Dodgers could – As the NL West tightens and the Dodgers hunt upgrades, reporters point to Tarik Skubal as a potential blockbuster at the trade deadline—especially with the Tigers sliding and the 29-year-old Cy Young winner facing free agency after 2026.
By now, the storyline has become familiar for Dodgers fans and their rivals: Los Angeles keeps loading the roster, then keeps winning anyway. The latest tension comes with a name that feels like it could turn the October race into something sharper and less forgiving.
On one side is the Dodgers’ insistence on getting better even after already breaking through. Los Angeles won 12 division titles in 13 seasons. finished one game behind the San Francisco Giants in the one outlier. and their 2022 team became the seventh in baseball history to win more than 110 games—before getting bounced quickly in the National League Division Series. After winning their first World Series in 2020. they’ve kept going: beating the Yankees in five games in 2024 and closing out the Toronto Blue Jays in 2025 in one of the most talked-about Game 7s in recent memory.
But the part that stings opposing fans is what followed the trophies. After 2024, Los Angeles signed Blake Snell, Tanner Scott, Michael Conforto, and Roki Sasaki. When Scott and Sasaki struggled, they signed Edwin Diaz and replaced Conforto with Kyle Tucker.
That spending-and-swiftness drew fresh offseason complaints that the Dodgers were “ruining baseball. ” running away from the rest of the league in 2026. Yet a third of the way through the season. the Dodgers’ division lead over the San Diego Padres is just half a game—small enough to feel like the season is still up for grabs.
With pitcher injuries piling up and the National League West seemingly wide open, the Dodgers’ front office could be looking toward the trade deadline for another push. And the most discussed upgrade right now is Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal, a two-time Cy Young winner.
Skubal is set to reach free agency after the 2026 season, and Detroit has been trying to build around him. The Tigers signed Framber Valdez, brought back Gleyber Torres, added Kenley Jansen to the bullpen, and took a flier on Justin Verlander.
What Detroit hoped would translate into another postseason run hasn’t happened. The Tigers aren’t just struggling in the AL Central—they’re falling behind in a way that has changed the mood in the fanbase. They sit 10 games back of the Cleveland Guardians, are 1-9 in their last 10 games, and have seven straight losses. Their offensive ranking has dropped to 27th out of 30 teams, per Fangraphs, and their defense has faltered as well. Skubal’s own season has been disrupted too: he hit the injured list with arm surgery.
Because Skubal is a pending free agent, the collapse has fed speculation that Detroit could consider flipping him. The name came up again and again in the past weekend’s baseball talk—starting with a pointed question.
In a post shared over the weekend, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale wrote: “The question is not when Detroit Tigers 2-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal will return, but how long he will actually remain a Tiger when he does return.”
Robert Murray followed with a more direct prediction. writing: “(Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew) Friedman could go out and get him. He ups a team’s chances to win the World Series by a pretty big margin. You get two starts in that five-game series. Friedman gets him, that’s my prediction.”.
Jon Heyman also weighed in with a trade-chance list, posting: “Tarik Skubal trade chances are rising. 1. Tigers have lost 14 of 16 and are in last and 5 games out in WC race. 2. Tigers have 5 starters on IL. 3. Skubal is progressing since elbow scope. 4. Tigers chances to extend him are nil.”
On the other side of the conversation. ESPN’s Buster Olney brought in the Tigers’ internal stance through Scott Harris’s table-read mindset. Olney wrote: “The table read on Harris is that he’s not going to go all-in in a long-shot effort to make the postseason if he thinks he doesn’t have a good enough [team]. But Skubal could have enormous value at the deadline. ” adding that Skubal is still valuable even if Detroit won’t chase a reach-for-it season.
Timing matters here, but so does what comes next for a player who has to prove he can pitch normally again. A Skubal trade isn’t simple if the arm is still recovering—Detroit would need him back on a big league mound successfully to re-establish the kind of return they’d want.
And for any club considering the move, there’s another fear: the idea of giving up quality, cost-controlled future talent for what could become a short window—essentially a few-month rental.
Still, the Tigers are realistic, and the economics are part of why the question won’t disappear. The story around Skubal’s potential value is hard to ignore: the Tigers know he’s likely headed for a contract in the range of $350-400 million on the open market. If Detroit’s season keeps spiraling. trading him could reload quickly—bolstering an already impressive farm system—rather than watching his value vanish into free agency.
The Dodgers, meanwhile, are being described as one of the few teams with the will to win, the money, and the prospect capital to pull off a deal.
And if the Dodgers do go shopping, there’s another pressure point inside their own rotation. Their current injury list is already affecting the idea of a “ready now” playoff staff.
Blake Snell is on the injured list with an arm surgery of his own. Tyler Glasnow is out with back problems. Even with Roki Sasaki showing signs of improvement. he still has a 4.93 ERA and would likely not be trusted to start in a postseason series. Justin Wrobleski and Emmet Sheehan have also been inconsistent.
Against that backdrop, Skubal’s recent body of work carries real weight. Since the start of 2023. he has posted a 2.41 ERA in 84 games. striking out nearly 11 hitters per nine innings with a 31.2% strikeout rate and just a 4.5% walk rate. The statistics line up with a simple baseball belief: there are few pitchers you’d rather have starting a playoff game.
Detroit would also have to see its path clearly if it expects to move him. Skubal’s return matters, and so does the risk that the season-long picture could stay bleak. Even the American League’s “bad” reputation in the standings has softened the wild-card race enough that teams are still technically within striking distance—Detroit is five games out of a wild card spot even at 20-32.
Would a trade make fans happy? The answer in the rumor mill is blunt: no. Is a trade guaranteed? Also no.
What fans do have is a clearer frame for what could make this moment different. The Dodgers have prospects that could tempt Detroit, and they have the money to try to entice Skubal to stay with an extension. They also have the appetite for a three-peat.
And the pitch, if it ever becomes formal, would read like an October rotation fantasy that already has a spine: Skubal, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, and Tyler Glasnow.
It’s hard to ignore how many pieces would need to move at the same time—arm health, deadline timing, and what Detroit is willing to do given its farm depth and its likely free-agent price math.
But the standings keep tightening, and the Tigers keep losing. If that keeps happening, Dodgers fans might not have to imagine it.
Los Angeles Dodgers Detroit Tigers Tarik Skubal trade deadline Cy Young Andrew Friedman AL wild card arm surgery Roki Sasaki Framber Valdez