The Dodgers are again being linked to the kind of star power that has defined their run, this time in Dodgers Tarik Skubal trade rumors. Tarik Skubal, the Detroit Tigers' 29-year-old, 2-time Cy Young winner, is on the injured list with arm surgery, and speculation over his future has picked up as the season unfolds.
That talk has landed because the Dodgers keep acting like a team that is never done. They won the World Series in 2024 and 2025, added Blake Snell, Tanner Scott, Michael Conforto and Roki Sasaki after the 2024 season, then later brought in Edwin Diaz and replaced Conforto with Kyle Tucker. A third of the way through the 2026 season, they still held a half-game lead over the San Diego Padres in the NL West, with 12 division titles in 13 seasons and four championships since 2020 reinforcing the sense that their appetite for reinforcements has not changed.
For Detroit, the interest comes at a rough moment. The Tigers are 10 games back of the Cleveland Guardians, have gone 1-9 in their last 10 games and are on seven straight losses. They rank 27th out of 30 teams offensively, according to Fangraphs, even after the club signed Framber Valdez, brought back Gleyber Torres, added Kenley Jansen and took a flier on Justin Verlander after the 2024 season and before the 2026 trade deadline.
Skubal had been a central piece of the Tigers' hopes for a 2026 postseason push, but that picture has changed quickly. He is set to reach free agency after the 2026 season, and the club's slide has made it easier to imagine a deal before he can leave for nothing. Over the weekend, 's Bob Nightengale wrote that, “The question is not when Detroit Tigers 2-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal will return, but how long he will actually remain a Tiger when he does return.” Robert Murray also said that Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman “could go out and get hi.”
The friction here is obvious. Detroit still has time to reshape its season, but the gap is wide and the offense has not given the Tigers much margin for error. The Dodgers, meanwhile, have spent years acting like the next trophy is always within reach. That is why Skubal's name keeps surfacing now: one club is sliding, the other is never satisfied, and the trade market tends to reward that kind of imbalance.
