Dodgers get Tarik Skubal, infuriate everyone

Hi everyone-

Joe Posnanski and I will be launching a podcast called “The Joy of Baseball” next Tuesday, August 11th!

The episodes will feature fun guests across sports and entertainment, and will air weekly. We will also be writing about each episode on our new Joy of Baseball Substack, so go follow us over there if you haven’t already. The podcast will be available for free wherever you consume podcasts.

To celebrate the launch, Joe and I will be going live on Substack from 4 PM ET to 6 PM ET TODAY to chat with you guys during the final two hours before the trade deadline. I hope you will join us! All free and paid subscribers to our Substacks will receive the link to join when we are live.

Looking forward to seeing you all!

It’s been 36 hours since the Dodgers traded for Tarik Skubal and I’m still a bit stunned.

I know there’s a perception that LA simply snatches whoever they want every trade deadline, but last year’s big July acquisitions were… Alex Call and Brock Stewart. Call is a fifth outfielder. Stewart pitched three innings for the team in 2025 before suffering a season-ending injury.

The Dodgers won their second consecutive World Series—their third in five years— anyway.

LA does not need another ace right now.

They’ve already got October God Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell (eventually), Tyler Glasnow (eventually), Shohei Ohtani (maybe, eventually), all-star Justin Wrobleski, resurgent Roki Sasaki, and a few other warm bodies for depth if everything goes sideways (Eric Lauer, Emmet Sheehan, maybe Gavin Stone).

Assuming that Snell and Glasnow aren’t dead (big assumption!!) it seems like the main reason the Dodgers grabbed Skubal was to keep him away from Milwaukee, where he might have formed a double hydra with Jacob Misiorowski that knocked them out of the playoffs in October.

The other reason they snagged Skub is because they appear to want to win a World Series in 2026 more than anyone else does. The prospect package they gave up was in line with past deadline deals for superstar rentals, but it still boggles the mind that the Brewers or the Tampa Bay Rays didn’t beat the Dodgers’ offer, when both had the capital to do so, and neither have ever won a World Series.

Shouldn’t they want to win their first championship more than the Dodgers want to win their tenth?

I guess not!

After all, Brewers owner Mark Attanasio said the quiet part out loud when he vented to USA Today’s Bob Nightingale last March about his plight as an owner of a small-market team. “Is my job to win a World Series?" Attanasio asked, “Or is my job to provide a summer of entertainment and passion and a way for families to come together?"

I would argue the two are not mutually exclusive.

But I think the real question Attanasio was trying to ask is: “Should I risk trading young, cheap players who might be useful in three years for two months of the best pitcher in the world?”

Yes. Duh.