This story was excerpted from Adam McCalvy’s Brewers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
MILWAUKEE — When the Brewers finished among the runners up in trade talks for two-time American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal on Saturday night, were they disappointed?
Were they surprised it was the Dodgers who got him?
Based on conversations with multiple club officials over the past few days, the Brewers believed they made a strong offer to the Tigers for Skubal, maybe a stronger one than the Dodgers, who landed him with a trio of prospects. Two of them are ranked on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 list: 21-year-old outfielder Zyhir Hope (No. 25) and 27-year-old right-hander River Ryan (No. 68). Right-hander Brady Smith, a 21-year-old who was L.A.’s No. 17 prospect before the trade but outside the Top 100, rounded out the package.
Milwaukee’s initial proposal was also three prospects, according to sources. All three were hitters, and at least two were Top 100 prospects. One of them was shortstop Luis Peña, who is No. 18 on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100. The Brewers’ other position player prospects in MLB Pipeline’s version of the Top 100 are Jesús Made (who is No. 1 overall and was off limits), outfielder Luis Lara (who is No. 64 and probably wasn’t in play after the Brewers committed to him via a seven-year contract extension in June), infielder Jett Williams (No. 76) and outfielder Josh Adamczewski (No. 87). Different sources believed the third hitter was either on one version of a Top 100 list as well, or just outside.
The Tigers, though, wanted a controllable Major League pitcher in the deal. None of the sources would say who they favored, but Logan Henderson was among the names teams were asking for most often.
So, we can’t say for sure which three names were in the Brewers’ best offer. But it was strong.
And that made the Tigers’ choice to send Skubal to the Dodgers especially frustrating. Not only did the Brewers not get him, but now they may have to go through him to reach the World Series.
“I don’t think we can be thinking about the Dodgers right now,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said Monday, when Milwaukee pivoted to add three other pitchers in trades with the Cardinals and Rockies. “This is Aug. 3, and I don’t think we can assume anything. We’ve got to go play baseball. This has affected us already. It’s already affected the team. I think that’s a reality, and I don’t think it’s healthy. But it’s a part of our game right now. We can’t try to pretend it’s not there. We can’t lie to the players. All that being said, we have to respond to it now.”
What did he mean by the Brewers being “affected?”
“I mean the initial reaction, that it was kind of like us against the Dodgers for Skubal,” Murphy said. “I don’t believe that for one minute. I’m not saying — I know we went after trying to get that player. I don’t know exactly the details of it all. But I know this: It isn’t as simple as, ‘That’s a better package.’ It’s not as simple as that. There’s a lot more layers to it. I don’t understand it fully. But I think this is a bigger situation than, ‘Well, that was a better package.’ And to say that the Brewers didn’t try is simply incorrect.”
Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold wouldn’t touch any of that when he faced reporters on Monday night. He declined to answer questions about Skubal, saying only that he was aggressive and put fewer players and prospects off limits than at past Trade Deadlines.
“We certainly talked about doing some ‘irresponsible’ stuff as well, but we tried to thread the needle, as Murph says,” Arnold said. “We were prepared to push a lot of chips in. And look, I think we did.”
Only a handful of prospects in Milwaukee’s system have as much helium as the duo it took to get Cardinals starter Dustin May (who will tentatively start Thursday against the Pirates) and reliever JoJo Romero, who won’t be back from an emergency appendectomy for a few more weeks. Milwaukee sent outfielders Alexander Frias (Brewers’ No. 11 prospect, per MLB Pipeline) and Josiah Ragsdale (Brewers’ No. 13) to St. Louis.
The cost for Skubal would have been even higher, and the Brewers were willing to go there if it meant pairing him with NL Cy Young Award frontrunner Jacob Misiorowski in a 1-2 punch. Think of what that might have looked like going into a postseason series.
Was it discouraging that it wasn’t enough?
“I mean, I don’t know if ‘discouraging’ is the word,” said outfielder Sal Frelick, who is rehabbing a right shoulder injury. “Obviously, no [other] guy like that is out there. But I don’t think anybody in this room is like, ‘We need something.’ Or like, ‘Please, please.’ No one feels that way.
“It’s like, you know a guy like that could help any team that gets him, right? I don’t think anybody is too surprised where he ended up. That team gets a lot of those blockbusters.”
Said center fielder Garrett Mitchell: “I don’t think I’m shocked by it. But we’ve always had that underdog mentality. Average Joes. I know we’re not really looked at or treated like that anymore, but that mentality is always a great place to be.”
Said pitcher DL Hall of the Dodgers: “They’re not unbeatable. Nobody’s unbeatable.”
That’s just the sort of thing Murphy likes to hear.
“Does it force you to go and sharpen your sword a little bit?” he asked rhetorically. “Yeah. So if that creates a little better edge, so be it. It’s still not going to make it easy when we play the series against the Dodgers next week. I’m sure they think they got a little better this week, and they probably did. But I think by the end of today, we’ll have gotten better.
“If anything else, maybe this time of year will help us start to refocus on, ‘OK, who are we? And how do we get [there]?’ We created this. Where do we go from here?”
