Brewers taking blame for allowing Dodgers to trade for Tarik Skubal ignores irritating reality

On Saturday night, the Los Angeles Dodgers executed the blockbuster deal that the rest of Major League Baseball hoped would never come. Already with a roster full of stars and once again in position to earn a first-round bye in the postseason, the Dodgers added reigning back-to-back Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal to their rotation in a deadline trade with the Detroit Tigers.

The Dodgers surrendered two Top 100 prospects, outfielder Zyhir Hope and right-handed pitcher River Ryan in the trade, as well as their organization's No. 17-ranked prospect, right-hander Brady Smith. It's an impressive haul of prospects for roughly three months of Skubal's services, but it's one that many are saying the Milwaukee Brewers, who were largely viewed as Los Angeles' stiffest competition for the Tigers' ace, could have matched.

That sentiment, that the Brewers easily could have and should have bested the Dodgers' offer, has led many to blame Milwaukee for not executing the deal instead and keeping Skubal away from Los Angeles. Inevitably, conversations regarding the Brewers not willing to go "all in" will arise, but to what volume will depend on how they approach the remaining time before the trade deadline.

However, this blame being placed upon the Brewers' organization for "allowing the Dodgers" to get Skubal is unfair. It should by no means be the small-market Brewers' job to outbid the resource-rich Dodgers on the trade market, regardless of what Milwaukee's record is at the deadline. That responsibility should fall on an organization with a comparable financial picture to the Dodgers, who are less affected than the Brewers by trading prospects away.

Brewers should not hold the responsibility of outbidding the Dodgers on the trade market to "save baseball"

The Dodgers' acquisition of Skubal continues a trend of Los Angeles using their unfair competitive advantage to stockpile their team with All-Stars. In the offseason, the Dodgers added to their record-breaking payroll by signing 4x All-Star outfielder Kyle Tucker to a four-year, $240 million deal. Now, they've used a different kind of capital, prospect capital, to add the top starting pitcher on the trade market.

The natural retort to those claiming Los Angeles' trade for Skubal signifies a competitive advantage is to say that any team could have made the trade because it didn't require a massive contract, but rather just a package of prospects, which every organization theoretically could have put together. However, such an argument ignores the fact that the Dodgers parting with prospects is less significant to their organization than the Brewers or another small-market team doing so. In giving up prospects, teams are losing future potential big-leaguers, who the Dodgers can more easily replace with their seemingly unlimited funds. The Brewers, on the other hand, rely more heavily on these young big-leaguers as they are far cheaper than free agents and therefore more valuable to a team with limited resources.

In that regard, the teams who should be blamed for not outbidding the Dodgers in the Skubal sweepstakes are the big-market clubs for whom losing prospects is less significant. The responsibility to maintain competitive balance in baseball should not fall on the team who is most negatively impacted by it.

As frustrating as the reality is, and as daunting as of the task of toppling the Dodgers in the postseason now is, nothing is guaranteed in baseball, and Los Angeles has by no means won the World Series with their blockbuster deadline trade. Those already handing the Dodgers their third consecutive title, and blaming Milwaukee for allowing the inevitable lockout that would follow, are assigning unfair responsibility to the Brewers. It would have been great to see the Brew Crew swing a blockbuster deal for the Tigers' ace, but doing so to ensure he doesn't land with the Dodgers is by no means the Brewers' job.

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