Since the beginning of this season, a dark cloud has been hovering over Detroit. That cloud featured the possibility that this was the final season that longtime ace Tarik Skubal would be playing in Motown. And as the Tigers’ season began to drift away from their goal of making the postseason, the hypothetical of trading their homegrown superstar quickly turned into a certain reality.
Sure enough, the Tigers closed the book on the Skubal era on Saturday, trading their all-world ace to the Los Angeles Dodgers for outfielder Zyhir Hope and right-handers River Ryan and Brady Smith, sources confirmed to Yahoo Sports.
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Although a deal became expected over the past week, the gravity of this move for Detroit (and the rest of the league) is still settling in.
The Tigers were in a no-win situation after their dreadful start to the season. Not only did it put them in a deep hole in the standings, but it also left Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris with basically one real option: Move the two-time Cy Young winner before he walked as a free agent.
From a purely baseball perspective, this needed to be done. Skubal has been baseball’s most valuable trade asset for the past three seasons. With the Tigers having no viable shot at winning the World Series in 2026 and Skubal having just two more months of club control before free agency, not moving the two-time AL Cy Young would’ve represented baseball malpractice by Detroit.
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Even so, while the Tigers got back long-term assets for their future in exchange for two months of their homegrown ace, trading Skubal feels like a hollow ending for Detroit. The southpaw has been on a generational run over the past four seasons, and coming off back-to-back Cy Young Awards, there’s very few players in the game who are as impactful. Skubal finishes his tenure in Detroit 61-42 with a 3.04 ERA and 1,0005 strikeouts in 150 starts, to go with his two-All-Star appearances and two Cy Youngs.
In the return, the Tigers acquire Hope, one of the best prospects in the game. The 21-year-old outfielder is currently the No. 25 prospect in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline, and should be in the big leagues in the not-too-distant future. Pairing him with the newly promoted Max Clark will form a tandem Tigers fans will enjoy for years to come.
Ryan, the other headliner, has an electric arm and should slot into the Tigers’ rotation as soon as this year, as he has been working his way back from a hamstring strain. And while he is already 27 years old, many evaluators around the league still believe he has the elite stuff to be a real-deal rotation piece.
But no matter the new players headed to Detroit, in a division that has been there for the taking the past few seasons, it’s impossible not to look at this result as a disappointment for the Tigers and their fans. With an ace of Skubal’s caliber on the roster and the clock seemingly ticking on his time in Detroit, you would think the team would have done more to build around him. Instead, the Tigers’ moves the past two years left a lot to be desired, and now the organization is tasked with trying to fill the massive void left in his absence. — Dorsey
Grading the trade return for the Tigers: C+
Early reports regarding Detroit’s priorities in a Skubal return indicated that the Tigers wanted to land a ready-made rotation replacement. That obviously did not need to be a pitcher on Skubal’s level but ideally would be a younger arm with upside who could be a fixture on the starting staff for years to come. With that in mind, River Ryan is a fascinating pitcher to headline this gargantuan trade, especially among the many Dodgers arms Detroit could have demanded.
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While Ryan did make his major-league debut in 2024, he is far less accomplished than the likes of Emmet Sheehan or Justin Wrobleski, either of whom the Dodgers could have in theory parted with and still had more than enough starting pitching to make their push for a three-peat. In fact, even with his 28th birthday coming up later this month, Ryan is rookie-eligible, as he amassed only 20 ⅓ innings in 2024 before undergoing Tommy John surgery that wiped out the entirety of his 2025 season, and he has pitched only in Triple-A this season.
That said, the Dodgers’ depth in front of Ryan is quite relevant here, as his terrific and deep arsenal — the righty leads with a four-seamer averaging 97 mph, and his slider, curveball and cutter all flash plus — surely would’ve been given an opportunity in the majors in most rotations by now. Such a chance never opened up for him in Los Angeles, and now he’s off to the Motor City, where the pressure to validate his prolonged prospect status will ratchet up immediately. If he’s healthy, there’s no reason Ryan shouldn’t be a major part of Detroit’s rotation down the stretch, regardless of whether this team is still in the wild-card mix.
This is the second trade in the young career of Zyhir Hope, who arrived in the Dodgers’ system as part of the return from the Cubs for Michael Busch. It quickly became apparent upon Hope’s entry into pro ball that the 11th-round pick out of a Virginia high school was a much better prospect than his draft slot would suggest, as his electric, left-handed bat speed stood out from the get-go, enabling outlier slugging production in the minors.
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As Hope has filled out his 5-foot-10 frame, he has lost some foot speed and moved out of center field to a corner, where he projects to be average in left or right. He draws a healthy amount of walks but also whiffs a fair bit, meaning he’ll have to keep getting to his huge raw power in games to profile as an every-day player. He has crushed 23 homers across 94 Double-A games this year as a 21-year-old, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see him finish with Triple-A Toledo and compete for a spot in Detroit’s outfield next spring. With a comical abundance of outfield depth in their farm system, the Dodgers were able to part with Hope without sweating. He’s exciting but expendable — to them, anyway.
Brady Smith was a third-round pick out of a Tennessee high school in 2023 but underwent Tommy John surgery not long after signing, delaying his pro debut until 2025. His stuff was intriguing upon his return last year, but the real breakout has occurred this summer, as the right-hander has racked up 113 punchouts across 74 ⅓ innings, equating to a 35.3% strikeout rate that ranks fourth among minor-league arms with 70 innings pitched.
Smith sits in the mid-90s with his fastball and has an absolute hammer of a curveball as his go-to secondary weapon. There are some exciting ingredients here, but he has done most of his damage this season at Low-A – he was just promoted to High-A a couple weeks ago. He turns 22 in January, so we’re still talking about a pretty young arm, but his being included in the Skubal deal means Smith will assume the title of most important pitching prospect in Detroit’s system once Ryan graduates. That’s quite a title to bestow on a pitcher with such little experience and minimal prospect fanfare. — Shusterman
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