As Major League Baseball heads into the heart of summer, two things are appearing on the horizon – the All-Star break and the trade deadline.
The Dodgers will most likely send more than a few players to Philadelphia. Jim Bowden of The Athletic has his early picks out. Shohei Ohtani would be chosen as designated hitter, but of course should also be chosen as a pitcher. He also believes that Andy Pages and Max Muncy will be chosen as starters. Yoshinobu Yamatmoto also gets a mention for a pitcher.
For
the rest of Bowden’s early thoughts, catch his article here.
As for the trade deadline part, Fabian Ardaya and Katie Woo co-wrote a mailbag article in which they address the biggest possible trade deadline transaction – one Tarik Skubal.
The question was posed that the Dodgers don’t usually trade good prospects for a rental, but would Tarik Skubal be the exception?
Both writers do not think that the Dodgers front office would pull the trigger on Skubal, but neither rule it out either. They both mention that the Dodgers currently have the best pitching staff in all of MLB, and don’t tend to want to part with their high-ranking prospects. Because that is what it would take to get a pitcher of the caliber of Skubal, although now that he is coming off surgery and it being a rental, the price would be lower than it was over the winter.
Ardaya also brings back a quote president of baseball operations Andrew Freidman made back in 2021 –
“It’s about trying to add impact talent and meaningfully move the odds. For us, there’s such a finite number of them that are available that when you’re able to line up in our minds, we’re aggressive to pounce. Because it just doesn’t come along all that often.”
The Dodgers pretty much have a team that could easily compete for their third World Series in a row, but with a guy like Skubal available, they could make the team that much better in that quest for the three-peat.
Another question asked why River Ryan is being slow played. While the authors answered to why, it is another thing that the Dodgers front office would have to consider in their thoughts of acquiring Skubal. The Dodgers are so stacked with starting pitching, even with Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell on the injured list, and adding Ryan towards the end of the season could add more depth they might feel they need.
