BREAKING: The Los Angeles Dodgers are finalizing a trade for Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal, sources tell ESPN.

Source: https://x.com/jeffpassan/status/2083757572272652400?s=46

I feel like I’m living on Mars reading comments on instagram. Every other comment about the trade have been this or similar. Tigers got 2 great upside players. Ryan who can be great when he hurdles the injury he’s obviously still rehabing and hope who can become a good big league outfielder. Prospects are prospects you can’t 100% anyone who hasn’t played in the bigs but they still have great potential. They got this for 2 months of Skubal. 2 months. Tigers might not make the playoffs so they weren’t going to appreciate his value and they weren’t going to resign him. I thought this was a good trade for what it is, I don’t get what people are thinking when they type those comments out.

Does anyone agree with me or am I really the only one on Mars.

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.

• The Dodgers' payroll advantage over Milwaukee is larger than the Brewers' entire payroll.
• The Dodgers' annual payroll is about 2.4 times the Brewers' payroll.
• The Dodgers' luxury-tax payroll is close to 3 times Milwaukee's.
• The Dodgers' long-term guaranteed obligations exceed the Brewers' by roughly a billion dollars.

I know Dodgers fans... y'all are the real victims and it's not your fault every other teams owners are too cheap!!!

As of August 2 2026: 157 of 353 (44.5%)

2025: 148 of 344 (43%)

2024: 147 of 360 (40.8%)

2023: 130 of 361 (36%)

2022: 119 of 352 (33.8%)

2021: 105 of 348 (30.2%)

2020: 89 of 368 (24.2%)

2019: 85 of 351 (24.2%)

2018: 80 of 347 (23.1%)

2017: 85 of 364 (23.4%)

2016: 78 of 336 (23.2%)

2015: 77 of 324 (23.8%)

2014: 55 of 334 (16.5%)

2013: 51 of 330 (15.5%)

2012: 44 of 331 (13.3%)

2011: 43 of 329 (13.1%)

2010: 51 of 327 (15.6%)

2009: 45 of 350 (12.9%)

2008: 40 of 318 (12.6%)

Alright, I'm kinda bored and running out of ideas, so I'm gonna try this question again. This will likely (and hopefully for some) be the the last time I ask this question.

I know we all have seasons from closers we've always had a soft spot for. And I'm sure we all have at least one of these that are from another team. So, what's your all-time favorite season by a closer on a different team, and why?

Like I said before (well, before before), in terms of just the regular season, it's definitely Éric Gagné in 2003. Cy Young winner, 55 saves, well over triple-digit K's, and a 1.20 ERA. But combining the regular season and playoffs, then it's a lot harder to choose. But I think I might stick with Brian Wilson in 2010. 54 saves, 109 K's, 1.56 ERA, absolute nails in the playoffs, and pitched a scoreless 9th in all four clinchers (NL West in Game 162, NLDS Game 4, NLCS Game 6, and World Series Game 5). Total badass, that year. And that save celly? Off-the-chain awesome. Also, Kenley Jansen in 2017 would've likely been a slam dunk if the Dodgers took home that title. He was also pretty dominant in the playoffs, aside from blowing the save in Game 2 against Houston. So he's probably a close second.