The rich got richer when the Los Angeles Dodgers acquired Tarik Skubal before MLB's trade deadline. The ace defended his new organization against a growing anti-Dodgers sentiment.
Landing the reigning back-to-back Cy Young Award winner makes the Dodgers an even stronger favorite to win their third straight World Series title. That dominance could steer baseball toward a lockout as owners seek a salary cap, but money wasn't the main factor in Los Angeles leveraging a deep farm system to acquire a superstar in his final year under contract.
After joining the team on Monday, Skubal pushed back on Dodgers critics in an interview with ESPN.
"Every team could trade for me. Every team could make that acquisition, and I don't really sympathize with people that blame the Dodgers for anything they've done," Skubal said. "They've developed a really good organization. They draft well. They acquire talent really well; they retain talent. It's a winning organization.
"Now the complaints seem to be because they won the last two World Series. I don't think it was like that three years ago, so I don't really sympathize with people that are complaining because the Dodgers are doing the right thing."
"They've got the winning recipe"
© Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images.
The Dodgers keep making big splash after splash to construct a stacked roster.
A year after adding Tyler Glasnow, Teoscar Hernandez and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Dodgers landed Blake Snell and signed MVP phenom Shohei Ohtani to a heavily deferred deal. Even after winning back-to-back championships, they signed Kyle Tucker and Edwin Diaz for good measure last offseason.
Skubal can now headline a potentially dominant playoff rotation alongside Yamamoto, Ohtani, and Snell. That would leave Glasnow, Roki Sasaki, Justin Wrobleski, and deadline acquisition Kris Bubic to slide into the bullpen with Diaz, Tanner Scott, and Alex Vesia.
The Dodgers were already the team to beat before adding Skubal, who posted a 2.79 ERA and 0.91 WHIP in 16 starts with the Detroit Tigers this season.
"I'm not going to sit here and say I'm the big piece," Skubal said. "They've been a pretty good baseball team without me, so I'm just going to try and show up and kind of be a chameleon in a sense and fit right into these guys and just jell with them. They've got the winning recipe."
