The chances of a Tarik Skubal trade have grown stronger after the Tigers lost Wednesday for the fourth time in five games, squandering a 7-0 lead against the Orioles in the process and falling to 51-58 on the year.
The Dodgers, Yankees, Braves, Brewers, Rays, Cubs and Phillies have all been linked to Skubal in recent days. While all of these clubs may want Skubal, some need him more than others. But who needs him the most?
It’s not just a matter of looking at each club’s rotation needs and making a decision based on that. Skubal is a pending free agent, and the Tigers are expected to set a lofty asking price for him, so any team pursuing him must be confident that he’s going to put it over the top. Otherwise, it’s probably not worth making the move.
We took a look at each team’s rotation, playoff positioning and pressure to win now and ranked them accordingly.
All stats below are through Wednesday.
In a vacuum, the Dodgers have more rotation questions than some of the other teams on this list, considering they don’t know when Shohei Ohtani is going to pitch again and can’t be sure what versions of Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow they’ll be getting when those two return from the IL.
But come on. The Dodgers have won two straight World Series titles and will be the favorites to win a third even if they do nothing at the Trade Deadline. In terms of who really needs Skubal the most among these seven teams, the Dodgers are clearly No. 7.
The Phillies don’t have a glaring need in their rotation, but there may not be many ceiling-raisers out there at Philadelphia’s other positions of need. And for a club with an aging core that hasn’t been able to get over the hump, the idea of going into the playoffs with a rotation of Skubal, Cristopher Sánchez, Zack Wheeler and Jesús Luzardo is hard to dismiss. At the same time, it’s worth asking whether the Phillies are actually good enough to make a deep run in the first place. They’ve had an up-and-down season, starting off 9-19 before closing out the first half on a 45-24 run under interim manager Don Mattingly, only to go 3-9 over their first 12 games coming out of the All-Star break.
Adding Skubal would shore up their standing in the NL playoff race, but their chances of earning a bye are slim. That means they could have to win three playoff rounds against some combination of the Dodgers, Brewers, Braves and Cubs — four teams they’ve gone 5-17 against in 2026 — just to get to the Fall Classic. It’s going to be a tall task, even if they had a super rotation.
If Aaron Judge was guaranteed to be healthy by the playoffs, the Yankees might be higher on this list. But with Judge’s fractured rib healing slowly and New York’s rotation perhaps the least of its many concerns right now, it’s tough to justify expending significant prospect capital on Skubal.
Granted, a dream quartet of Skubal, Cam Schlittler, Gerrit Cole and Max Fried is awfully enticing, and with impact upgrades at other positions potentially hard to come by, loading up on starting pitching isn’t the worst idea.
Ronald Acuña Jr. is back from the injured list, but the gap between the first-place Braves and the NL’s two best teams — the Dodgers and Brewers — may be bigger than one player. Add Skubal to this rotation, though, and suddenly the Braves look a lot more like a team capable of making a deep October run.
Atlanta does have Chris Sale doing Chris Sale things atop its starting staff, but there are plenty of question marks behind him. Skubal would answer a lot of those questions and give the Braves perhaps the best one-two punch in the game, while also keeping the two-time Cy Young winner away from Los Angeles and Milwaukee.
You can make a case the Cubs should actually be No. 1 on this list, considering how good their lineup and defense are — and how many questions their injury-riddled pitching staff has. As it stands, Chicago’s top two starters are Matthew Boyd and Shota Imanaga. Those two pitchers’ struggles last October were a big reason why the Cubs lost to the Brewers in the NL Division Series. The third option? Either Colin Rea, David Peterson or Edward Cabrera, who is currently on the IL.
That said, with the state of their pitching, they might be more than one starter away from being a World Series contender, potentially giving them less urgency to compete with other teams in the Skubal sweepstakes. (And, unlike the next two teams on this list, they’ve actually won a World Series fairly recently.)
The Rays have proven that you don’t need a big payroll to win in the regular season — the hard part is finishing the job in October. Though Tampa Bay has been one of baseball’s best-run organizations for years, the franchise’s first title has remained elusive. But that door is wide open in 2026.
With the American League lacking in elite teams, the Rays have as good a chance as any AL club to reach the Fall Classic, especially if they add Skubal to a rotation that already includes Drew Rasmussen, Shane McClanahan and Nick Martinez. (The back injury that forced McClanahan from Thursday’s start is also worth watching as the Skubal sweepstakes heats up.)
The Brewers have made the playoffs in eight of the past nine years, but they haven’t reached the World Series since 1982 and are also one of the handful of franchises without a title. They finished with MLB’s best record last year, only to be swept by the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series.
We understand the Brewers’ reluctance to surrender controllable young talent for a rental when they play in a small market, but at some point, you’ve gotta go for it. And a rotation led by Skubal and Jacob Misiorowski could be exactly what they need to overcome Los Angeles and win it all. If the Brewers don’t swing a deal for the Tigers ace, they’ll be left crossing their fingers that Kyle Harrison can return healthy from his forearm injury — and that they don’t end up crossing paths with Skubal as an opponent come October.