The Los Angeles Dodgers are already sitting at 61-36 with an 11.5-game lead in the NL West. They just won back-to-back World Series titles and are heavy favorites to make it three in a row. And yet, the baseball world is bracing for them to get even better.
ESPN’s Jeff Passan didn’t mince words on Monday when asked about the possibility of the Dodgers trading for Tarik Skubal. His take was blunt and it’s going to annoy a lot of fan bases.
“If there is a team that’s gonna go get Tarik Skubal and has both the incentive and the ability to do so, it is the Los Angeles Dodgers,” Passan said on Get Up. “I know people don’t like hearing that. But they can pretty much do whatever they want at this point.”
That’s the kind of statement that makes Rockies fans want to throw things. Because it’s true.
The Dodgers have the assets and the hunger
Skubal was the consensus best pitcher in baseball before going down for arthroscopic elbow surgery in early May. Even in what he himself called a down year, the lefty has a 3.09 ERA with 89 strikeouts and just 11 walks over 75.2 innings. His WHIP sits at 0.952. That’s elite production coming off surgery and battling rust.
LA president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman has never been shy about swinging big. The Dodgers have the prospect capital, the financial flexibility and the owner-level appetite to make almost any deal happen. The Detroit Tigers are eight games under .500 and Skubal is not expected to re-sign there. A trade is the logical endgame.
It’s also the most Dodgers thing that could possibly happen. They won the title last year with Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow leading the rotation, but both are back on the injured list this season. Adding a two-time Cy Young winner mid-campaign would be a flex. And a warning.
But here’s the twist. They might not do it.
Passan also pointed out that the Dodgers have been here before. Last year, they stood relatively quiet at the deadline, made no major moves and still rolled to a championship. Their rotation got healthy at the right time and looked historically good in the postseason.
“We’ve seen past trade deadlines where the Dodgers have been extremely aggressive… but this time around they could play it like they did last year, where there were no major trades and they were still the best team in baseball,” Passan said.
That logic works. But it ignores the other side of the ledger. The Brewers are lurking. The Braves aren’t dead. The Phillies look legit. Contenders don’t just build their own rosters — they also block their rivals from getting better. A Skubal trade would do both for LA.
Whatever happens, the Dodgers hold all the leverage. They don’t need to rush. But they can. And that’s the part that keeps the rest of the league up at night.
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