The Dodgers bought Tarik Skubal as October insurance.
Detroit’s back-to-back AL Cy Young is headed to Los Angeles for Hope, Ryan, and Smith — a rental ace for a rotation that still has Yamamoto healthy and Ohtani’s mound on pause.
Tarik Skubal pitching for the Detroit Tigers against the Los Angeles Angels on May 2, 2025 — the back-to-back Cy Young left-hander Los Angeles acquired at the 2026 deadline.
Photo: Sewageboy / CC BY-SA 4.0
On paper, the Los Angeles Dodgers did not need another starter. On Saturday night they bought one anyway. Detroit sent Tarik Skubal — back-to-back American League Cy Young Award winner in 2024 and 2025, a free agent after October — to Los Angeles for three prospects: outfielder Zyhir Hope (MLB Pipeline No. 25), right-hander River Ryan (No. 68), and right-hander Brady Smith (Dodgers’ No. 17). The clubs agreed ahead of Monday’s deadline and announced the deal Sunday. Skubal’s first Dodgers start is set for Tuesday at Wrigley Field against the Chicago Cubs.
Clubs with farm systems spent months looping Detroit for a reason. Across those two Cy Young seasons, Skubal went 31–10 with a 2.30 ERA and 469 strikeouts. This year he is 7–5 with a 2.79 ERA in 16 starts, including a May elbow procedure to remove loose bodies and a July that settled into a 2.03 ERA. In February he won a record $32 million arbitration case. He will not win another one in Detroit. After the Tigers’ game in West Sacramento, he kept the mood simple: excited to be a Dodger, and excited to chase three championships in a row.
The trade lands hardest next to the Japan half of Los Angeles’ rotation. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the 2025 World Series MVP, has been the healthy ace of the summer — a 2.72 ERA through 125⅔ innings, still looking like the pitcher the Dodgers bought out of Japan’s posting system. Shohei Ohtani has not pitched since July 3 while left-knee inflammation and right-biceps discomfort keep the mound half of his job on hold. The bat still produces; a go-ahead 24th homer against Boston last week was spoiled by the bullpen. Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow are climbing rehab ladders. Skubal fills what those calendars leave open: a rental left-handed Cy Young for the nights when one Japanese arm, or both, still needs more time.
President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman has been blunt about the club’s posture all week: when a star-level player is available, the Dodgers intend to be in the conversation — and their farm depth is what keeps those conversations open. The cost is real. Hope is hitting .293/.369/.530 with 23 homers in his first full Double-A season; Ryan flashed a 1.33 ERA in four big-league starts in 2024 before Tommy John and hamstring trouble stalled him. Those are pieces other clubs refuse to move. Los Angeles moved them without touching the active roster, then parked a reigning Cy Young beside Yamamoto while Ohtani’s mound calendar waits. If the three-peat path runs through October, the Dodgers just bought another way to walk it.