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Rumor has it the Dodgers have traded for Tarik Skubal. Not sure if it's been fully confirmed, but the details I've seen are:
Dodgers get SP Tarik Skubal
Tigers get OF Zyhir Hope (#25 overall prospect, Dodgers #5 prospect), SP River Ryan (#68 overall prospect, Dodgers #7 prospect), and SP Brady Smith (Dodgers #17 prospect).

If that's really the haul the Tigers got, it's pretty damn weak for one of the best pitchers today.
 
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Kermit the Frog said:
Rumor has it the Dodgers have traded for Tarik Skubal. Not sure if it's been fully confirmed, but the details I've seen are:
Dodgers get SP Tarik Skubal
Tigers get OF Zyhir Hope (#25 overall prospect, Dodgers #5 prospect), SP River Ryan (#68 overall prospect, Dodgers #7 prospect), and SP Brady Smith (Dodgers #17 prospect).

If that's really the haul the Tigers got, it's pretty damn weak for one of the best pitchers today.
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Yep it's confirmed. See you guys in 2027.
 
Kermit the Frog said:
Rumor has it the Dodgers have traded for Tarik Skubal. Not sure if it's been fully confirmed, but the details I've seen are:
Dodgers get SP Tarik Skubal
Tigers get OF Zyhir Hope (#25 overall prospect, Dodgers #5 prospect), SP River Ryan (#68 overall prospect, Dodgers #7 prospect), and SP Brady Smith (Dodgers #17 prospect).

If that's really the haul the Tigers got, it's pretty damn weak for one of the best pitchers today.
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I am learning to hate this sport with a passion.
 
The Dodgers and the Yankees are pretty much just the American version of European football clubs with ultra rich owners.

It's too bad a Saudi oil baron doesn't have any interest in using a baseball franchise as his play toy to flip baseball on its head. I think every Tom, Dick, and Steinbrenner would be rushing to the roundtable to implement a salary cap for "parity" or "fairness".
 
I'll just say that considering what the Tigers got in return for Skubal, there's no good excuse for why the Brewers couldn't have easily outbid the Dodgers. Going into the postseason with the 1-2 punch of Miz and Skubal would have made them really tough to beat. Would Brewers fans, players and executives have given a shit if they won the World Series this year but weren't able to sign Skubal in the offseason and didn't have the prospects they traded away? I seriously doubt it. There's only so much you can with the hoarding prospects strategy, sometimes you have to take a chance and make a big move to try and win a championship.
 
Kermit the Frog said:
Rumor has it the Dodgers have traded for Tarik Skubal. Not sure if it's been fully confirmed, but the details I've seen are:
Dodgers get SP Tarik Skubal
Tigers get OF Zyhir Hope (#25 overall prospect, Dodgers #5 prospect), SP River Ryan (#68 overall prospect, Dodgers #7 prospect), and SP Brady Smith (Dodgers #17 prospect).

If that's really the haul the Tigers got, it's pretty damn weak for one of the best pitchers today.
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He's just a rental at the moment. Contract runs out end of season.
 
Kermit the Frog said:
I'll just say that considering what the Tigers got in return for Skubal, there's no good excuse for why the Brewers couldn't have easily outbid the Dodgers. Going into the postseason with the 1-2 punch of Miz and Skubal would have made them really tough to beat. Would Brewers fans, players and executives have given a shit if they won the World Series this year but weren't able to sign Skubal in the offseason and didn't have the prospects they traded away? I seriously doubt it. There's only so much you can with the hoarding prospects strategy, sometimes you have to take a chance and make a big move to try and win a championship.
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It might be collusion on the part of MLB owners to create more fan support for a salary cap.
Honestly I'm all for the salary cap. I wanna see more teams play like the Brewers. Spend smarter, not harder.
 
#FF0000 said:
It might be collusion on the part of MLB owners to create more fan support for a salary cap.
Honestly I'm all for the salary cap. I wanna see more teams play like the Brewers. Spend smarter, not harder.
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A salary cap is fine as long as there's a salary floor. No more excuses for cheap owners not to spend money. Give a 1-2 year grace period for teams at both ends to adjust.
 
Kermit the Frog said:
A salary cap is fine as long as there's a salary floor. No more excuses for cheap owners not to spend money. Give a 1-2 year grace period for teams at both ends to adjust.
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They are probably going to have to grandfather in a lot of contracts if they finally get to implement a salary cap. One of the biggest hurdles with a salary cap in MLB is also having fully guaranteed contracts for their players. Not having easier ways to void contracts will be a death knell for a lot teams if they suddenly have limitations on what they can spend.

One of the big reasons why I think a salary cap hasn't been implemented yet is because of this. Owners despite wanting a cap also don't want to risk it with the way contracts are forced to be paid out.
 
Kermit the Frog said:
A salary cap is fine as long as there's a salary floor. No more excuses for cheap owners not to spend money. Give a 1-2 year grace period for teams at both ends to adjust.
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The owners already offered a salary floor (which is higher than a few MLB teams' current payrolls) and a salary cap (which is lower than many MLB teams' current payrolls), but the MLBPA doesn't seem to want it
 
#FF0000 said:
The owners already offered a salary floor (which is higher than a few MLB teams' current payrolls) and a salary cap (which is lower than many MLB teams' current payrolls), but the MLBPA doesn't seem to want it
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Trevor May vid talking about it from a year ago:

The tl;dr is they are fine with it but they want strict definitions and a system to be able to mediate and determine what counts as 'revenue' to be put in the salary floor+cap pool. Owners don't want to because they want to wield the unilateral power of Hollywood-tier accounting so they can pay themselves as much and pay players as little as possible.

