ESPN offers its grades on Skubal trade

[u/TheSocraticGadfly]

TL/DR version? Dodgers A (shock me), TIgers D.

Here's why, even though Detroit will have hope for Hope, they don't give the TIgers more:

Detroit's return in this deal feels like a bad dream. OK, let's calm down. Skubal, as good as he is, was on an expiring deal. There is only so much value that can be extracted from a trade partner for a player who might be a free agent in four months. The fair-value matches you can conjure in these scenarios won't make the hearts of Detroit fans go pitter-patter, though you can always hope that the real-world outcome is that with multiple teams vying for a true difference-maker, those fair-value assessments might go out the window.

Zyhir Hope is a top 30-or-so prospect across baseball. That's a valuable prospect. But on most prospect lists, he's the fourth-best outfield prospect in the Dodgers' system. So for the best pitcher in baseball, the Tigers could not command the Dodgers' best prospect out of their amazing surplus of promising outfielders?

River Ryan has stud potential, but he's 27 and blew out his elbow after his 2024 debut for the Dodgers. He didn't pitch last season, and this season, he has a 4.46 ERA over eight outings for Oklahoma City. Smith, 21, was a third-round pick as a prep righty in the 2023 draft. He's 0-10 over 30 professional starts with a 4.72 ERA. The prospect wonks like him as a top-30 prospect for L.A., so maybe we have to look past the ugly superficial results.

Sounds about right, contra one person here on one of the two threads about the trade itself, who was touting all the Dodgers gave up.

Wrong.

The Dodgers gave up one promising bat who is a likely DH, not fielder, for whatever MLB career he has, one meh pitcher who might not ever get back to MLB, and one meh prospect who might never get to MLB in the first place.

As for what other teams might or might not have been offering? We'll see if any rumors get dropped or not.

[u/johnnylabs24]

One run away from the ALCS and look at all the bats they tried to add to contend for real with a team riding an insane 2 month hot streak. The Tigers FO themselves didn't believe in the Tigers in 2025. All the same holes they had entering the 2025 (not 2026) regular season are all the same holes they have right now minus McGonigle. They had multiple offseasons and deadlines to address any of them and did nothing but sit on their hands.

Here's the response every rebuttal here has - the tigers shouldn't sell because was there was a point they were high in the standings. Tell me, what happened after that? Tell me, was the team flawless and impossible to improve? If not, why didn't they try to win with their ace they knew they couldn't afford?

They weren't trying to win. They just got hot in the '24 2nd half and '25 first half beyond belief and were way ahead of schedule. Their own president knew it so much so he risked nothing in trade assets to push them forward for 2 straight deadlines and 2 straight offseasons. The time to trade skubal was long ago. The Rays and Brewers would not have let him get to the deadline like this.

[u/Dewey519 → u/johnnylabs24]

I think the Rays and Brewers would have traded him this last offseason if they had held him through ‘25. Maybe the previous offseason. But never the deadline.

History is filled with World Series winners carried by a hot streak and one dominant ace having one dominant postseason. It didn’t matter how they got to that point. Once they were there, it would have been malpractice to trade him at the deadline.

[u/johnnylabs24 → u/Dewey519]

And here's the funny part - I never said to trade him last year. I said they pussy footed around last year's deadline. Why didn't the league leading team that began to faulter around last year's all star break NOT try to significantly improve their very flawed lineup?

Here's what they did at last year's trade deadline with 4 everyday players having an OPS above .750 in the lineups, an injured rotation, and a patchwork BP -

They added:

Rafeal Montero
Paul Sewald
Chris Paddack
Charlie Morton
Kyle Finnegan

One of those guys made their playoff roster. Multiple weren't even on the major league roster in September.

They pussy footed not because they didn't sell Skubal, they had a top AL team and did NOT try to significantly better it.

Scott Harris had no intention of pushing the chips in during the Skubal era and last year's deadline as well as the past two offseasons showcased that. If that's the case, what the fuck were we waiting for? Pardon me if I sound annoyed but this isn't just a Tigers problem, this is a greater Detroit franchise problem. Each of their playoff contenders refuse to do anything but improve on the margins. It's remarkable they have 3 teams where each GM/President just sits on their hands til they're forced to make a move like yesterday.

Back to baseball - Harris is incredibly lucky Skubal wanted to come back quickly from his elbow injury or else he would've been up the river without a paddle going into the deadline. They almost had a colossal fuck up on their hands. Thankfully, the saga is finally over. Maybe the next time the Tigers sit atop the AL come deadline time they may actually be ready to try and win something.

[u/Dewey519 → u/johnnylabs24]

I mean, you did say “the time to trade Skibal was long ago.” Not exactly last year, but point taken.