The Los Angeles Dodgers landed the biggest fish in the pond at the trade deadline when they acquired left-hander and back-to-back American League Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers in a blockbuster trade.
However, as they trail the National League Championship Series 2-0, their time with Skubal may be limited. He is a free agent at the end of the season and is widely expected to sign a long-term contract. The Dodgers could certainly pull that off, but he’ll have a lot of suitors in the offseason.
Zachary D. Rymer of Bleacher Report predicts that the Dodgers will lose Skubal to the New York Mets.
“The Mets have a good shot at Tarik Skubal simply by virtue of being one of very few teams that can afford him,” Rymer wrote.
“When ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel solicited projections for the two-time Cy Young Award winner’s next contract, the average came out to eight years, $355 million. It would be the fourth-largest contract in the history of MLB free agency, and the largest for a full-time pitcher.
At that rate, the Skubal sweepstakes could come down to which of the Mets, Dodgers or Yankees would be most willing to take the risk. And of those three clubs, the Mets may have the clearest need for a No. 1 starter this winter.”
Los Angeles Dodgers Predicted to Lose Tarik Skubal
The Dodgers will certainly be in the mix for Skubal when he hits free agency, so they can’t be counted out of the picture, especially with their financial reach. However, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy to keep him.
The Mets do like to spend big often, and they have one of the highest payrolls in Major League Baseball. They’ll likely be motivated to make some big moves and get back into the picture in 2027.
But the Dodgers are still fully capable of keeping him around and promising him a chance to compete for a World Series title each year. They have won back-to-back World Series titles after all.
If they do lose Skubal, they’ll still have Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani at the top of their rotation, so it wouldn’t be a catastrophic loss.
Still, the Dodgers will want to do whatever they can to try and keep him and take a shot at a championship next year if they lose the NLCS in 2026. They have the money to get it done and will remain a top team if they can keep him.
What Tarik Skubal Would do for New York Mets
Skubal alone won’t fix all the Mets’ problems, but they would at least have an ace to build their pitching staff around and somebody to pair with Nolan McLean at the top of their rotation.
After trading Freddy Peralta, they don’t have that option, so trying for Skubal would make sense and could get them back into contention. But the Dodgers still cannot be counted out simply because they have been able to sign some high-profile free agents in recent years.
Dodgers Predicted to Lose Tarik Skubal to NL East Team