A downside of a hard cap is that stars will still get most of the pie while journeymen/solid but not star-level producers will get less and less of it.
 
The trade deadline is in roughly 7 hours. Skubal will likely be the biggest name that's moved, barring something crazy, but there have been some other notable players traded so far:

  • White Sox get starter Luis Castillo from Seattle for reliever Seranthony Dominguez and a pair of minor leaguers
  • Tampa Bay get starter Freddy Peralta from the Mets for a trio of prospects
  • Yankees get third baseman Luis Garcia Jr. from the Nationals for a pair of relievers and a pair of pitching prospects
  • Cubs get starter Kevin Gausman from Toronto for a pair of prospects
  • Phillies get infielder Luis Arraez and a reliever from the Giants for a pair of pitching prospects
  • Toronto gets starter Jose Soriano from the Angels for three prospects, headlined by Arjun Nimmala
 
Local Fed said:
Toronto gets starter Jose Soriano from the Angels for three prospects, headlined by Arjun Nimmala
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HUGE fan of this trade. They can absolutely fix up and improve Soriano like they did with Cease. He's inconsistent but has a very high ceiling (0.24 ERA in his first 6 starts this season), similar to Cease. Struggles with walks and control but has nasty stuff (esp. his knuckle curve) that can be killer when used well. Arjun Nimmala is very good, but we have an arguably better SS prospect in Jojo Parker so Nimmala is fairly expendable. The other two prospects aren't of much significance. I'm hoping the Jays can get a good hitter or two out of this deadline though.
 
The reason why Skubal went for so little is for one reason, his agent put it out there the only team Skubal was willing to resign with is the Dodgers. Every franchise with an opportunity to win backed the fuck out because they aren't giving the Tigers shit if that's what was going down. The Dodgers currently owe their players 1.1 BILLION in future earnings btw. I wonder how they're going to try and get out of making those deferments because Ohtani's grand children are going to be getting paid by those deferments after he dies.
 
With Adley Rutschman gone, I wonder if the Os would have been in a different situation if they took Bobby Witt instead.
 
Cubs sweep the Dodgers at Wrigley and own the season series against them in case that's meaningful for postseason positioning. 11 of the 12 Dodgers runs in the 3-game set were via homers.
 
Tommy John Surgery said:
Trevor May vid talking about it from a year ago:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ehEMkbggBiA
The tl;dr is they are fine with it but they want strict definitions and a system to be able to mediate and determine what counts as 'revenue' to be put in the salary floor+cap pool. Owners don't want to because they want to wield the unilateral power of Hollywood-tier accounting so they can pay themselves as much and pay players as little as possible.

A downside of a hard cap is that stars will still get most of the pie while journeymen/solid but not star-level producers will get less and less of it.
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As a complement to this vlog, the guys of American Thinker posted this rant about professional baseball and the gambling industry.

How professional baseball is killing itself​

Baseball has sold its soul to the gambling industry.

Tom Ciara | August 6, 2026

Before free agency, baseball players went home to jobs over the winter. Gas stations, grocery stores, one guy was notable because he dug graves in the off-season. Their salaries did not sustain them all year.

Now, salaries are hyperinflated and are kept afloat partly by gambling ads and TV contracts, which are also kept afloat by gambling. A family used to go to a game and eat hot dogs, a soda, and cotton candy without breaking the bank. Now families are priced clean out. Between tickets, parking (I once forked over $60 for parking), food and drinks, a family of five can easily have a $400 day. Meaning it is a once a year or occasional outing. Big money for salaries means no more cheap bleacher seats and a hot dog for many, many games, all summer long.

With the proliferation of streaming, sports radio is kept afloat (barely) by gambling ad revenue. You can’t listen for an hour to your favorite guys debating the recent deadline trades without two or three different companies’ gambling commercials. They literally would be off the air without gambling ads. Oh, and it’s so nice of you to finish advertising how everyone gets free money with, “Please gamble responsibly. 1-800-GAMBLER.”

Surprise, surprise, when a few players get arrested for affecting their performance to rig a bet. “The sanctity and integrity of the game is of utmost importance!” You tone-deaf losers. You are now training entire generations to throw their hard-earned money away.
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Major Filth said:
Cubs sweep the Dodgers at Wrigley and own the season series against them in case that's meaningful for postseason positioning. 11 of the 12 Dodgers runs in the 3-game set were via homers.
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PCA will be NL MVP. If you disagree, you’re wrong.
 
Kermit the Frog said:
I'll just say that considering what the Tigers got in return for Skubal, there's no good excuse for why the Brewers couldn't have easily outbid the Dodgers. Going into the postseason with the 1-2 punch of Miz and Skubal would have made them really tough to beat. Would Brewers fans, players and executives have given a shit if they won the World Series this year but weren't able to sign Skubal in the offseason and didn't have the prospects they traded away? I seriously doubt it. There's only so much you can with the hoarding prospects strategy, sometimes you have to take a chance and make a big move to try and win a championship.
Click to expand...

CapricornusRex said:
The reason why Skubal went for so little is for one reason, his agent put it out there the only team Skubal was willing to resign with is the Dodgers. Every franchise with an opportunity to win backed the fuck out because they aren't giving the Tigers shit if that's what was going down.
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I think a lot of people misunderstood what Detroit was looking for. It wasn't just the best "package of prospects", what they wanted was a talented arm that could come up this year if they happen to stay in the hunt, and a top outfield prospect since that is where their system was weakest. Milwaukee has great infield prospects, but Detroit is already loaded there. After calling up Max Clark they basically had no outfielders left on the farm, so going after Hope was logical.
 
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