quietly asking how can they compete with this.  Some will say the Dodgers are just the best organization in baseball, but it goes a little deeper than that.  

We will discuss this in more detail as well as the impact on the looming CBA negotiations this week on The Winning Season with Seth G.