PHILADELPHIA — If the Dodgers picked up Tarik Skubal, would that be overkill?
Logan Webb, the longtime ace of the San Francisco Giants, laughed.
“I don’t think they need him,” Webb said, “but you never count those guys out on getting anybody in the league.”
The Dodgers could make a mockery of the National League West by trading for Skubal, who won the last two American League Cy Young awards for the Detroit Tigers.
Then again, you could argue the Dodgers already are making a mockery of the NL West. They lead the division by 11½ games, more than double the lead in any other division.
So, on the day before the All-Star Game, I posed the overkill question to stars from the other teams in the NL West.
“Would I consider it overkill? It’s a crazy game,” said outfielder Corbin Carroll of the Arizona Diamondbacks, the team that swept the Dodgers over the weekend at Dodger Stadium.
“I don’t think, going into the weekend, that too many people would have expected that. The nature of this game is about you can never be good enough, and you always have to look to keep improving. I think I would just view it in that same light.”
The Dodgers are not about winning the NL West this season. From owner Mark Walter to president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, from manager Dave Roberts to franchise icon Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers last fall loudly and proudly declared their intent to three-peat and become the first NL team ever to win three consecutive World Series championships.
Their postseason rotation could be so overloaded that All-Star Justin Wrobleski, whose 2.69 ERA compares favorably to NL All-Star starter Cristopher Sanchez (2.62), could find himself in the bullpen behind starters Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Ohtani, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow.
On the other hand, Ohtani missed his last start for treatment of a troublesome left knee, and neither Snell nor Glasnow has pitched since May. The Dodgers might not be entirely sure of projecting their October health and effectiveness by the Aug. 3 trade deadline, and the chance to three-peat might never come again.
The Dodgers have the prospects and the money to acquire Skubal, should the Tigers trade him. The Dodgers may or may not have the need, but they surely have the motivation.
“I wouldn’t blame them,” Colorado Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman said. “They’re trying to win another World Series.”
Said San Diego Padres closer Mason Miller: “He’d help any team he went to. They’ve got a strong rotation, a lot of guys that are going to get healthy and help them out, but I don’t necessarily consider it overkill. Anybody, on any given night.”
If the Dodgers acquired Skubal, the fans of those rival NL West teams would explode in frustration, perhaps even in rage, at the back-to-back champions. Ohtani for $700 million, Kyle Tucker for $60 million per year, and now the rich kids would get Skubal, too?
The owners are trying to channel that level of fan frustration and anger in their push for a salary cap. They say they’re trying to help teams like, say, the Rockies and Pittsburgh Pirates compete more effectively against the Dodgers.
The Pirates have not posted a winning record in eight years and have not appeared in the playoffs for 11 years. Surely a salary cap would help them, right?
“I don’t think there’s any need for a salary cap,” Pirates ace Paul Skenes said. “I don’t know if there’s a perfect answer, but I do know the salary cap would not be a fix-all for parity.”
Parity is in the eye of the beholder, or more accurately in the definition of the beholder. The owners like to note that no small-market team has won the World Series since the Kansas City Royals in 2015.
However, in a league that owners insist demands immediate reform, 23 of the 30 teams are within four games of a playoff spot.
As one of eight players on the executive committee of the players’ union, Skenes is involved in the current collective bargaining negotiations. Salary cap or not, would it be overkill if the Dodgers picked up Skubal?
“They’re trying to win, aren’t they?” Skenes said. “You can’t ever blame a team for going out and doing everything possible to win.”
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